Depending upon your definition of a safety problem, there has been long standing IEC950 compliance issues with PC Card (PCMCIA) applications. This is not related to fire safety but rather to heat hazards from direct human contact of the hot metal card enclosure upon removal from the system
The problem stems from the obvious space constraints in the notebook and that the PC Card association has no "power rating" or rating infrastructure. During the last year however, the PC Card industry has moved to provide a power rating structure for new card development such that a power rating per slot can be effectively communicated and used within the industry. We (Compaq) generally "rate" our PC card slots (in Watts) and test at this fully rated load. We also check many of the cards that we develop but you can't expect to get to everything that's out there. Most PC Card venders can tell you what their product power consumption will be. This does not always directly correlate with temperature, but it is a place to start. We have seen cards "rated" between 0.5W and 17W in a type II and III form factor. 17W can be generate a lot of heat. 2) As far as application of IEC950 for a notebook, this standard clearly has provisions for battery powered products of this type and in the near future (3rd) edition, there are additional provisions for a class of TRANSPORTABLE equipment which have been included with Notebook applications specifically in mind. We have always applied IEC950 to our portable products and have had no difficulties getting 3rd party certification/authorizations to IEC950 based national standards during the last 10 years. ______________________________________ Bob Griffin, 281-514-4896 Manager, Corp. Product Regulations robert.grif...@compaq.com -----Original Message----- From: c=US;a= ;p=COMPAQ;dda:ZID=<andreast(a)toshiba-teg.com>; Sent: Wednesday, 13 August, 1997 5:24 AM To: Griffin, Robert; c=US;a= ;p=COMPAQ;dda:ZID=<emc-pstc(a)majordomo.ieee.org>; Subject: Safety / Notebooks Dear Compliance Colleagues: I like to hear your opinion regarding following questions: 1) PCMCIA-cards *Have someone ever heard about safety problems (e.g. heat) caused by PCMCIA-cards? *Have someone a good idea how to prepare a warning in the operator's manual that the manufacturer of the notebook could not guarantee safety aspects for the PCMCIA-cards manufactured from other companies which are used with his notebook ? *Do someone know, if the manufacturers of PCMCIA-cards perform tests with different notebooks regarding safety aspects ? *Do test facilities which are going to perform tests according to IEC950/EN60950 perform safety tests with cards in all slots of the notebook ? 2) IEC950/EN60950 for notebooks I like to hear your opinion if battery powered notebooks (<30V) with external ac-adapters should also be tested according to IEC950/EN60950 or only the ac-adapter itself. Thanks in advance for your comments ! Andreas Thomas Toshiba Europe GmbH andre...@toshiba-teg.com RCIC - http://www.rcic.com Regulatory Compliance Information Center
