Alarm Panel Pro July Update

I have some good news and bad news to share after receive the results from The Alarm Panel Pro's latest FCC compliance scan earlier today. First, the bad news:

We didn't get the passing result that we really hoped for this round. So, unfortunately we still cannot commit to a production order, which means that the delivery timeline is still in flux.

However, the big problem spot is solved! The remaining issue should be a relatively simple fix, only requiring only some simple part changes on the board instead of a rebuild, according to our engineer Carl. This means that our turnaround time to get another shot at testing will be very quick this time.

Technical details (skip this if you're not interested):
The Alarm Panel Pro's compliance challenges have stemmed from a 50MHz system clock on the board that's vital to the ethernet functionality of the product. Too much of this 50MHz was radiating off of the board to comply with FCC limits for consumer electronics. After several design changes, we've now successfully reduced the 50MHz leakage, and only need to address some harmonics at higher frequencies that are very slightly over the limits. We are confident that this can be achieved by simply adding some passive filters to strategic areas of the board.

The next step is to test a few tweaks to the board and send it back in for re-test ASAP. We're waiting on confirmation from the lab on when is the earliest we can re-test.

UPDATE: We've confirmed a re-test date with the lab for Monday, July 13. You can expect more news after that date!

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