HiTek Power can provide Rapid Indicative RoHS Compliance Testing -
click here for more information.
OVERVIEW
The requirements for product compliance are continually and rapidly evolving; so placing an increasing challenge on companies to respond in a professional and timely manner to the new and often complex issues being raised. These changes are taking place world-wide; a typical example of this trend is the RoHS Directive which originally started off as a European Directive, but is now being adopted (sometimes with amendments) by other countries (significantly China and Korea in the Far East and the USA) as environmental awareness spreads throughout the world.
Without question, failure to respond effectively to these changes can lead to severe penalties, both commercially and financially.
Acknowledging the increased importance and change associated with product compliance, HiTek Power has responded by committing increased resources (both personnel and financial) to enhance the company's compliance conformance processes.
INTRODUCTION TO THE COMPLIANCE FUNCTION
The Compliance Function at HiTek Power is responsible for:
- Ensuring products meet current legislation
- Ensuring products meet customer specified standards and approvals
- Maintaining awareness of proposed forthcoming legislation and Directives
- Providing advice and guidance on a day to day basis and at more formal occasions such as project meetings, design reviews and presentations
- Supporting HiTek Power products during off site third party testing
- Creating and maintaining technical files
The Compliance Function is a signatory on the Engineering Change System, the release of new drawings and has representation on all projects at both regular meetings and the more formal design reviews.
The key areas of responsibility are described in more detail below and include the following:
Safety
EMC
RoHS and WEEE
Reliability and Product Validation
Packaging
SAFETY
HiTek Power is committed to ensuring that its products meet or exceed all relevant safety standards and legislation.
Due to the high voltages and currents available from the output of a high voltage power supply, HiTek Power takes its responsibility for product safety very seriously. To that end there are rules that specify the minimum requirements for the safe design of HiTek Power products enshrined within the Engineering Procedures Manual. Deviation from these rules can only be allowed after agreement from a formal design review where the impact on safety will be ascertained. To supplement the minimum safety design requirements there is a series of in-house guidance notes, written by members of the Compliance team, which cover all aspects regarding the safety design of equipment.
All HiTek Power products are subject to a comprehensive in-house safety assessment to ensure that they meet the requirements of the appropriate safety standards so that they can be CE Marked for compliance to the Low Voltage Directive. The default safety standard is EN61010-1, with other products being assessed to EN60950 or EN60601-1 as appropriate. Testing follows the requirements of the appropriate safety standard which also includes a detailed and comprehensive single fault analysis.
For each product a detailed safety technical file is created. This file generally consists of a safety checklist (using the template used by test houses), a safety assessment report (which provides further information about the product along with results and tests) and a supplementary information folder (which contains data sheets etc). From the test reports a safety critical components list is generated. These components dictate the "safety build" of the product and cannot be changed without agreement from the Compliance Function.
Upon request copies of the safety checklist and safety assessment report can be made available to customers.
To ensure integrity of the in-house safety assessment processes and procedures, a sample from new products, that will form the base unit of a wide range of variants, is sent for independent safety testing at a third party test house.
All factored products sold by HiTek Power (for which HiTek Power has neither design nor manufacturing responsibility) are subject to review before they are offered for sale to ensure that all safety certifications are in place and that any third party safety certification markings (UL, TUV etc) can be validated. During the lifetime of the product, checks are also made to ensure that the safety certifications remain valid and current.
Upon satisfactory completion of the review the factored products are considered to comply with the requirements of the Low Voltage Directive.
Copies of safety certificates and D of Cs are available to customers upon request.
One area of growing concern is the flammability rating of plastic materials. Often the customer demand and expectation exceeds the requirement that satisfies the safety standards, particularly in applications where smoke contamination can cause significant down time and loss of processed material. Consequently HiTek Power endeavours to use, at every possible opportunity, plastic material that passes the most stringent flame retardancy tests and whose flammability rating can be verified from the UL website via its UL file number.
Another area of growing expertise is the approval of power supplies to medical safety standards (EN60601-1). HiTek Power has successfully collaborated with companies and test houses introducing new products to the market place.
