ESP8266 Community Forum

- Wed Sep 17, 2014 9:31 am #696

Does anyone know where is it possible to buy these shields for custom designs?

yes ... go to alibaba, type search rf shield and you will get what you need.

I don't want to be human! I want to see gamma rays, I want to hear X-rays, and I want to smell dark matter ...
I want to reach out with something other than these prehensile paws and feel the solar wind of a supernova flowing over me.

- Wed Sep 17, 2014 10:03 am #699

Not questionable to have shielding. Questionable in that it looks like an esp-03 module with a shield glued on meaning no design changes for shield grounding or antenna characteristics.

My RF friends tell me that most of these low powered radios (802.15.4, Bluetooth, ESP8266) can pass modular FCC without shield. But... the modular rules always require a shield. So it may work just to glue a pointless shield on just to get the modular approval. That only works because these low power radios are far below the power limit for the band, if they were pushing up against the 100mW limit the shield would have to function correctly.

If you put two modular approved radios in the same box, they both lose their modular approval and the whole box has to go through FCC. Because of this most designs don't care about modular approved radios. For example cell phones commonly have three or more radios. Because of this a module with both the ESP8266 and a BLE chip under the same shield with modular approval would be very useful.

FCC testing in the US is horrendously expensive - $10,000-15,000. Mail your stuff off to a Chinese lab that will do it for $1,000. Check to see if the lab is on the approved lab list at the FCC and there will be no problems.

Where I get my modules

- Wed Sep 17, 2014 6:09 pm #710 That's OK I guess if the shield doesn't affect the RF performance.

Multiple modules can coexist if you can guarantee no simultaneous transmission.

You can get FCC cert in the US between 3-5k from the smaller companies.

- Mon Sep 22, 2014 11:48 am #823

Mail your stuff off to a Chinese lab that will do it for $1,000. Check to see if the lab is on the approved lab list at the FCC and there will be no problems.

wait... so there are FCC approved testing labs in China?? that's amazing. Why does anyone use the U.S. labs for 10x the cost?