John, In my experience, safety agencies have typicaly frowned on extending leads. The key issue seems to be reliability of connections. Extra measures need be taken to be sure of that point. These measures typically include the crimp connection to the wire AND the insulation of the wire, extra ty-wraps adjacent to prevent travel of the wire when it disconnects itself, heat shrink or other means.
I have had occaision to test this issue and the agencies could (would) not show it to me in writing why I could not do such a thing. >From a manufacturer of systems point of view, having to extend the wires is an added operation at the assembly level. Depending on your material handling structure, this might mean an extra sub-assembly to be created, ECO'd, tested, stocked, inspected, etc. Unnecessary overhead. I would much rather have too much wire on the filter (wire is cheap, oops, I mean inexpensive). Even more preferable is to not have any wires at all in my case. I have to make harnesses anyway so a few Q/D lugs to the filter is no big deal. For those who have little or no AC in their systems, having to cut, strip and connect too long of a wire is far easier than stretching that wire to fit. Keep in mind that there will always be somebody who needs the wire just that little bit longer than you normally supply. Perhaps you could track all of the requests for longer wires and come up with a reasonable compromise that gives enough to 50% or 80% or those extra length requests on a normal production basis. It would be interesting to hear from an agency type if there are any specific rules regarding the extension of primary wiring and particularly earth ground. ________________________ Regards, Scott Douglas Principal Compliance Engineer ECRM Incorporated Telephone: 1-508-851-0207 Facsimilie: 1-508-851-7016 e-mail: [email protected] ________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ From: Dudek, John on Wed, Sep 10, 1997 11:02 PM Subject: Acceptability of Spliced Termination Leads To: '[email protected]' Hello everybody, I need some input from the members of this group that regularly work on systems, not components. The standard lead length on our catalog products (EMI / RFI filters) is 4 inches. Quite often a customer will ask for a filter with input and / or output leads longer than 4 inches. When the option of splicing additional lead wire to the catalog filter is discussed, a reply of "the agencies will not accept it" is received. The splice connection would be made with a "Recognized" or "agency accepted" barrel type connector. When questioned for more details regarding the unacceptability, no specific standard or paragraph is available. My question is this: For ITE equipment (or other classifications), is it acceptable to extend termination lead lengths by splicing additional wire by an acceptable method?? Please keep in mind that along with line and neutral leads, ground leads which may or may not be a safety ground would be included. Thanks in advance for your comments. John F. Dudek Manager, Product Safety Engineering Corcom Inc. Libertyville, Ill. USA voice: 847-680-7400 fax: 847-680-8169 (general) or 847-680-0340 (direct) Mailto:[email protected] Visit us at http://www.cor.com ------------------ RFC822 Header Follows ------------------ Received: by macgtwy.ecrm.com with SMTP;10 Sep 1997 23:02:04 -0400 Received: by highlight.ecrm.com (AA20733); Wed, 10 Sep 97 22:30:10 EDT Received: from ruebert.ieee.org by maildrop.ecrm.com (WAA29074); Wed, 10 Sep 1997 22:27:09 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from daemon@localhost) by ruebert.ieee.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id SAA19081; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 18:02:06 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <[email protected]> From: "Dudek, John" <[email protected]> To: "'[email protected]'" <[email protected]> Subject: Acceptability of Spliced Termination Leads List-Post: [email protected] Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 17:01:58 -0500 X-Priority: 3 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.0.1458.49) Content-Type: text/plain Sender: [email protected] Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Dudek, John" <[email protected]> X-Resent-To: Multiple Recipients <[email protected]> X-Listname: emc-pstc X-List-Description: Product Safety Tech. Committee, EMC Society X-Info: Help requests to [email protected] X-Info: [Un]Subscribe requests to [email protected] X-Moderator-Address: [email protected]
