Questions: Importance of RF Cages

D_Harris

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I have several game PCBs that originally came inside of RF cages and I was wondering how important it was to keep them inside.

I assume that these cages may be more important for some games than others, but I don't think I'm close enough to a cab office or police precinct to have to worry about disrupting their communications. :D

Has anyone experienced problems as a result of omitting the cages in games like Donkey Kong or Mr. Do!?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.
 
Cages can be used for a multitude of reasons including:

  • Meeting FCC RFI compliance
  • Maintaining proper cooling (directing forced air)
  • Preventing outside signals from interfering (cell, etc...)
  • Physical stability (keeping cards from leaning over and touching)
  • Heatsinking components
  • etc...

The only reason I'd run one without is if it came without and ran fine... or if I needed to get to the components to troubleshoot.
 
RF free room. Reminds me of installing copper screening before putting up sheet rock. The things you do for an RF engineer friend LOL. You know when your an RF engineer is when the local airport comes over and complains about the noise you produce with your RF experiments LOL.

I have use the copper screen to shield eletronics before. Back in the old days when cellphone and computer would interfer with each other.

Even built a few pager screen rooms.
 
Like Gene Hackman?

Enemy of the State is one of my favorite movies. :D

Since I'll have a lot of PCBs in each cabinet would a copper screen positioned between each game board help, or just around a row of a dozen game boards?

And where would you get these screens?

Thanks a lot.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.
 
What was the purpose for the Meeting FCC RFI compliance?
I mean, I took off my plates and just plugged it directly onto the board. What is the difference?
To me, you would want a direct connection rather than having it go through 2 others.
 
What was the purpose for the Meeting FCC RFI compliance?
I mean, I took off my plates and just plugged it directly onto the board. What is the difference?
To me, you would want a direct connection rather than having it go through 2 others.

In many cases, if you don't meet FCC requirements, you can't sell your product. Back in the day the biggest issue was interference with TVs and Radio. They also didn't want to interfere with other electronics, but if you messed up people's TVs they were were apt to notice and get mad. Also, some older electronics could be sensitive to incoming RF, and so sometimes they'd have to put on the cage to protect the game from the rest of the world!

In general, unless the cage is a problem for some reason, don't remove it, because you don't really know for sure why they added it, and you don't know what (if anything) it's likely to mess up.
 
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