Scott, You use the term, "catching fire", which for most of us is a scary thing to say in an open email. But first you need to determine if your fire enclosure failed or not. Charred components & PC boards, and melted plastic parts should not be automatically concluded as a safety failure. If fire, sparks, excessive heat, or other ignition source did not breach the fire enclosure, or allow access to other hazards, then it did its job and you are investigating a product fault, not (necessarily) a fire or electrical hazard.
If you have determined that the fire enclosure failed, then you will have to either determine what caused the failure and keep that condition >from happening or strengthen your enclosure to contain the hazard if it occurred again. As several have already informed you, if it is determined that your product is hazardous, you are obligated to notify the CPSC and/or other authorities. Whenever I have had to perform such an investigation, I usually have a legal representative (corporate lawyer) in my back pocket to insure everything documented is handled correctly. The Other Brian From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Scott Xe Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2007 7:44 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Caught fire during stand-by mode I have heard such failure in catching fire during stand-by mode for long but never seen a real case. Recently, we have a returned multi-functional audio video product having such symptom: part of cabinet melted and the pcb around the power rectifiers area burned out. I tried to locate the possible causes of catching fire. However, under such circumstances, I have no idea how to start the investigation. Can someone point me out somewhere to have such investigation reports for reference/information or any guidance to such study can be shared. Thanks, Scott - This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. 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