The Compliance Function closely supports any customer wishing to place a current HiTek Power product through a test house for safety approval marking. This involves supplying appropriate data/information through to helping, supporting and witnessing during fault testing, either at the customer's premises or at the test house.
 |
|
PHOTOGRAPH SHOWING DC MODULE
UNDERGOING THERMAL EVALUATION AS PART OF THE SAFETY ASSESSMENT
|
EMC
To support HiTek Power’s commitment to EMC testing significant investment has recently been made to update current EMC equipment and purchase new EMC equipment for pre-compliance EMC testing. Special emphasis has been placed on the control of mains borne emissions and susceptibility. The equipment allows the testing of both single and three phase equipment as well as dc input equipment.
Typically we have the capability to test to the following standards:
a)
Emissions
Conducted emissions in the range 150kHz to 30MHz (CISPR 16)
Radiated emissions in the range 30MHz to 1000MHz (CISPR 16)
Low frequency harmonics up to 2kHz (EN61000-3-2)
b)
Immunity
ESD to EN61000-4-2
Fast transients on input and signal lines to EN61000-4-4
Surges to EN61000-4-5
Voltage dips / interruptions to EN61000-4-11 and SEMI F47
Some units, which form the base unit for a wide range of variants, are sent to a third party test house for independent EMC testing. Where possible these results are used to validate the in-house results obtained.
For each product an EMC technical file is created. This file consists of measured results along with recommendations to ensure EMC compliance (e.g. precautions to take with wire routing etc).
All measurements are made available for customers and HiTek Power will support customers as they submit their product for formal EMC testing.
ROHS & WEEE
For further information please
Click here
RELIABILITY AND PRODUCT VALIDATION
Customers demand and expect high reliability from HiTek Power products. To satisfy this requirement HiTek Power has developed its own set of derating guidelines enshrined within the Engineering Procedures Manual which specify the maximum stress (current, voltage, power) that components are allowed to experience.
When embarking on a new design HiTek Power can incorporate a customer’s derating guidelines if required.
Traditionally HiTek Power products incorporate a variety of protection circuits to prevent unnecessary damage to the power supply if operated under abnormal conditions. Typically these protection circuits include continuous current limiting, controlled short circuit performance under high voltage arc down conditions, over temperature protection, over voltage protection and fan fail.
HiTek Power uses MIL HDBK 217 reliability software to perform reliability modelling on selected power supplies.
By contractual agreement the Engineering Function can provide a detailed stress analysis for a product.
To assess product robustness it can be subjected to operation at elevated temperatures (above rated ambient), elevated humidity, all under output overload conditions, typically 120% of rated output with different input voltage values. This can determine failure limits and overhead margins for a product.
 |
|
ENVIRONMENTAL CHAMBER USED FOR RELIABILITY TESTING OF PRODUCT TO A DEFINED TEST REGIME
|
PACKAGING
To ensure products arrive in good condition the integrity of the packaging is tested (with the power supply enclosed) according to ISTA 2A tests. This simulates likely conditions that the packaging will encounter during transportation. The testing regime includes:
a) Environmental conditioning (to simulate hot and damp storage conditions)
b) Compression tests (to simulate boxes stacked on top of each other)
c) Vibration tests (to simulate transport in a plane, delivery truck etc)
d) Shock tests (to simulate product being dropped)
For some units shock tests are performed in-house as a means of proving the integrity of the packaging where, typically, the packaged power supply is dropped onto a concrete floor from a height dictated by the weight of the power supply. Corners, edges and faces are tested.
TYPICAL PHOTOS ARE SHOWN BELOW (photographs reproduced courtesy of TUV Product Services, Fareham, UK)
 |
|
PHOTOGRAPH SHOWING COMPRESSION TEST
|
 |
 |
|
PHOTOGRAPHS SHOWING VIBRATION TEST
|
 |
|
PHOTOGRAPH SHOWING SHOCK TEST
|
OTHERS
1) SAMPLE APPROVAL PROCESS
The Compliance Function is involved in the sample approval process for alternative components and material. This process spans many of the Functions and requires input from different disciplines. This ensures that alternative components are fully tested, meet the required specifications and approvals before being granted permission for use.
2) EuP
The Compliance Function is monitoring developments with this new Directive and assessing its relevance to the HiTek Power product range.
Guidance will be provided to staff members once the EuP Directive has been analysed and its relevance to HiTek Power understood.
For further information about the Compliance Function and the services it can offer at HiTek Power please contact:
Jeff Edwards, Director of Quality and Compliance