Good news everyone: we’ve passed the initial set of CE certifications. I wanted to do the easier certifications first, the EMC (Electromagnetic Compatibility) and EMI (Electromagnetic Interference) tests. We passed both with flying colours.

I’d like to to say a big thank you to the team at Smander who have been a great help advising me on the process and requirements for CE certification. For the actual testing, I used a lab in China; they’ve been really professional and helpful.

Here’re some photos of the board being tested. It looks so small in the lab!

Below you can see the setup for testing to see what electromagnetic emissions are being generated by the board. Pretty interesting stuff!

There were a whole bunch of other tests. One that I was a bit concerned about was the Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) test. Our poor board got zapped multiple times to see if it would survive. My worry with this was that we have no case, our components are all exposed. I have added plenty of ESD protection, but I was worried that the lab would find a way to blow it up.

Next step will be the RED (Radio Equipment Directive) certification. This is the most complex (and costly!) certification, as it covers a whole bunch of different aspects of the board. We are using a pre-certified WiFi module, so in theory we should pass this one pretty easily.

I am tempted to self-certify as we’ve passed the basic tests, and our module is pre certified, but I want to do things properly.

I need to get some more prototypes made up, I’ll get PCBWay manufacturing these over Christmas and then we should get the certification done in the New Year. The only issue might be Chinese New Year which might delay things slightly.

None of this should impact our target shipping dates. In the meantime, I’ll be working on the firmware, software, and website.

You can get a sneak preview of the website at https://esp32rainbow.com.