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Top 10 Compliance Today Blog Posts for Electrical Compliance Engineers in 2014
Just like last year, the Compliance Today blog for electrical product manufacturer compliance engineers saw a significant increase in readers and subscribers for 2014. Following were the most popular posts, by pageviews. IEC 60601-1-2 4th Edition for Medical EMC Has Immunity & Risk Management Changes EN 61326-1: 2013 Replacing 2006 Version for EMC Directive Evaluation... Read More
EU Inverters Mostly Non-Compliant to EMC Emissions Requirements in EN 55011 and EN 61000-6-3
In the first half of 2014, the European Union’s EMC Administrative Cooperation Working Group (EMC ADCO) performed a cross-border EMC market surveillance campaign to assess the compliance of grid-connected solar panel inverters (and optimisers) intended to be used by consumers. Inverters allow electricity generated by solar photovoltaic (PV) modules to be fed into the mains... Read More
UL 508A 2nd Edition Now Required for Industrial Control Panels
The requirements for Industrial Control Panels have been recently updated to the 2nd edition. The second edition changes made to UL 508A will take effect this month. Changes in the new edition are extensive. They include: Air conditioners installed in panels need to comply with UL 1995 and clause 26.3 When protectors (fuse, breaker, etc.)... Read More
Environmental Testing – Like HALT – Improves Product Reliability & Ruggedness
Environmental testing has nothing to do with an evaluation of the earth’s environment. Not the environmental testing we’re writing about here anyway. Also known as environmental simulation, environmental testing involves putting your electronic product through environmental extremes and then determining what hardware failures occur. This process is crucial for pinpointing design flaws for ensuring the... Read More
How to Request FCC Confidentiality for Proprietary Product Information
On October 16, 2014 the FCC published 726920 D01 Confidentiality Request Procedures, a new document that details the steps required to ensure proprietary information about your device will be held confidential. To be granted confidentiality, your application must include a reference to 0.457(d) and 0.459 of the FCC Rules, the reason why the information should... Read More
New EMC Directive 2014/30/EU Will Soon Replace 2004/108/EU
The European Union EMC Directive 2004/108/EU has been revised to the new Directive 2014/30/EU. After April 2016, the new directive will be required for all applicable electrical products being sold in the European Union. Requirements listed in Annex I of the directive remain the same. But 4 key changes have been made: The directive now... Read More
For New Technologies – Like 3D Printers – What Product Safety Standard Applies?
Product safety compliance for equipment that falls into an established product category is straightforward. But what about new technologies – how are these products evaluated? As a case example, let’s look at 3D printers. 3D printers aren’t new, but they are just now entering the mainstream, with many more manufacturers developing new small desktop versions... Read More
GR-3160-CORE is NEBS Lite for Data Center Equipment
GR-3160-CORE, NEBS Requirements for Telecommunications Data Center Equipment and Spaces, is sometimes described as ‘NEBS Lite.’ It includes important reliability and safety requirements, without the full set of hurdles found in the NEBS telecom standards, like GR-1089-CORE and GR-63-CORE. But what exactly are the differences for equipment evaluation? Following is a basic overview. The test... Read More
UL Safety Standards for Lighting Undergoing Revisions
The only constant? Change. Product safety standards are almost always in some state of being updated. Here is a summary of changes afoot for some of the most popular UL lighting safety standards: UL 1598 – Luminaires (Tri-national standard) The next 2-year revision cycle has started. CSA (the Publication Coordinator) sent proposals to the Technical... Read More
Top 20 Non-Compliance Findings for Panel & Motor-Operated Equipment
Here at MET Labs, we’ve been product safety testing electrical/electronic equipment in the field for over 55 years. Naturally, we see the same failures over and over again. We hope this list of Top 20 Field Failures for Panel & Motor-Operated Equipment will help inspectors identify and contractors fix the most commonly observed non-compliances. 1.... Read More
