Ok -- promise, just one more question.
Any CHEAP certification labs? Like -- real cheap?
You've been given a lot of good advice.
Bottom line is...wishing don't make it so.
The intent of the regulations is to make sure that stuff doesn't
interfere with other stuff. And since it's one-size-fits-all,
from any particular angle, it looks like overkill.
You can buy a certified module. But that does not relieve you of the
responsibility to VERIFY that the finished product is in compliance.
Here's an example.
Go to Best buy and buy a computer.
Go to Staples and buy a monitor.
Order some cables from ebay.
Get the keyboard from Dell
The mouse from HP.
ALL these items will be certified. If you plug them together in your
house, you're good to go...until someone complains that his TV has lines
on it.
The FCC truck shows up and traces the problem to your house.
It's now your problem to fix it. Might be as simple as tightening
the screws on your cables. OR removing that 200' usb cable you
made out of phone wire and ran up to the weather station on the roof.
Fines are steep, but you'd likely never incur any, unless you pissed
off the inspector over a long period of time.
If you made a weather station product from all that stuff and sold it,
You'd need to certify the system as a unit.
If I bought one and it caused my neighbor's TV a problem, YOU'd be
responsible to fix it. If you had valid test data, you'd just have
to recall defective units and fix 'em.
If you didn't have test data, you'd be in deeper water.
If you never had any intention of testing, you'd be screwed.
As for test labs, google or the phone book should turn up some.
Underwriters Labs used to do EMC testing along with the safety testing.
If you have a friend in the business, you might be able to wrangle some
test time to work out the kinks. But real paperwork is likely to cost you.
If you can, get a tour of a lab while they're testing something.
I haven't done it in 20 years, but at that time, they strapped it down
to a rotating table, adjusted the cables to maximize radiation and
spun it around for maximum radiation relative to the antennas.
And it'll be tested in an actual use scenario. An mp3 player will have
headphones with the wires arranged for maximum radiation.
More than once, I had to modify a purchased assembly to make the system
pass.
And we haven't even touched on the safety standards.
Product concept is the easy part.
Product implementation is a little harder.
Bringing that product to market is a bitch!
You wanna get all that discovered BEFORE you invest
anything.
If you want some light reading, check into the Winegard fiasco.
http://www.winegard.com/kbase/interference.php
Most of the offenders are on mobile homes and RV's.
So, they come and go with the seasons.
The things have a birdie that intermittently drifts thru the 70cm ham band.
Had one close to me. I could tell the temperature by the frequency
of the birdie. At 36F, I had to shut down my repeater.
I've been on the periphery of tracking those down.
Winegard has stonewalled and the FCC let them get away with it.
But they can afford lawyers.
Are we having fun yet?