Testing power supply & converter manufacturing to IEC 61000-4-11 / -4-13 / -4-14
Immunity testing runs the opposite way round to most power test: you are not supplying AC-DC and DC-DC power supplies, converters, chargers cleanly, you are attacking them. Running on universal AC input, regulated DC output, what you have to demonstrate is that every unit off the line meets spec, fast enough to keep up. IEC 61000-4-11 / -4-13 / -4-14 defines the attack — voltage dips and interruptions, inrush drive capability — and deliberately leaves 400 Hz to other standards. The demanding part is rarely the voltage. It is aC source with 500 A peak inrush drive, 1–5 µs dip edges, phase-of-dip control, and full per-phase arbitrary waveform synthesis with independent harmonic and interharmonic amplitude and phase control.
What you are testing
- Device under test
- AC-DC and DC-DC power supplies, converters, chargers
- Bus
- universal AC input, regulated DC output
- Who buys this
- production and test engineering on a manufacturing line
What IEC 61000-4-11 / -4-13 / -4-14 does not cover
- 400 Hz
- DC bus transients
- reliability duration testing
If your programme needs those, they come from a different standard and often different hardware.
The limits this test has to reproduce
Production cadence is the constraint nobody writes into the standard. The test has to be repeatable at line speed, not just correct on a bench.
| Parameter | Value | Clause |
|---|---|---|
| Dips, Class 2 | 0%/½ cycle, 0%/1 cycle, 70%/25 (50 Hz) or 30 (60 Hz) cycles | 61000-4-11 Table 1 |
| Dips, Class 3 | adds 40%/10–12 cycles and 80%/250–300 cycles | 61000-4-11 Table 1 |
| Interruptions | 0% for 250/300 cycles | 61000-4-11 Table 2 |
| Generator rise/fall | 1–5 µs | 61000-4-11 §6 |
| Peak inrush drive | 500 A (220–240 V) / 250 A (100–120 V) | 61000-4-11 §6 |
| Harmonic range | to 2 kHz (50 Hz mains) / 2.4 kHz (60 Hz mains) | 61000-4-13 |
The clauses psu programmes actually face, as published in IEC 61000-4-11 / -4-13 / -4-14. See every limit in IEC 61000-4-11 / -4-13 / -4-14. Certification work should be run against the published standard.
What decides the rig here
The requirements that separate a system that can run this programme from one that only meets the headline numbers.
Inrush drive is the spec that gets missed
The generator must sustain very high peak current into a rectifier-capacitor front end, or the dip is not the dip the standard describes.
Test time per unit is the real budget
At line cadence, settling windows and sequencing decide throughput more than instrument count.
Phase-of-dip control changes the result
Where in the cycle the disturbance starts materially alters DUT behaviour, and it must be programmable rather than incidental.
Further reading on IEC 61000-4-11 / -4-13 / -4-14
- IEC 60601-1-2 Edition 4.1: Voltage Dips Are Now a Two-Voltage Test
- IEC 61000-4-13: Synthesising Distortion on Command — and the Tables We Do Not Reprint
- IEC 61000-4-29 Edition 2.0: One DC Supply as the Whole Generator
- Assembling a Medical Power-Input Bench: The Generator Is the Specification
- IEC 61000-4-11: The Inrush Requirement That Disqualifies Most AC Sources
Send us the clauses you have to satisfy
We will come back with the source and load capability that covers them — and tell you plainly if something in your spec needs hardware we would not supply.
Talk to an engineer