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Adam Molly Wrote:

>There are simple, well-known measures which can be taken
>to alleviate the problem....

There are simple, well knows measures which can be taken to treat broken bones.  Despite that, I bet you tend to avoid putting yourself in situations where you are likely to end up with broken bones.

The methods you have described are the correct approach to take to fix an inadequately designed product.  They are akin to fixing a broken bone.  After much pain and suffering, your bone can be almost as good as new, but the better approach would be to avoid getting in that situation.  Note the use of the words "can" and "almost"  Dealing with the problems after the fact do not guarantee that you will be able to solve them and the solution will at best be almost as good, but rarely as good as if you had done it right in the first place.

There are just as well known and significantly more effective measures to deal with the RF problems during the design phase.  If you are having to resort to the means you described, someone has either dropped the ball in the design phase, or is too clueless about the issues to even know that there was a ball to worry about in the first place. Unfortunately, a lot of the "latest technology" products that you see on the market fall in the latter category.

In either of these cases, you have to wonder what else they have dropped the ball on or have no clue about.  I know that many of the FAA regulations are arcane lots of them are ridiculous and a few are down right counterproductive.  Yet in the area of electrical safety, most of the regulations are common sense and a well designed product should meet them because of market requirements rather than a FAA mandate.  Things like surviving a 40V surge on a 28V system, not getting messed up during engine start on a 14V system, not interfering with radio equipment, not letting radio equipment interfere with you, being able to operate at the ambient temperatures found behind the panel on a Phoenix afternoon after a long taxi, being able to handle the vibration found in an airframe and lots of other similar requirements should be there in your product specification regardless of whether the FAA mandates them or not.  And the sad truth is, that from personal experience I can tell you that the FAA requirements in this area do not go far enough.  They should be your minimum acceptable standards, not your product goal.

> -Adam Molny, BSEE

Hamid Wasti, MSEE (and lots of other alphabet soup)

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