Seaward Shines In Testing At Lighting Company

One of the UK’s leading manufacturers of forged iron and solid brass lighting products is using the Clare Safetest Manufacturing/Luminaire (STM/L) digital electrical safety tester from Seaward to improve compliance testing during production at its Suffolk factory.

Jim Lawrence is a family-owned business, designing and producing a range of wall, pendant, spot and picture lights (Class I) for UK and international customers, which are available through its showroom in Hadleigh near Ipswich or online shop.

All products are rigorously tested in accordance with annex Q of the Luminaire Standard (BS EN 60598) as part of the company’s quality assurance guarantee.

In a move to further secure product quality, performance and reliability, Jim Lawrence is using four STM/L units at its manufacturing facility, where hundreds of handmade lighting units are produced and tested each week.

The STM/L performs 500V insulation tests using a DC test voltage, which can be used instead of a flash test when required, as well as completing earth bond, polarity and continuity and load and operation testing. And once testing is complete, a test and tag label is produced confirming the product has been fully tested and the results recorded and downloaded to a central database.

Using the STM/L enables Jim Lawrence to undertake fast and accurate automatic testing to ensure its products are safe to use after leaving the factory and avoid the risk of damage during the testing process in line with the company’s quality control programme.

The STM/L is an efficient, high performance instrument that records test results and ensures accurate testing is carried out in line with relevant product standards at all times, said Dick Kirk, technical manager at Jim Lawrence, who added:

“The STM/L is a good tester, which allows us to comply with the relevant standards and our own quality control programme.

“It’s comprehensive and robust, and has many easy-to-use and beneficial features like test and tag. It’s playing an important role in ensuring our products perform to the highest safety standards and is proving its worth on the production line.”

All Jim Lawrence’s test requirements can be pre-programmed into the easy-to-use STM/L using a QWERTY keypad and following the screen user instructions. All tests are individually user selectable and an internal memory has the capacity to store the results of 6,000 tests.

The instrument has been designed to meet the needs of manufacturers that require a range of safety tests to be carried out on a variety of electrical and electronic products.

Email sales@seaward.co.uk for more information.