Ah, you may find there are more than that. Be aware that there are folk who make a full time living doing nothing other than advising conscientious  designers and manufacturers which of far too many standards to easily remember will actually apply to their particular product. (though in some cases the makers can decide which standards they wish to claim compliance to, others are pretty much non-negotiable.)

That said, you are on the right track by asking before you start. You will need to meet some of the EMC related stuff as well, but there are others more qualified than I on other aspects who will hopefully pop and comment up shortly.

Mike.

Hello Mike, thank you for your reply. You hit the nail on the head.

BS EN 60204 might also be a contender.

  -  Andy.

| would like to produce a CE certificate with each panel.

Or UKCA or UKNI if they're destined for the UK market? https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/placing-manufactured-products-on-the-market

   - Andy.

Lee Bowers said:

What standards do I need to conform to?

I'd suggest you break this into three steps: what the legal requirements are, what standards will allow you to show that compliance requirements, and what further standards will your clients ask for.

Legally I can't think of anything other than (in the UK):

• Electromagnetic Compatibility Regulations 2016 (UKCA equivalent of the EMC directive / CE Marking)
• Electrical Equipment (Safety) Regulations 2016 (UKCA equivalent of the LVD directive / CE Marking)
• Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations 2012
• Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations 2013

However, to show compliance to the first two you'll need to identify appropriate specific standards.

EMC is easier for you to identify the standards, for general purpose industrial equipment you can show you've satisfied the regulations by showing compliance with the following:

• BS EN 61000-6-2, Electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) - Part 6-2: Generic standards - Immunity for industrial environments
• BS EN 61000-6-4, Electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) - Part 6-4: Generic standards - Emission standard for industrial environments

And you only need to apply these if you have active electronics in your panels (so if e.g. they include PLC or switch mode power supply).

For LVD you need to pick appropriate standard(s) from the designated standards list:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1148998/ds-0079-23-low-voltage-equipment-notice.pdf

which you'll notice includes BS EN 61439. Now, that's not to say that complying with BS EN 61439 definitely means you comply with the LVD requirements, you need to check that the standard covers all the electrical safety risks in your equipment. But it's a good start, and it may well cover everything (I'll admit it's not a standard I'm familiar with).

For REACH and WEEE you should be able to find good guidance online - these are relatively easy to comply with for industrial equipment.

Your clients may ask you to comply with other standards, but that's a contractual obligation, not a legal one.

Now, as Mike says, there are some of us who make a living out of advising clients which regulations and standards to apply and how to show compliance, it can get very complicated. (To be clear, I'm not touting for work here, I work with different types of equipment to this.) However, for a straightforward electrical control panel it should be straightforward and you can probably do it yourself, the main trick usually is finding the appropriate standard(s) to show LVD compliance.

Good luck! Hopefully that's at least given you a start such that Googling can get you to where you need to be. And remember the thing I always advise clients...if standards compliance seems to be getting too complicated you're probably missing something. At the risk of sounding like an old codger, if you've engineered it right then the standards compliance should be easy  (Ok, yes I have to admit I have been known to swear at equipment during EMC transient testing )

Andy

Thank you Andy, I was unaware of UKCA (& UKNI). a quick read shows that CE mark is still valid unitl 31 Dec 2024.

Hello Andy
Thank you, a very concise answer, I appreciate it  and it makes me pleased that I re-joined the IET and get access to this forum and advice it can offer.
Can I ask some further, perhaps obvious, questions,
EMC for only panels with active components, would include inverters?
Is it enough to quote BS EN 61439 or do would I need to drill down into the appropriate standards, I noted that the link contained 67 pages standards, which gives me a large margin for error there.
REACH and WEEE wasnt even on my horizon, but thank you for bringing to my attention.
Lee

Inverters and switch mode supplies very much require an EMC consideration - both outbound in terms of interference they may generate, and inbound in terms of surviving RF and sharp pulses coming down the wiring from either supply or load side. It is very embarrassing if external interference causes the voltages to suddenly vanish, or worse double in magnitude.

A large part of the battle is allowing enough space for additional filtering and being able to add it as required.

Mike.

Thank you Mike. Yes I often find that allowances for the size of electrical panels never seems to match the functionality the ask for, ' you need how big an enclosure'!

Lee Bowers said:

Is it enough to quote BS EN 61439 or do would I need to drill down into the appropriate standards

Basically, for the UKCI / CE Marking Declaration of Conformity (DoC) you only need to reference the Regulations / Directive, but it makes sense (and is useful for the client) to also mention the "top level" standard(s) that you've applied. But your DoC must be underpinned with a Technical Construction File (TCF) - which is your real evidence of compliance in case anyone asks - and this will need to show how you've complied with any relevant sub-standards.  

That said, be pragmatic about this: So I typically generate a compliance table in the TCF of each of the requirements in your chosen top level standard, and where this calls for tests / design evidence / etc against a subsidiary standard you can sometimes simply state e.g. "apertures identified as less than xx mm diameter and therefore in accordance with sub-standard ENxxxxx" You'll probably find that lots of the sub-standards are actually test methods, you don't exactly show that you are compliant to them, you just need to state (honestly) that you carried out the test according to that standard. But yes, you may find some cases where you have to do a second level of compliance table to explain how you've stepped through the requirements of a sub-standard.

I think (from memory) that my LVD TCFs have all only had a compliance table against one, top level, standard. For EMC, if you get a test house to test the equipment it should be easy: you declare it as compliant to the top (in this case two) standards, and the test house report will detail the compliance to the sub-standards. If you do your own EMC assessment, you may need to refer to some of these yourself, but not normally.

It's not actually as scary as it sounds, you should find the top level standards almost talk you through each bit of compliance you need to show. There are legal requirements for information that the DoC must include, but this is pretty basic (company name, responsible person, identification of equipment etc). For the TCF you can record it however you like - as I say, that's just there so if you ever get challenged you can show you have checked compliance to the standards.

And none of this needs to be submitted to or endorsed by anyone (until e.g. Customs ask for it). Which to be fair, does make it slightly scarier the first time you do it, as you've no-one to tell you if you've got it wrong! But there is good advice around on the web.

Thanks,

Andy