CE Safety Testing

Why to test for electrical safety?

Safety is an essential part of the CE Declaration for all electrical devices. EU sets standards outlining tests that must be conducted on a product before it’s considered safe for the consumer market. Electrical safety testing allows to protect consumers from a potentially fatal electric shock.

There are four main reasons why you should safety test your products prior to shipment:

1. Safety. Ensure that the product is not going to pose a hazard to the end user.
2. Quality. Detect workmanship defects and prevent faulty components from being installed.
3. Cost Control. Identify possible defects before production starts and avoid faulty components installation.
4. Liability. Prevent litigation due to deaths and injuries caused by product and to avoid product recall costs.

What kind of tests are performed?

The purpose of safety testing is to detect risks of electric shock, electrically-caused fire, injury caused by hazardous substances, mechanically-caused injury, thermally-caused injury and radiation-caused injury to consumers. Safety tests for battery operated devices include, for example, the following tests:

Heating tests under normal operating conditions.
Heating tests under single fault conditions.
Durability of markings.
Protection circuits for batteries provided within the equipment.
Lithium battery charging circuit tests.
Robustness tests for enclosure: steady force test, drop test, stress relief test.
The device markings and operating instructions check.
Checking of the approval information for safety critical components and fire classes.

Let us help you to meet the requirements

TESTiLABS offers safety testing for audio, visual, information and communication equipment according to IEC/EN 62368-1, IEC/EN 62368-3 and electrical test, measurement, industrial process control-equipment and laboratory equipment according to IEC/EN 61010-1 with US national differences.

IEC/EN 62368-1 covers a very wide range of products: mobile phones, PCs, tablets, IoT devices, audio players etc. Principle of the 62368-1 is to identify and classify possible hazards during normal, abnormal and single-fault operating conditions, and the safeguards that are applied to protect from hazards.

IEC 62368-3 applies to equipment intended to supply and receive operating power through communication cables or ports. One example is Power over Ethernet (PoE). PoE enables a single cable to provide both data connection and electric power to devices such as Wireless Access Points (WAPs), Internet Protocol (IP) cameras, and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phones.

Safety inspection and testing covers the sales package content of your product. So possible charger, cables and peripherals as well. If your product includes re-chargeable lithium batteries, they need to fulfill IEC 62133-2 standard.