Certification of electrical appliance

If you are the manufacturer, and it sounds like you may be, you just declare that it meets the standards, using your in house testing keeping a tech file of all the evidence, calculations test results etc  that supports your declaration, or you prove it by contracting out  some testing to a third party test house such as

Tuv, IES or many others,

In general this third party testing is prohibitively expensive for small nos of something simple, so the requirement to test is frequently reduced to the minimum or totally ignored.

The cynical may wonder if the regulations and the price at which standards are sold,  are designed to stamp out small competitors, favouring the market to those mass manufacturers with deep pockets and long production runs.  I could not possibly comment.

However, there are folk who make a 24/7 living out of advising folk what should be tested and how,  which bits of what standard applies to specific cases etc. It rapidly becomes  very complex.

You may be able to argue in your file that you are using bits that cannot credibly fail to meet the requirements, because the individual components do and the way they are put together means no new risks are being introduced by careless use of inappropriate wire inside the box or something. In which case someone happy in principle to defend their decision in court, signs a formal declaration that the kit complies, and stickers are affixed. In many ways, like a sort of modern day sin-eater,  transfer of this risk  is what the test houses get paid for.

They then issue a report a bit like this one for a fan heater

That is it... well in  outline.

PATing, while quite important is much simpler and only verifies earthing and insulation, but nothing about EMC, testing for dangerous surface temperatures, fire risk mitigation such as for example the presence of appropriate thermal fuses, or maybe tilt switches if it is required to turn off if covered or if it is knocked over on a carpet, statutory labels etc.

Mike

If you are the manufacturer, and it sounds like you may be, you just declare that it meets the standards, using your in house testing keeping a tech file of all the evidence, calculations test results etc  that supports your declaration, or you prove it by contracting out  some testing to a third party test house such as

Tuv, IES or many others,

In general this third party testing is prohibitively expensive for small nos of something simple, so the requirement to test is frequently reduced to the minimum or totally ignored.

The cynical may wonder if the regulations and the price at which standards are sold,  are designed to stamp out small competitors, favouring the market to those mass manufacturers with deep pockets and long production runs.  I could not possibly comment.

However, there are folk who make a 24/7 living out of advising folk what should be tested and how,  which bits of what standard applies to specific cases etc. It rapidly becomes  very complex.

You may be able to argue in your file that you are using bits that cannot credibly fail to meet the requirements, because the individual components do and the way they are put together means no new risks are being introduced by careless use of inappropriate wire inside the box or something. In which case someone happy in principle to defend their decision in court, signs a formal declaration that the kit complies, and stickers are affixed. In many ways, like a sort of modern day sin-eater,  transfer of this risk  is what the test houses get paid for.

They then issue a report a bit like this one for a fan heater

That is it... well in  outline.

PATing, while quite important is much simpler and only verifies earthing and insulation, but nothing about EMC, testing for dangerous surface temperatures, fire risk mitigation such as for example the presence of appropriate thermal fuses, or maybe tilt switches if it is required to turn off if covered or if it is knocked over on a carpet, statutory labels etc.

Mike