Hi Donald:
You ask a whole stack of questions... Safety certification of a product is done by means of a contract between the manufacturer (or his representative) and the certification house. This contract restricts all data, including the safety report, if any, as private between the "submittor" and the certification house. By contract, the only data that the certification house can make public is whether or not the product is certified, in particular whether or not the product is eligible to bear the certification mark. (There are some certifications which need not employ a mark and need not be made public.) Indeed, there are often good reasons why the manufacturer would not like product descriptions and test data made public. One is that manufacturers do not like to make such data available to competitors. The means for making certifications public is usually a certification house publication identifying the manufacturer and the model numbers of certified products. Nothing more. However, the manufacturer has the right (under the contract) to provide copies of the data to whomever he pleases. Some manufacturers will do so on request from a customer, and others will not. And, the certification house has the right to refer to the data when evaluating a product which incorporates a certified product. For certified components, some certifiers will include in their report some "conditions of acceptability." These are safety requirements that must be fulfilled in the end-product as a condition of using the component. If such conditions are a part of the report, then it is imperative for the end-product manufacturer to get a copy of the conditions. Otherwise, the certifier will check those conditions and if they are not met, will fail your product. This creates an awkward situation since the certifier cannot reveal the conditions of acceptability to the end-product manufacturer. Almost always, end-products incorporate components from other manufacturers. Where these components contribute to the safety of the end-product, the certification house will either: 1) require the component to be certified, or 2) perform component testing in the end-product. (The first option is the one that minimizes testing i the end-product.) If you are considering substituting one certified component for another certified component, the end-product certification house may or may not accept the component without some testing. This depends on the nature of the construction and of the component. If you are considering substituting a non-certified component for a certified component, then testing will indeed be in order. This is the ONLY method by which a non-certified component can be deemed equal to a certified component. And, such acceptance only applies to the particular product and construction that was tested, not a general acceptance. Beware of non-certified components where the manufacturer has no plans to certify it but competing products are certified. Or where the manufacturer says it meets certification house requirements. More often than not, you will find the component deficient. And that's why the component is not certified. Also note that you will spend almost as much money for testing the component in your product as would the component manufacturer if he submitted it for certification. Consider this cost amortized over the quantity of the components you will use. The lower cost component may not be the bargain you first thought. Best regards from sunny San Diego, Rich ------------------------------------------------------------- Richard Nute Product Safety Engineer Hewlett-Packard Company Product Regulations Group AiO Division Tel : +1 619 655 3329 16399 West Bernardo Drive FAX : +1 619 655 4979 San Diego, California 92127 e-mail: ri...@sdd.hp.com ------------------------------------------------------------- --------- This message is coming from the emc-pstc discussion list. To cancel your subscription, send mail to majord...@ieee.com with the single line: "unsubscribe emc-pstc" (without the quotes). For help, send mail to ed.pr...@cubic.com, ri...@sdd.hp.com, or roger.volgst...@compaq.co (the list administrators).
