British construction standards

[Brouilly]

If I was to build an amplifier and sell it as a consumer product, what sort of quality control expectations do I need to meet?

Is there some kind of standards organisation in Britain where you can be qualified to produce and sell products with potentially dangerous voltages in it (valve amplifier)?

Thanks

Charlie

 

[DF96]

You need to find out about the EU Low Voltage Directive. If there is any possibility of generating or receiving RF (i.e. almost any electronics, including audio), then the EMC Directive too. British Standards Institute is the UK body.

Alternatively, get a Chinese factory to make them and just ask them to place a CE sticker on the back.

 

[richie00boy]

Loads of regulations to read, fully understand and comply with. Expect to take about a year doing this plus at least a few hundred quid for a Saturday morning backhander set of EMC tests and electrical safety tests.

Start with BS EN 60065 and the Low Voltage Directive. And that's even before you start to think about quality control (which as a small producer is not really all that important).

 

[Brouilly]

Thanks for you replies. I am in no position, and have no intention at the moment to do this, but its something I feel I should know.

So thank you

Charlie

 

[Johnny2Bad]

With regard to CE, it's a self-certifying standard. In other words, it's CE compliant if the manufacturer says it is. As you might imagine, this leads to differing levels of testing and compliance (or non-compliance) but helps explain the numerous products built offshore with the sticker.

Electrical safety standards compliance is a whole other ball game ... you need to pay money, usually, and it has to meet specific tests, and then will be issued a certification number, typically. A "secret" of manufacturers can be found in why wall-warts are so popular ... the safety certification requirements are then laid upon the manufacturer of the wall wart, not you. That's probably not an option for a vacuum state power amplifier, however.

It is not unheard of for offshore made goods to use counterfeit electrical safety certification markings; sometimes a check of the certification number reveals it's non-existant, or was issued for some completely different device. Occasionally there's a report to a consumer protection agency and the importer then recalls the product, but for the most part they just sneak by with nobody the wiser. It might be useful at this point to point out if you buy a product from China direct, they have no obligation to meet your national electrical safety codes, and as for the recall ... well, you are the importer, so you are the one who is charged with determining it's suitability and safety. After the fire, hide the HiFi before the insurance investigator gets there, in other words.

In other words, that lamp you bought at Wall-Mart might not be as safe as you think it is ... it doesn't hurt to examine cheaply made products yourself and determine it's suitability as something other than an incendiary device before you plug it into the wall in your kid's bedroom.

RF emissions certification is also usually required, although it's not particularly difficult to pass these, especially for an audio frequency device without a switching power supply (if it does have a switching supply, see above ... *wall wart * cough * wall wart*) unless you build something with an antennae in it.

 

[DF96]

With regard to CE, it's a self-certifying standard. In other words, it's CE compliant if the manufacturer says it is.

I assume you said this tongue in cheek?

Or are you confusing CE compliance with CE stickers? A device is CE compliant if it satisfies the relevant Directives or standards. A device can be declared to be CE compliant if the manufacturer has documented reasons for genuinely believing it to be so. Anything less than this is fraud.

CE compliance is a matter of fact. CE compliance declaration is a matter of evidence. CE stickers can be a matter of fraud.

 

[Neutrality]

With regard to CE, it's a self-certifying standard. In other words, it's CE compliant if the manufacturer says it is.

Actually, you still have to meet certain standards for it to be CE compliant, but it is up to the manufacturer to make sure that it does live up to those.

Sure, the manufacturer can just slap a CE sticker on it and be done with it. However, as an example, if something bad happens, like a consumers house burning down/loss of life due to a short circuit in a product from said manufacturer and it is caused by a design descion that doesnt live up to the CE standards then what? The manufacturer will have a huge problem on his hands.

The earth isnt flat just because someone says so. The same goes for CE certification, it does not live up to the CE standards justt because the manufacturer says so.