Safety Testing:
I began handling safety compliance on all of my products at Mackie, starting with the 1st product I did there, the M-1400 power amplifier. Since this start in 1999, I continued to interface with safety agencies to get all of my products through the test lab and get all of the certification that we needed. I also, handled this process for many other products at Loud with both the Mackie and EAW design groups on many occasions. My work has continued with my newer consulting customers as well, with my preferred interface being UL San Jose. By far most of my work has been with the UL (Underwriters Laboratories) but I have also qualifed products at CSA (Canadian Standards Association), and ETL/Intertek.
I have been qualifying products for international certification to the Unified 60065 Standards:
• UL 60065, 8th Edition (For the USA)
• CAN/CSA-C22.2 No. 60065-03 (R2012) + Amendment 60065A-03 (R2012) + Amendment 60065B-03 (R2012) (For Canada)
• EN 60065, 8th Edition, 2014-06-27 (For CB certification for European countries, and compliance approval in several other countries)
Early on I qualified products to UL813 and C22.2 No 1-94 and EN65000, but I haven’t done this in decades, as the unified 60065 standards makes the test and approval process so much easier. I am also quite familiar with all the ancillary standards (UL94, etc.) that are referenced throughout the 60065 standards. I’m not exactly sure how many products I’ve gotten approval on, but I don’t think 5 – 6 dozen would be an exaggeration!
DoC (Declaration of Conformity):
I can assist your company with the creation of the Declaration of Conformity, a simple one page document required when exporting products to CE observing countries in Europe.
EMC (Electromagnetic Compatibility) Testing and Certification:
Early in the design process I can assist you with building a product that will actually pass the stringent EMC test process. I need to say up front, that passing the various EMC tests can be quite difficult at times as some of test thresholds are quite low. Having a well thought out design, and also having a few contingency plans in your back pocket, can really help at the time of pre-qualification and during the actual test process.
Early in the process is the best time to plan for EMC. If I am providing you with design services as well as EMC test service, this will begin before the 1st prototype is ever produced. In any event, testing for any EMC issues should begin at the 1st prototype stage. I can actually measure AC line conducted emissions here at my lab, but for other pre-testing I will need to bring your product to an accredited lab near my location.
An example of one of my in-house conducted emissions pretest is shown below:
link to CONDUCTED-EMISSIONS.PDF
For Pre-testing and then the actual product testing I use a Lab in Portland Oregon: Northwest EMC.
http://www.nwemc.com/locations/emc-testing-hillsboro-oregon
This Lab is about a 1 hour drive from my facility.
A typical set of EMC compliance testing, for an audio product intended to ship worldwide, would be as follows:
• EN 55032:2012
• EN 55103-2:2009
• EN 61000-3-2:2014
• EN 61000-3-3:2013
• FCC 15.107:2015
• FCC 15.109(g):2015
• FCC 15.109:2015
• ICES-003:2012 (updated 2014)