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

Most of those standards agencies charge for any information. You would more than likely need to purchase a copy of the latest specs for electrical safety.

For those intrested here's the Irish Mark of Electrical Conformity. You may see this on some UK plugs (conforming to IS 401 or 401/A) sockets and switches and some appliences. It used to be on all apple macintosh computers sold here.

That is one mark I have never seen before. Aren't the Macintosh computers assembled in Ireland?

As I have remarked earlier, I strongly dislike these private and national "approvals" that doesn't mean anything. In a another tread I showed that the Danish Demko approves plugs which are unsafe to use in Denmark. Half of the blacklisted appliances and devices in Sweden carry the Semko-mark. The Electric Safety Authority now recommends people to look for the CE mark, not the Semko mark.

All European marks except the CE should be outlawed and instead testing for the CE marking should be introduced. This should be combined with severe fines (or jail) for those who forge the mark.

[This message has been edited by C-H (edited 02-06-2003).]

Hmmm. Many of the illegal ungrounded class 0 plugs carry the OVE label. So now assume everything with that mark is safe and legal.

C-H:

I thought VDE (or is it DVE?), OVE, Triangle-B (Poland), D, S, Kema-Keur and all of these were going to go away after a period of time after CE was established?

P.S.: I've seen the GOST logo on boxes of Russian-made breakfast cereal here in the USA!

The only problem is that the CE system as it stands at the moment is an absolute fiasco.

Each national authority is left to apply and enforce the CE approval mark, but each does it in a completely different way. The last I heard, Germany refuses to accept the CE mark anyway and still insistis on VDE approval.

The CE marking is special in that it works "inversly" to other marks: Instead of having an agency approve a product, the manufacturer ensures that the product is safe. By applying a CE mark to a product, the manufacturer shows that the product is intended for the European market and that it meets the European requirements.

Should this product kill someone, the manufacturer or representative will be taken to court: If it when tested does not meet the European requirements, then the manufacturer is toast. There is no way he can claim "Not intended for Germany" or similar.

Also, unlike other marks, the CE mark is not electrical only. A toaster can be electrically safe but still be dangerous, e.g. popping up sharp edges. This is not allowed under the CE mark. Apart from the obvious purpose of this (safety of consumer) there is one less well known:

Article 36 of the Rome treaty allows each country to ban products dangerous to health, environment or national safety. (I don't remember the wording) This means that e.g. the UK would be able to stop TV-sets made in France on the ground that they explode or require that they be tested to prove that they don't explode. This would be a legal barrier to trade and would push up the price of TV sets in the UK. To avoid this, the European Norms have been made all encompassing, saying that TV:s must not explode, catch fire, contain toxic products and so on. This makes it impossible for the member states to erect barriers to trade, unless there are very good reasons.

This is all fine if many manufacturers didn't misuse the CE mark. It is tempting to just slap a CE mark to the toaster you manufacture, without actually testing it. Therefore, I would like to see mandatory testing. As long as it is European (or world wide) not national.

The only place local electrical regualtions come in is on things like the UK/Irish/Italian/Danish/Swiss plug requirements.

They're only minor localisations though.

Rangnar: Yes, the ÖVE often appears, together with Kema-Keur, on the round plugs.

Sven: As you will have infered from my above posting, all the S, B, D etc. marks have no legal standing. But these companies would be put out of work if nobody used the marks. Therefore, there is intense campaining from these companies towards both manufacturers and consumers, claiming that the CE mark is a failure. I've noticed that the GOST logo appears more and more often on Swedish made food too, e.g. candy bars.

djk:

Yes, this would be one case where there are good reasons to block imports. Requiring the right plug isn't very much of a barrier to trade.

Hmm. In our geography&economy class half a year ago we were told that varying national plugs are deliberately used as a "non-tariffal trade barreer", along with the various national approval marks. The example given was that a washing machine made in the czech republic couldn't be imported to Austria that easy if the countries use different plugs. (czech republic uses french plugs). This should limit imports.