CE Certification

[BuffaloEngineer]

I was reading about CE certification, that it is done by self certification. Has anyone gone through this process? How extensive was the testing? I've started reading about it and I'm wondering which standards need to be certified and what documents we need to produce to verify our testing.

 

[canadaelk]

Been there, done that. Without any idea as to what kind of product you want to certify (toys, diapers, atomic reactors, wind-up clocks, .....). If it is an electronic product, you are primarily concerned with the safety (AC power supply) and EM and RF emission (into air and AC supply). Relevant standards documents should be available at your local technical university. E

 

[BuffaloEngineer]

Been there, done that. Without any idea as to what kind of product you want to certify (toys, diapers, atomic reactors, wind-up clocks, .....). If it is an electronic product, you are primarily concerned with the safety (AC power supply) and EM and RF emission (into air and AC supply). Relevant standards documents should be available at your local technical university. E

Ya, it's for an electronics device, battery powered. Do all electronic devices need the same standards for CE certification?

 

[dr pepper]

Yes I had to get involved in that back in the 90's when it first became a directive.
There were test houses then, however at the time you didnt have to use them, as you said you self certified.
Having had advice from a test house they said the amount of effort you put into the certification depends on the value and quantity of what you produce, the more you make quantity and money wise the more effort you put in.
I did some tests in house and compiled a technical file with my findings and also techniques I'd used to try and comply.
Its also good to use parts that are also CE marked (this depends on what parts you use of course), and document that you've used them within their spec to maintain compliance.
At the time it was a lot simpler if the device didnt have anything that operated over 150khz, I dont know if thats still the case, in fact in the 20 years since it might well be totally diffrent now.
Another thing that seems to have raised its head recently is Rohs, restriction of hazourdous substances, this sounds like a pain too.
One thing about being part of the Eu is that we get all this junk to adhere to.

 

[JimB]

One thing about being part of the Eu is that we get all this junk to adhere to.

Mmmm...
Lets consider that for a minute...

All that junk like minimising the spurious RF radiation from your equipment which can interfere with radio systems far and wide.

All that junk like filtering the mains so that your equipment does not send noise and spikes into the mains supply to cause problems who knows where.
And that nice mains filter stops noise a switching transients from affecting your equipment. Nothing like sitting in a meeting where gobby software guys were blaming the random failures and lock-ups of the computer on "spikes down the mains"

Funny thing the EU, we in the UK knock ourselves out with minutiae and trivia and blame it on "Brussels", yet something useful like the EMC Directive is ignored as much as possible. ie all the cheap electronic crap which we import from China where the mains filter components are just not fitted in an attempt to make it 50 pence cheaper.

Been there, done the EMC compliance thing, and it made some of our "iffy" equipment work reliably once the mains filtering was done correctly.

JimB

 

[dr pepper]

Agreed esp on imported items.
However loading small businesses down to the point they can no longer remain profitable cant be good.
Your right electronic gadgets are everywhere now, them all interfering with each other isnt exactly good either.
Mains filtering is just one aspect, esp if the case for the thing isnt conductive.
I'd better shut up now this is an electronics forum.

 

[BuffaloEngineer]

Agreed esp on imported items.
However loading small businesses down to the point they can no longer remain profitable cant be good.
Your right electronic gadgets are everywhere now, them all interfering with each other isnt exactly good either.
Mains filtering is just one aspect, esp if the case for the thing isnt conductive.
I'd better shut up now this is an electronics forum.

Well, we're making a battery powered BLE sensor device, so mains aren't our issue. The standards we're looking at are:

EN60950
EN 301
EN300
EN 50581

I'm trying to determine if that's everything we need.

 

[dr pepper]

I recall working to En336.
Classification is also down to you.
If you mean low power bluetooth then I can see that having more complications being a transmitter, at least its short range low power.
Demonstrating your system doesnt produce harmonics would be one avenue, another possibly is preventing and dealing with battery short circuits.