Innovative electronic security and fire products manufacturer, Elmdene International Limited – a subsidiary of Potter Electric Signal, LLC – announces that it has installed and commissioned a large walk-in anechoic and EMC test chamber at its Portsmouth headquarters, a first for the business, dramatically extending the range of product testing that it can now conduct on-site.
Having its own state-of-the-art chamber, which prevents reflections of sound and electromagnetic waves and is insulated from external sources, gives Elmdene an ideal environment to put the company’s latest product innovations through their paces, such as energy efficient switch mode PSUs (Power Supply Units), before being brought to market.
The sophisticated, purpose-designed, anechoic chamber measures 5.0 x 3.75 x 3.0 metres. To optimise the chamber’s performance the walls and ceiling are coated with two layers of special RF (Radio Frequency) radiation absorbent materials, one ferrite and the other featuring pyramidal cones. In addition, the floor has been sound dampened.
Said Ian Moore, Managing Director at Elmdene: “By investing in this extremely capable facility our product development team now has a convenient resource to confirm that our new products satisfy stringent CE and other critical requirements. Although final outside testing by a third party is still required for certification purposes; the setting-up of the chamber underlines our strategy to enhance the research, development, and testing capabilities which we have here in Portsmouth instead of relying on expensive, and less flexible, external facilities.
“Following a successful shielding test to check for any leakages, the anechoic and EMC test chamber is now fully operational. We believe, moving ahead, that this chamber has the potential to reduce considerably the time it takes for us to test new ideas and introduce product lines, potentially by up to 50%, giving Elmdene an edge over the competition while ensuring the highest possible standards for product reliability and operational performance.”
Alongside the new anechoic chamber, the strong emphasis Elmdene places on quality is underlined by its accreditation to ISO 9001:2008, imminent ISO 14001 and the manufacturing of products to technical standards recognised around the world such as: VdS in Germany for EN54-4 power supply equipment for the fire industry, NFa2p in France, NCP in the Netherlands and INCERT in Belgium for magnetic contacts, external sounders, power supplies and inertia detectors.
