Electrical equipment: a single standard for optimum safety
Audio amplifiers, electronic music devices, televisions, PCs, routers, servers, printers, cell phones, Bluetooth speakers, connected objects… Whether they are professionals or private individuals, billions of consumers are unaware of how dangerous the inappropriate use or failure of the objects they use every day can be. Overheated battery chargers causing fires, unstable plasma screens, excessive sound levels, electrocution… There are countless accidents in the home. In France, for example, 1,200 children are rushed to the emergency room every year after ingesting the lithium button batteries found in this type of electronic device.
NF EN 62368-1: guidelines for risk prevention
Since 2014, a voluntary standard has provided manufacturers with guidelines for preventing risks. The standard is NF EN 62368-1. Its exact title: “Security of audio, video, information and communication technology equipment”. And it just so happens that on December 20, 2020, it will become the only standard in force on the subject in Europe, replacing EN 60950-1, for information processing equipment, and EN 60065, for audio and video equipment.
This sleight of hand would be minor if we didn’t mention the following: applying the new standard opens the door to CE marking… and therefore to the possibility, for the manufacturer, of circulating his product on the European market. Applying standard NF EN 62368-1 gives presumption of conformity with three authoritative European directives: 2001/95 (general product safety), 2014/35 (low-voltage electrical equipment), 2014/53 (radioelectric equipment). In the past, this was also possible under EN 60950-1 and EN 60065, but with a single standard now in place, the process has been simplified.
NF EN 62368-1 kills two birds with one stone by including within its scope equipment covered by the two former IEC standards. What’s new is a new product testing protocol designed to guard against the risks associated with use and defects: risks of electric shock, electrical fire, chemical, mechanical, thermal and radiation hazards.
NF EN 62368-1: a standard ahead of its time
The standard also establishes a new classification of energy levels to which a user may be exposed, according to the degree of danger involved. Class 1 energy is ” non-dangerous but detectable “, Class 2 ” likely to cause pain ” and Class 3 “may cause injury “. ” The aim was also to produce a stable standard, independent of the innovations that emerge daily in this field, and a document that doesn’t need updating every time a new technology is brought to market,” stresses Bertrand Callens, of the Emitech group, and chairman of the AFNOR UF 108 standardization commission, which brings together the professionals who co-drafted the standard.
The number of manufacturers and the volume of products covered by this standard are considerable. It therefore took no less than six years to encourage manufacturers to modify their testing procedures and protocols. Those who applied the standard as soon as it was published in 2014 are now ready!
