John, I hate to call you an old-timer;-- I would rather state that you might be thinking of UL 114 and UL478 standards that are no longer in force. But I don't believe that even they allowed a willy-nilly change from grounded equipment to one that is ungrounded, unless provided with a special grounding plug adapter. The equipment adhering to these standards may still be allowed to be shipped until 2005, I believe, provided that no major changes are being made to this equipment;-- at which point, the new standard (UL/CSA 60950) applies.
However, UL no longer allows new equipment to be submitted to these older standards. I forget exactly the cut-off date when that happened. The key point is that equipment defined as Class I under IEC/EN 60950 would be defined the same under the UL/Canadian 60950 standard and require an earthed connection. Thus, short of redesigning completely the stated equipment and making it Class II, there is no way that a 2-pin plug would be legal (or sane). taniagr...@msn.com ----- Original Message ----- From: Allen, John Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2001 8:13 AM To: emc-p...@majordomo.ieee.org Subject: RE: US Mains Plug/Earthing Hi Folks >From my days (about 10 years ago) of dealing with UL on this issue, I seem to remember that pluggable Listed products had to a power cord and that power cord had to have a fitted plug that was suitable and legal for the country in which the product was to be used - and that certainly included the USA. Taking on board some of the comments from other respondents,it is difficult/impossible to use, or sometimes to even sell, a product that is not Listed by UL or another NRTL - and they will only List if it complies with the appropriate standard. Most of these standards are now harmonized with Canada - and fairly much with the rest of the World However,there used to be (and I suspect that a few are still around)a number of very old US/Canadian standards which had much less stringent requirements for insulation sizing and dielectric withstand, and often did not require either a Class I earth connnection or "proper" double insulation for types of products where the equivalent IEC/EN standards did/do require one or the other. Possibly, this is where the orginal correspondent's customer probably got his idea that a 2-pin plug would be adequate! Nevertheless if there is an appropriate "old style" standard still valid for the product, and the product meets the relevant technical requirements, then it could be possible for him to obtain Listing with that 2-pin plug! Now, someone tell me that I am too out-of-date and that the above possibility does not exist (please!). John Allen Thales Defence Communications Division Bracknell, UK -----Original Message----- From: Crabb, John [mailto:jo...@exchange.scotland.ncr.com] Sent: 17 May 2001 09:44 To: 'Enci'; emc-p...@majordomo.ieee.org Subject: RE: US Mains Plug/Earthing I don't know if you "have" to fit a plug, but I can certainly tell you that our USA customers would be VERY UNHAPPY if we supplied a product without a plug. I certainly have the impression that fitting a plug in the USA is not something that people expect to have to do. Regards, John Crabb, Development Excellence (Product Safety) , NCR Financial Solutions Group Ltd., Kingsway West, Dundee, Scotland. DD2 3XX E-Mail :john.cr...@scotland.ncr.com Tel: +44 (0)1382-592289 (direct ). Fax +44 (0)1382-622243. VoicePlus 6-341-2289. -----Original Message----- From: Enci [mailto:e...@cinepower.com] Sent: 17 May 2001 08:03 To: emc-p...@majordomo.ieee.org Subject: Re: US Mains Plug/Earthing Thank you for all your comments. Do EU manufacturers have to fit a suitable mains plug to appliances when exporting to USA?... or can it be supplied without a plug, putting the requirement on the user to follow the instructions - in my case, stating that a grounding plug must be used ? Thank you. ------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE EMC Society Product Safety Technical Committee emc-pstc discussion list. Visit our web site at: http://www.ewh.ieee.org/soc/emcs/pstc/ To cancel your subscription, send mail to: majord...@ieee.org with the single line: unsubscribe emc-pstc For help, send mail to the list administrators: Michael Garretson: pstc_ad...@garretson.org Dave Heald davehe...@mediaone.net For policy questions, send mail to: Richard Nute: ri...@ieee.org Jim Bacher: j.bac...@ieee.org All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.rcic.com/ click on "Virtual Conference Hall," ------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE EMC Society Product Safety Technical Committee emc-pstc discussion list. Visit our web site at: http://www.ewh.ieee.org/soc/emcs/pstc/ To cancel your subscription, send mail to: majord...@ieee.org with the single line: unsubscribe emc-pstc For help, send mail to the list administrators: Michael Garretson: pstc_ad...@garretson.org Dave Heald davehe...@mediaone.net For policy questions, send mail to: Richard Nute: ri...@ieee.org Jim Bacher: j.bac...@ieee.org All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.rcic.com/ click on "Virtual Conference Hall,"<br clear=all><hr>Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at <a href="http://explorer.msn.com";>http://explorer.msn.com</a><br></p>
