Welcome to the fifth and final installment of our comprehensive blog series on EMC basics!
In the previous posts, we walked you through an overview of EMC, chip bead ferrites, losses, and common mode vs. differential noise.
Today, we will talk about using clamp-on ferrites to combat unwanted noise. We’ll finish with a discussion about why it’s so important to design with EMC in mind.
Taking what we learned about common mode chokes in the previous post, let's apply that to clamp-on ferrites.
Clamp-on ferrites are typically used for common mode filters. A single cable goes through the ferrite, but the cable includes two wires (Vcc and ground).
You can also use clamp-on ferrites for a differential mode noise, but now you have to separate the two lines in the cable so that you have a single wire going through the ferrite. So the type of clamp-on ferrite you choose will depend upon your intended use (whether for a common mode or a differential mode filter).
Adding Turns Through the Ferrite
Our clamp-on ferrites from Wurth Electronics Midcom are made from two different materials: manganese zinc and nickel zinc. The blue lines that you see here represent the nickel zinc part.
Now, we're going to discuss adding turns through the ferrite. By adding multiple turns through the ferrite, you increase the impedance. You see the peaks going up, but you're also shifting the frequency range because you're adding capacitance. So the thicker lines represent the second and third turns. Again, you're seeing the impedances increasing — however, the frequency is shifting.
The red lines represent the same example but with manganese zinc. Notice now that when we add the turns with manganese zinc, the impedance does increase, but the frequency does not shift dramatically. That's because manganese zinc is a much narrower bandwidth material.
Hopefully, by this point of the blog series, you've gained an appreciation for designing your products with EMI in mind.
If you don't design your product with EMI in mind, you can find yourself spending thousands of dollars per visit to the EMC Lab trying to fix your problem. Even worse, you can find yourself being fined hundreds of thousands of dollars because you're not complying with the EMC regulations required by your industry.
The point we're trying to drive home with this blog series is that by using relatively inexpensive EMC components at the beginning of your design, you can reap major cost savings by the time you ultimately get your product to production.
Beyond what we have shown you in this EMC blog series, we also have several tools on our website and in our catalog to help you choose the proper component for your application. We also have direct salespeople and FAEs located all over the world who would be happy to come visit you in person.
If you have any questions — about our EMC products or anything else — feel free to contact us!
Find more articles about the EMC basics in the following blogs:
