George, Your "Philosophical" example struck a raw nerve. I periodically rail against "inane" user instructions that safety agencies force upon us, until we find out about the inane things consumers do to our products. Electric/electronic gadgets have become so ubiquitous in our lives that we forget that these things can be potential fragile killers. Gone are the days when computers were served by white-coated high priests in designated computer labs. Nowadays, laptops make perfect hamburger trays when pulling up to the drive-in.
Engineers the world over! Why cannot we design product that recoils (power OFF condition, with all memory and files automatically saved!) when subjected to two drops of Coke (or 5 of water) and 7 cubic centimeters of crumbs, whether hamburger or potato chips! Tania Grant, [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> Lucent Technologies, Communications Applications Group ---------- From: [email protected] [SMTP:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, March 09, 2000 12:10 PM To: [email protected] Subject: ITE Disconnect Devices Technical The ITE standards allow for the power cord to be the official disconnect. However, this does involve a required "installation instruction". See the second part of 1.7.2. When it was common for most ITE to have fixed power cords, this meant that the disconnect could be the plug at the wall outlet. Admittedly, these are seldom "easily accessible" in the typical PC workstation, with a rat's nest of wires and dust bunnies under the workstation. However, given the global economy, many ITE products use detachable power cords (providing for the locally required cord), where the "disconnect" may be considered at the side or rear of the unit, i.e an arm's length away. Financial True rated disconnect switches are not cheap. Purchasers of ITE bear the final costs of these in products. With so many ITE products selling for $50 to a few hundred dollars, the markup is significant. This is one practical reason for using power cords as disconnect devices. Philosophical Users have proven time and again that they will use electrical appliances (including ITE) as they please, not how the standards, manuals, and labels indicate. When our site produced commercial keyboards for IBM and other manufacturers, the warranty return rate was extremely low. This rate shot up when we placed these in consumer outlets. On investigation, we learned of users soaking keyboards in soapy water to remove spilled coke residue, removing all keycaps to "clean" the keyboard and not being able to replace them, etc. George Alspaugh ------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE EMC Society Product Safety Technical Committee emc-pstc discussion list. To cancel your subscription, send mail to: [email protected] with the single line: unsubscribe emc-pstc For help, send mail to the list administrators: Jim Bacher: [email protected] Michael Garretson: [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Richard Nute: [email protected] ------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE EMC Society Product Safety Technical Committee emc-pstc discussion list. To cancel your subscription, send mail to: [email protected] with the single line: unsubscribe emc-pstc For help, send mail to the list administrators: Jim Bacher: [email protected] Michael Garretson: [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Richard Nute: [email protected]
