ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades Poor fool!

Plugs are hardly a barrier to entry. As long as the machine conforms to CE safety testing it passes.

Various plugs are required by various countries but the wiring is identical so all you do is fit the apropriate one for each country there is no requirment to re-test. The local electrical safety agencies just approve their own local plugs etc. All a manufacturer does is buy a mains lead with the correct plug moulded on. It's no big deal.

Language is also a legitimate barrier.

I would expect that most Austrians would rather not have their washing machine's front panel printed up in Czech..

C-H.. I don't know about elsewhere in Europe but I know for a fact that the CE mark is taken very seriously here in Ireland by the NSAI (National Standards Athority of Ireland).. They would hold any irish manufacturer liable for misusing it and in the case of imports the distributor is fully liable. The penalty is quite severe for misuse of CE, ISO or Irish Standards marks.. We're talking massive fines and possibily jail time.

In the case of distributors importing from outside the EU, they would sign a contract with the manufacturer that would include a declaration of conformity. If that were to be false they manufacturer would be sued and potentially banned from trading here.
The manufacturer would also be completely open to law suit by any injured party and courts here pay out massive sums (we're talking hundreds of thousands if not millions of euro in serious cases).

It's not the kind of thing you'd think about not complying with!

The only manufacturers who have faked CE have tended to be toy makers in the far east.

djk:

If it is like you describe it, I can only congratulate you. Here, lawsuits hardly exist. Some companies simply ignore sales ban and recalls. The Swedish courts are a joke. They can't even get killers convicted. (Recently some guy got three years for murdering his son...)

c-h,

One thing Ireland is as good as California at : sueing!

Distributors generally couldn't afford to risk selling dangerous merchandise as it would leave them wide open to a sue-happy public and and no win, no fee lawyers with a 1-800 numbers and TV ads!

The whole approval-mark and import angle raises one or two interesting queries.

In my workshop I have quite a bit of 120V equipment (soldering irons, Dremel tool, tape head demagnetizer, oscilloscope, etc.) which I have had sent from the States at various times.

Should I now expect some bureaucrat to come along and tell me that I've broken some law by importing it without the appropriate CE or BS approval mark?

No it's just not approved. If you get fried that's your own problem!

It would only be a problem if it was printed up with CE or BS marks and hadn't actually been tested / didn't comply.

You are free to import anything you want. It would, however, prob. breech sales & safety legislation if you were to attempt to sell it on as you may be liable as a seller/distributer for any damage it did as you would have a duty of care to the purchaser & legislation may specifically prohibit the sale of non-approved electrical goods.

I was just thinking that there was quite likely some petty EU or Whitehall rule making it illegal by now!

It does pose an interesting question about "duty of care" and related liability issues though. As far as I'm concerned, if it's got a genuine UL label on it, then it's good enough for me. In fact, I'd trust that UL label far more than I would a CE mark.

It might be interesting to see the reaction of one of our more petty-minded health & safety inspectors if such equipment were used in a commercial environment.