The commercial power and electronics industry has seen massive innovations and changes over the past 30 years. Technology realization has allowed advancements in processes, product design complexity, process and quality analyzation, innovation, automation and testing. As a result of so much new technology, we have come to understand more safety implications for consumer goods and how to make better performing components to keep users safe and happy.
There are two defined and separate markets for electrical manufacturing components — certified & non-certified. Although many assume that because parts look the same that they are, there are important differences to understand when selecting components for a product.
What is a certified Component?
Component certification is derived primarily from a safety perspective. The reason for certifications in electronics came out of a need to protect humans from electrical shocks and other physical safety hazards. Governing agencies worldwide were receiving increasing reports of injury and death regarding safety hazards present in consumer devices causing shocks and physical harm and saw a direct need to implement authorities to govern creation of safe products for human user applications.
The Birth of Regulatory Bodies
Due to the need to enforce safe product design practices and develop a standard to ensure safety in end-user products, governments looked to engineers, scholars and other high knowledge sources in research and education to develop regulations and compliance standards. They mandated that every manufacturer must adhere to certain minimum component standards in order to be part of the commercial electronics industry. Otherwise, there would be legal consequences for not following the regulations.
CSA & UL
Today, regulatory agencies play a vital role in governing the mandated safety standards, creating new standards for tomorrows industry, and innovating the current ones. These bodies not only hold the databases of registered safe products, but also administrate the tests that analyze products against regulatory specifications inside custom built laboratories whether directly or through third party testing companies.
All registered certified electrical components have been tested and guaranteed to have certain performance characteristics that affect the end product safety and performance.
Parts & Components Certification Characteristics
Let’s look at some of the characteristics of components that matter to regulatory agencies when certifying a part;
Material Composition
The main difference between a certified part and a non-certified part lies in its material composition.
If we take a partially-insulated wire end terminal for instance, there is a metallic section and a nylon insulation surrounding it. Each of these materials could be made out of different metals or plastics and still be the same shape as well as pass electricity seemingly.
On closer analysis though, certification testers scientifically look at things like metal alloy composition – this has implications in circuit resistance values due to thickness and conductivity. Plating and corrosion resistance is tested for longevity of the part. Nylon plastic composition is determined for reliability to prevent cracking and unsafe conditions where the insulator fails to fully insulate against electricity leakage.
Physical Part Performance
Material Thickness
All certified electrical components have defined material thicknesses, tolerances and specs defined in their datasheet. This feature determines how well a terminal holds a wire for its specified gauge.
Metallic malleability
The quality of the metal aspect of a terminal or copper wire determines the ability of the manufacturer to meet the specifications for pull out force. Metal that is lower grade cannot bond well with the wire when press applied. How well a terminal holds a wire is standardized and rated in pounds.
Different regulatory agencies have different methods of testing pull force. One way is to apply the minimum tensile rating for a one minute duration and then release. This form is considered non-destructive. The other (and our preferred) method is shear force rating. This process takes the wire connection to its absolute limit and shows failure. If this result exceeds the minimum rating, it can be said that non destructively, it would hold the minimum even better.
Milivolt Drop
This aspect is more critical in sensing applications or where sensitive digital data is flowing along copper wire. When a terminal is applied to the end of a wire, if over applied, a condition can result where heat is created at the pinching point of the terminal during operation. This increases the resistance load on the circuit and can cause failures or wrong data transmission. This condition can also result from the use of the wrong gauge of terminal on a thicker wire. The metal is not thick enough to pass the full voltage onto the next component in line without causing resistance.
Uncertified terminals may not have low enough drop characteristics to be used in high performance digital products
Why Are There Uncertified Components Anyway?
Certification is needed for keeping users safe while using electronic devices. Not all types of products require certification depending on their application. Low voltage products like cars which use 12 volt systems or usb devices which use 5 volts, products are unsusceptible to electrical hazards and may not require certification.
Application is everything where certification is present.
Take Spiral wrap for instance. If we are wrapping the cat 5 cables of a server rack in the back, there is little to no risk of harm if we use an uncertified wrap. If we are wrapping wires inside a power panel that are crossing a gap with a hinge, there is a need to use certified wrap that is thick enough and strong enough to not let wires become caught inside the hinge. If a wire were to be caught, it could cause live voltage to leak from the circuit onto the device and cause a use shock.
There are huge cost differences between certified and non-certified components which needs to be considered when engineering a new product because there is no need to add cost to a product if certification is not needed.
As a rule of thumb, if a component is solely for aesthetics, a non-certified part usually suffices whereas if the component serves a mechanical or electrical role in the product for performance or protection reasons, certified components are a must.