In message <[email protected]>, dated Thu, 28 Sep 2006, David Cuthbert <[email protected]> writes >My company sells engineering evaluation PCBs with our IC?s on them. I >believe that they are supplied worldwide. Some products contain or use >oscillators that are above 10 kHz. And potentially some boards have >voltages that exceed 42 volts. > > > >Are we required to obtain FCC and CE certification. I.E. EMC, safety, >ESD, and so on?
I think this is the sort of thing that the legislators put in the 'too difficult' file. You can apply 'relentless logic' - striving to fit the devices into one or more of the definitions in the regulations to prove that they have to meet every requirement you can think of. But is that in any way reasonable? The evaluation devices are clearly intended to be used by skilled or instructed people under laboratory conditions. I don't see them as being, from the safety or EMC point of view, as any different from a similar device I could construct in my own lab, to which nothing in EMC except a requirement not to cause actual interference applies (in Europe, anyway). For safety, devices that require a possibly hazardous external supply which you don't provide probably need only sufficient instructions and marking to show points that may be hazardous. The position may be a bit less clear if you have devices that generate hazardous voltages from lower voltages. Constructions that make it difficult, preferably impossible, to touch hazardous points that don't need to be touched by the user of the device when evaluating it (such as connectors for the load) may be in order, simply for normal legal reasons, not to meet a specific safety standard. Note that in Europe it is the manufacturer's responsibility alone to make safe, non-interfering products. There is no requirement for 'certification'. If you supply the evaluation devices without the ICs fitted, they can be considered as 'kits', not finished products, and for them exemptions exist anyway in European requirements. -- OOO - Own Opinions Only. Try www.jmwa.demon.co.uk and www.isce.org.uk Swine wave - a waveform whose spectrum is exceptionally difficult to calculate. John Woodgate, J M Woodgate and Associates, Rayleigh, Essex UK - This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to [email protected] Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas [email protected] Mike Cantwell [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: [email protected] David Heald: [email protected] All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email ______________________________________________________________________
