Issue link: https://te.mouser.com/i/1475713
mouser.com/te 15 Communications Commission (FCC) specification using ferrite beads and various shielding techniques. This technique is enough to satisfy FCC specification part 15, which is sufficient for laboratory conditions but is inadequate for the application of Street Lighting. This was precisely the case when the city of Amarillo, Texas, United States, piloted the installation of a set of LED streetlights. A "concerned citizen" reported significant AM radio interference after the LED lights had gotten installed. After an exhaustive analysis, it was determined that the luminaire was the source of the problem. A small amount of RF noise can couple onto the power or ground line, serving as a radiating antenna (Figure 1). The length of the power line coupling the noise controls which frequencies radiate well. Since there are many different line FIGURE 1: Typical wiring connections for an LED streetlight. (Source: TE Connectivity) Light-Emitting Diode (LED) lighting does not generate EMI. The EMI gets generated by the electronic drivers that are powering the LED. The adoption of these drivers replaces the electromagnetic ballasts, which operate at a much lower frequency (60Hz). Electronic drivers operate at 20–60kHz, which is between 50–200 times the frequency of a magnetic ballast, producing much higher levels of EMI due to the high-speed switching. The tradeoff is that the higher frequency drivers are much smaller, lighter, quieter, and more efficient. The good news is that EMI is not a recent phenomenon, and there are a large variety of existing solutions out in the market today. Unfortunately, there is very little regulation concerning EMI in the lighting industry. As a result, lighting manufacturers are designing to the Federal