Application — Production & QA

A test station that gives the same answer every time.

Production RF testing lives or dies on repeatability. A benchtop JRE enclosure gives you an RF-sterile volume, a removable ABS floor you drill into a fixture, and custom hole patterns cut in-house — so every unit sits in the same place, sees the same path, and gets measured against a known-good gold standard.

AMBIENT BENCH INSIDE THE ENCLOSURE

Conceptual — ambient bench RF vs. inside the enclosure, where every unit sits in the same place, sees the same path, and gets measured against a known-good gold standard.

  • REMOVABLE ABS FLOOR
  • CUSTOM HOLE PATTERNS CUT IN-HOUSE
  • KNOWN-GOOD GOLD STANDARD
Repeatability over absolute accuracy

Inside a small chamber, geometry is everything.

A benchtop enclosure is a near-field environment — antenna gain, pattern and polarization simply do not apply the way the datasheet describes them.

GEOMETRY / SETUP DRIFT
  1. Move the DUT half an inch
  2. Antenna position, cable routing and DUT placement vary
  3. Inconsistent readings
the reading changes
FIXED-FIXTURE REPEATABLE STATION
  1. Fixed fixture, fixed cabling and a fixed antenna position
  2. Identical coupling path from unit to unit
  3. Measure against a known-good 'gold standard' device
identical setup

That sounds like a problem, but for production testing it is exactly the point. You do not chase an absolute field-strength number: characterize one known-good 'gold standard' device, record it, and measure every production unit against that benchmark using the identical setup. The chamber's job is to be consistent — and a well-fixtured JRE enclosure is consistent enough to calibrate a pass/fail line around.

Standing up a test station

From bare enclosure to repeatable line test.

1

Build the fixture on the removable ABS floor.

Every chamber ships with a 0.062" ABS floor that lifts straight out — no fasteners. Pull it to your bench, drill or tap it for your DUT, add threaded inserts or a custom acrylic cradle, and drop it back in. Replacements run ~$25–$50, so you can keep a floor drilled per product and swap them.

2

Set a fixed, repeatable geometry.

Lock the antenna position, cable routing and DUT placement. Keep cables short and tidy — don't coil service loops near the antenna. Whatever distance and orientation you settle on, write it down and replicate it every run.

3

Benchmark a gold-standard unit, then test against it.

Path loss inside a small chamber is hard to predict from theory — quarter-wave figures run ~30 dB at 433 MHz, 40 dB at 916 MHz, 30 dB at 2.4 GHz; the BBA-1 adds ~25 dB. Calibrate with a known-good device, then run production units against that benchmark all day.

4

Mounting Devices Inside an RF Shielded Test Enclosure

Read the guide before you drill anything. It is the full method behind steps 1 and 2 — how to work the removable ABS floor, when a custom hole pattern is worth cutting, how to route and dress cabling, and which fixture materials wreck the RF environment.

Fixture details

Build the fixture without disturbing the RF environment.

$25–$50 → Replacement ABS fixture floors — one per product

Pull out the ABS floor, drill it for your fixture, drop it back in. Keep metal out of the test volume. Keep cables short and tidy. Use a gold-standard device to benchmark.

Source: Mounting devices inside an RF shielded test enclosure

$150–$200 → Custom in-house hole pattern, per wall

If you drill a chamber wall, every hole must be filled with a tight metal screw to keep the shield continuous.

ABS → Plastic floor is RF-transparent — no reflections, full absorber performance

Keep metal out of the chamber — any sizable metal piece is a reflector that fights the absorber foam. Use plastic, ABS, acrylic or wood for fixtures.

Send an Inquiry

Spec your production test station.

Tell us the DUT, the band and your fixturing needs — we'll configure the enclosure, I/O plate and custom hole pattern and quote it. Listed enclosures — including a customer-configured I/O plate — are built and shipped in 3–4 days; fully-custom dimensions run 12–16 weeks plus $3,500–$4,500 NRE.

Inquiry channel / ready

The connections your device needs — the I/O you have to bring through the wall, like USB, Ethernet, or power — plus any filters or connectors you're already considering. The more you tell us, the faster we can point you to the right configuration.

No account or cart. This starts a direct conversation with JRE Test.