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December 1998

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Subject:
From:
Don Vischulis <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
TechNet E-Mail Forum.
Date:
Thu, 10 Dec 1998 18:40:16 -0600
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Ed:

I've been involved with UL and UL796/UL94 for over 20 years, and I've had similar thoughts more than once.  To understand the problem, you need to understand the history.  UL was formed by a group of insurance companies to test products.  The purpose behind their testing was to protect the public safety (and incidentally to protect the insurance companies from excessive liability claims).  The performance requirements found in UL796 and UL94 were formulated during the infancy of the industry when black strap molasses was used as a plating additive, pyrophosphate and cyanide copper plating were mainstream plating processes, and copper often spontaneously separated from the boards.  The performance standards
were formulated to protect the public from well intentioned fabricators whose products could support flames or where circuitry failures could result in hazardous voltages.

Unfortunately, UL recognition has been legislated into the requirements for finished products for many governmental bodies - California, New York, and Pennsylvania for example (if memory serves) - covering the office machine and medical industries in particular.  It doesn't matter to these parties that the UL requirements are out of date and do not reflect the current state of the industry or that they test for items that are no longer quality problems.

Don't misunderstand me, many of the UL requirements (voltage isolation, leakage to ground, flammability testing, etc.) establish standards that protect consumers.  I, like you, am displeased at the cost charged to modify one line in a document with limited distribution, especially when the testing has been performed at the expense of a third party.  Driving past the UL headquarters in Northbrook is a demonstration of what happens when a not for profit institution is effectively granted a monopoly, but I don't have a good suggestion for an alternative to accomplish the necessary functions of UL at a reasonable cost.

Please remember that these opinions are mine, and they do not reflect the opinion of my employer.

Don Vischulis

Ed Cosper wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I would like to thank everyone for the responses and comments regarding my questions. I posted the question out of frustration stemming from a seemingly unending and apparantly uncontrolled  receipt of invoices from UL.
>
> You see, I am of the opinion that UL did a great job in the 60s selling the public on the idea that if you buy something without the UL lable your kids will burn to death in there beds. I still remember some of the TV commercials! However, in todays industry many if not most of the material suppliers have effective testing methods to insure there products are safe. I really doubt we need UL to tell us if our products are safe. I suspect we do it just because we always have.
>
> Companies have been paying UL to add already approved materials to their file for years at enourmous aggregate costs. At last check, it costs about $700.00 just to add an approved material via CCIL.  Sure we try to pass that costs on to the suppliers but sometime we cant. And besides, the suppliers have already paid UL to get the initial qualification and ratings. Now, apparenlty there are some instances where a sample submitted by a board manufacture fails and is resubmitted. However, so far I've learned in those cases that new samples were simply remade and resubmitted and passed without changing anything. Now if the samples passes the 2nd time and approval is granted the I must ask "whats the point".
>
> I am not saying that UL approval is not a good idea. Especially in new product and material designs. But I simply cannot justify the current costs associated with adding already approved materials to an already approved pcb manufacturing process.
>
> As I understand it currently the "only" requirement a board shop has to use the UL logo is stipulated by the supplier. Now I know this is probably much more complicated than I realize but what I would like to know why cant the board shops simply have a UL approved process ( since basically all the processes in the industry are the same ) and then the OEM simply require that UL approved material be used in the manufacture of their parts. The soldermask and laminate industries could get together and acquire product flamabilty rates for each mix of masks and material dielectrics. The board shops can then use any material currenlty listed in the Yellow UL book as long as the flammability requirements are met.
>
> I wonder how many people today really stop and look for the UL lable. I suspect price has the biggest influence over our purchases.  Therefore I ask another question, would the OEMs lose business opportunities if they decided to no longer require UL approvals and took on the responsibility of testing for safety internally.   They way I see OEMs hold the ball regarding just how much influence UL can assert over our companies. Maybe its time to rethink our current beliefs...
>
> Hmmm.... I bet this sounds simpler than it is but thats just my two cents.
>
> Thanks for listening.
>
> Ed Cosper
>
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