Compliance & Precision News Round-Up - Issue 36

This issue covers:

Appliance safety failures face greater penalties
Sentinel safety testers guard against non compliance
Spotlight on HAL LED at Lux Live 2014
BEAMA concerns over UK smart meter report

Appliance safety failures face greater penalties

A coroner has called for more radical sanctions of electrical appliance safety breaches after faulty electrical equipment caused a UK house fire that killed one of the residents.

After the tragic fire in North London, investigators discovered that the blaze begin after sparks in the defrost timer of a Beko fridge freezer set the flammable casing alight. A safety recall notice for the product was subsequently issued by the company.

The coroner Andrew Walker accepted recommendations suggested by the London Fire Brigade and the Hertfordshire County Council Trading Standards, among which were calls for the first national online open database to enable consumers to view and report emerging safety problems with appliances.

The coroner also said that all fire brigades in the UK should be required to report all house fires started by white goods to Trading Standards. Retailers would be required to take contact details of anyone buying white goods in case of a recall. This information would be kept on record for ten years.

He also added that any white goods manufacturer caught breaking “failure to notify” duties would face greater punishment, including unlimited fines and up to two years imprisonment before a Crown Court.

Full story at www.telegraph.co.uk

Sentinel safety testers guard against non compliance

The new Sentinel series of bench-top hipot/flash testers from Clare delivers significant time and cost saving benefits for electronic product type testing applications.

The Sentinel 200, 500 and 501 electrical safety testers enable manufacturers to check their products in-house to ensure compliance with the relevant international technical conformance standards such as EN 60598, UL 1598, IEC and CSA C22.2 before being sent to third party test/approval houses. This can reduce time-to-market timescales - with associated cost savings.

The fast, safe and accurate testing of high voltages up to 5kV AC and 6kV DC is provided across the range while accurate testing up to 500 VA AC power output - allowing for 100mA tripping currents, a requirement in many standards - is available on the Sentinel 500 and 501 units. The latter also provides earth bond/insulation resistance testing.

The Sentinel series offers fully automatic testing and remote control, enabling up to 100 test conditions to be saved and recalled for single test purposes. For sequential testing requirements, manual test settings can be linked together to create up to 100 automatic test sequences, enabling simple recall for repeat testing.

Full details at www.seaward.co.uk/sentinel.

Spotlight on HAL LED at Lux Live 2014

The advanced HAL LED low power safety tester from Clare will be the focus of the company's display (Stand No. J42) at the Lux Live 2014 lighting exhibition (19-20th November, ExCel centre, London).

Aimed specifically at LED manufacturers, the tester provides power measurement with a resolution of 200mW. This high resolution, low power provides improved control of the output of products under test, ensuring that quality control aspects of a functional test are within acceptable limits.

End-of-line tests can be completed with the additional benefit of assessments to confirm product functionality. The HAL LED also enables users to meet the safety compliance requirements for standards, including BS EN 60598, covering the safety of lighting equipment such as lamp holders, lights and fluorescent light.

Also showing at Lux Live will be the New Sentinel 501, designed for type testing requirements and Clare's STM/L bench top tester, providing the complete suite of production line electrical safety tests, enabling compliance with the Lighting Association Code of Practice, the LIF recommendations and all relevant international technical conformance standards including EN 60598, UL 1598 and CSA C22.2. For more details visit www.clare.co.uk/HALLED

BEAMA concerns over UK smart meter report

BEAMA, the trade association for UK manufacturers of electrotechnical equipment, including equipment for the smart meter rollout and smart homes, has commented on the Government’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report on smart meters.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change’s (DECC) Smart Metering Implementation Programme requires energy suppliers to replace millions of meters in homes and small businesses with smart electricity and gas meters by 2020, with the mass roll out of smart meters due to start in late 2015.

One of the conclusions in the PAC report is that ‘evolving technology suggests that customers could receive the information on their smart phones, making the in-home display redundant’.

Howard Porter, BEAMA CEO, disagrees, saying: “Far from the in-home display being redundant before the Smart Meter Programme is rolled out, its functionality will continue to develop to play a key role in the future 'connected home', delivering savings and control to GB householders.

"The PAC is mistaken in believing that householders will be able to link their smart phone directly to their smart meter to view their energy data. A smart phone (or any other mobile device) is only the method of presenting the data - the phone screen acts in the same way as the in-home display (IHD) screen". Full story at www.voltimum.co.uk/articles