Trying to find independent consultant to review machine design - electrical wiring safety

I think some more information is required.

Is this in the UK?  I would guess so by the CEng requirement, but it could be somewhere else.

Is the machine new or secondhand? If new it should already meet some standards.

Is it only LV or are there HV components?

Is ‘Electrical Safety’ just protection against electric shock and fires or also safety functions of the controls?

Roger,

thanks for the response. This is a new machine. It is a novel technology and this is the 1st industrial unit. It is being designed and built in EU for use in UK. I have raised some concerns regarding the protection against shock - relating to a key machine design feature. It is LV system no HV. I am looking for an expert, independent "competent" engineer to review the designs and to provide a written report regarding the risks present and the machine's protection against electric shock. This specifically relating a a particular single aspect of the machine design. Consideration needs to be given to normal operation and also consider the risks in the event of various foreseeable faults. There is no requirement to review the general control/safety systems - only those relating to this 1 specific function.

I do not want to report to contain any recommendations or design suggestions to mitigate the risks. There should be no design input. The responsibility for safe design sits 100% with the machine supplier and their legal duties under Supply of Machinery regulations. This piece of work is only to highlight the risks presented, to review compliance to expected standards and to provide commentary regarding the overall safety relating to protection from electric shock. It should be an objective report following an evaluation of the risks. The report would be supplied to the client. The contract for the supply of the machine is between the client and the machine designer/builder.

Due to the sensitive nature of this work anyone engaged would be subject to a NDA. The work would be paid for as a fully professional service.

Please let me know if you need any more information at this stage.

Thank you for the clarification. I don’t think that this is within my area of competence.

I can see it becoming more of a philosophy problem that an actual technical one.

Why can I have a normal socket outlet in my bathroom in mainland Europe but not in the UK? The voltage is the same. The appliances I can plug into it are the same. There does not appear to be a higher accident rate.

Roger,

thanks for your response. I would add this is 100% technical! There is no philosophical element to this. Objective assessment against standards.

Have a great weekend.

Roger,

thanks for your response. I would add this is 100% technical! There is no philosophical element to this. Objective assessment against standards.

Have a great weekend.

I assume you do not have a Declaration of Conformity (DoC) to place the goods on the UK market? If so you want a UK test house to test the piece of machary against the appropropriate product standards. 

In respect of the socket outlet in your bathroom you can do this in the UK but you have to comply with the installtion standard which is BS 7671. Which incedently does not use the word bathroom but says a location containing a fixed bath or shower, so includes bedrooms.

John,

thanks for your message. Not sure where the reference to a bathroom socket came from - don't have any domestic wiring questions!!

The machine will be supplied by the machine designer/builder with a DOC under the supply of machinery regs. My concern however is that the machine has some very specific electric shock risks due to it's design. I am looking for a fully independent technical review of the designs to check a). compliance to standards and b) - more importantly, whether the design is considered safe by a 3rd party. I have formed my own opinions but would like a 3rd party to submit an appraisal.

I would add this is 100% technical! There is no philosophical element to this.

Ideally standards would make that possible, but often there's an amount of interpretation needed to make sense of the actual words. The likes of BS 7671 especially tend to specify what has to be achieved and leave the detail of how to achieve it open (so as not to discourage innovation) but the result is you often can't get a simple yes/no answer out of them. There was a major debate about a certain EV charge point a while ago - one set of experts claimed it complied with the appropriate standard, while another group insisted the opposite was true.

Some individual equipment standards seem not even to respect the normal standards of electrical safety - e.g. ones for lampholders or domestic toasters. So sometimes a good grounding in basic principles doesn't actually help either. It's an odd world.

   - Andy.