Do you know abt CE Mark on the electronic products?

Nothing at all anymore -- they're "faked" far too often.

CE == "Can't Enforce"

Cincinnati Electronics. ;-)

I almost went to work for them last year (FLIR camera development). I was #2 and #1 finally accepted. At least I don't live in Ohio anymore. ;-) Interesting company. No overtime allowed without special dispensation (no access on weekends). They confiscated cell phones if they had cameras in them, too.

"Joel Koltner" wrote

It means a load of bollocks. Just like ROHS, WEEE, REACH, ISO9000, UL and all the other crap.

CE means Can't Enforce.

John

Or Chinese Engineering :-)

I think one intent of CE was to protect European industry from imports. I guess they didn't expect that certain parties would buy reels of CE stickers and slap them on everything, while the locals did actual lab tests.

John

Not really. You can self-cert a lot these days. It's just that the locals can be sued if they screw that up while the guys in Outer Podunkia won't have a worry in the sky about that because it would hit the (local) dealers.

JL commented

What I noticed over the last 20 years, working in Europe, is that trade between EU countries is a helluva lot easier. Largely due to harmonising the standards. Manufacture / certify in the UK and sell in Germany - simplifies things a lot and reduces costs.

I am also glad to see the Euro and North American standards converging, well, as rapidly as such things can do. It's not really surprising that they are already similar as the laws of physics are the same on both sides of the Atlantic, but it's good to see the regulators agreeing.

My general feeling is that North American standards are more rigorous on safety and Euro ones are more sensible about actual engineering issues, such as RF interference. A blend of both would be good. And I also feel that consumer equipment is of a generally higher quality now than 20 years ago, because the large purchasers (Wal-Mart, governments etc) won't buy stuff if it doesn't have appropriate certification.

The US standards (as I understand things) exempt a lot more scientific and test equipment than the euros do, particularly from the RF stuff.

The US standards do generally require certified lab tests, whereas the CE stuff can be self-certified.

John

The US standards can be self-certified too, just that few have the resources to be certified to self-certify. ;-)

Joerg wrote

There is no enforcement of CE in Europe. Just put the sticker on everything ;)

In the UK, you can self certify RF immunity/emissions, and due diligence defence applies.

The only known exposures were done by competitors of somebody.

In practice, there is a wide margin to play with because any test setup will involve other equipment, which will contribute something anyway by itself. So it is very hard to prove that Item X was non-compliant X years ago when it was introduced.

Is there a list of things that you can self-certify in CE available somewhere online?

Yes... CAN be... the issue is liability. Europe is becoming more litigious, despite the difference in our suing laws (in the UK, if you lose, you generally pay the winner's fees, which tends to discourage trivial suits.) So your basic customer wants to see a piece of paper which allows them to pass the buck if there is a problem. More experienced retailers / users want a certificate from a third party. This seems to be because if they've been in biz for a few years, they've had their fingers burnt and are more wary.

I have heard that many European companies who made customised equipment or small production runs used the self-certification route, historically. And that's fine because if there is an insurance issue or legal fine from a fire or whatever they have declared they are responsible and will pay. But the markets are getting more paranoid, possibly because so many manufacturers have outsourced the actual manufacturing and are not properly controlling their component quality. Every time we hear tales of high profile fake products, capacitor plagues, and lithium ion batteries bought on the cheap that turn out to have no internal safety circuit, etc, the buyers are educated into realising that "quality" isn't just a tick on a box to pass the buck.

Oh yes, the other issue is that ultimately, directors of companies here are personally responsible for legal issues like electrocuting customers. They're increasingly nervous about signing self-certification documents as they see more prosecutions (rare, but they do happen). It's quite amusing seeing directors trying to get experienced engineering managers (ie, their juniors) to sign legal documents for them. "Actually I think you'll find I can't do that, it needs to be a legally recognised 'officer' of the company." Suddenly, paying for 3rd party certification is authorised... or at least hiring the use of a properly equipped EMC lab.

I take Peter's point about wide margins and difficulty in proving stuff. For one-off installations, going for large margins is probably the only practical way to go - especially if you're incorporating someone else's equipment, like a PC.

Over here, the perception is that American manufacturers of consumer goods just claim FCC compliance and slap a label on about *that*. The reality of course is that large, professional organisations on both sides of the pond take the rules deadly seriously whilst the start-ups don't have the funds and need to cut corners.

I have lots of opinions about China, but can't really speak on that with any great authority. 8)

The ides of doing a full CE series of certs for a niche scientific or test instrument is sort of absurd. That might cost more than all the profit you might expect to make, or certainly enough to make the product non-competitive with companies who don't do the testing.

John