Hi Nick With reference to your question as to why I brought up the Construction Products Directive: For a short period During the early 1990's I was the Approvals Manager for a fire and intruder alarm design and manufacturing company, and both types of alarm systems were deemed to be within the scope of that directive.
I am sure that someone can provide more up-to-date information, but as we understood the situation then, the directive is intended to ensure that the materials and components used in the construction and fitting out of a building must be controlled to ensure the safety of persons who work/live in that building Alarm systems were considered to be systems which - if they operated incorrectly - could put those persons at risk, and thus are to be controlled in the same way as fire control equipment, building materials (flammability etc.). At that time the national standards for both fire and intruder alarms differed significanty from EU country to EU country - thus providing a technical barrier to trade, and thus requiring the formulation of common standards to meet the level playing field requirements. Hence the eventual development of the EN54 series of fire detection and fire alarm standards, and - separately - the EN 50130-34 series of intruder alarm and "social alarm" systems. Both sets of standards do specifically include a lot of EMC issues - particularly immunity - because false triggering, or (even worse!) failure to trigger, of an alarm system could pose a severe threat to life and/or property (and we all know how often alarm systems do actually falsely trigger !) In fact, the EMC standards requirements were far worse to deal with than the basic safety requirements (after all, most alarm system boxes contain just a PSU, some PCB's, a display and some connectors for the sensors - and possibly a backup battery of somesort) and are more akin to the Generic Industrial EMC standards (even for "domestic" applications) than anything else! Hope this throws a little light on my previous comments - all others are still welcome! Regards John Allen. ---------- From: Nick Williams[SMTP:[email protected]] Sent: 29 April 1999 12:07 To: [email protected] Cc: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: RE: Alarm bell box (2) Thanks to everyone who responded to this thread so far. At 09:20 +0100 29/4/99, Colgan, Chris <[email protected]> wrote: >EN60065:1994 is due to be withdrawn on 1/5/00 and replaced by EN60065:1998 >which is published this year. The 1998 version is entitled "Audio, video >and similar electronic apparatus - Safety requirements". I think this >indicates that it is almost certain that your product should be tested to >the relevant parts EN60950. The CENELEC report which I mentioned in my original post does not mention any particular issue of EN60065, and having checked my copies of the 1994 and the 1998 edition, I can't see any difference in the scope which would make me think the 1998 edition is any less applicable to alarms than the 1994 one was. I'm trying to make a logical case for applying one standard (950/65) or the other but the scope of the standards doesn't give much me help on this - do you see it differently to me? _____________ on Wed, 28 Apr 1999 11:41:46 -0400 "WOODS, RICHARD" <[email protected]> said: >My opinion is that EN60950 would apply if the equipment is for business use >only. Otherwise, EN60065 would apply for household use and "similar" >purposes. This is the right sort of logic, I think, but I would have been inclined to think that 60950 would be appropriate for sophisticated alarms such as those containing micro-controlled autodiallers etc, whereas for a simple bell box EN60065 would be a simpler and more appropriate standard to apply. _____________ on Thu, 29 Apr 1999 08:43:09 +0100 John Allen <[email protected]> wrote: >Intruder alarms are covered by the following series of standards: > >EN 50130 - Alarm systems <SNIP> I found this series of standards in my BS catalogue too, but they look to me as if they are more oriented to performance and application than to electrical safety in the design. I'd rather not have to buy copies to confirm that! >Also note that this type of product (as well as fire alarms) is under the >general control of the Construction Products Directive, and that there are >special EMC requirements in the standards (see EN 50130-4 in particular) - >not just application of the generics. This is an interesting point, and I can see the logic behind it. Is this just supposition on your part John, or do you have a reason to say this based on something you've read or been told? There are no standards harmonised under the CPD at present (in fact the CPD is a right bugger's muddle as far as I can make out, but I digress...). EN60335-1 notes in its introduction that it covers the essential requirements of the CPD (as well at the LVD and Machinery Dir. ) but no such claim is made in the introduction of either 60065 or 60950. The water does not yet seem any clearer, although it may be somewhat warmer....! Regards Nick. --------- This message is coming from the emc-pstc discussion list. To cancel your subscription, send mail to [email protected] with the single line: "unsubscribe emc-pstc" (without the quotes). For help, send mail to [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], or [email protected] (the list administrators).
