New IEC Standard Improves Fuseholder Fire Safety
The fuseholder standard IEC/EN 60127-6 has been revised to improve fire safety. Effective in October 2017, manufacturers of fuseholders will only be permitted to market products that have been tested and authorized in accordance with the updated standard. Schurter will offer its customers upgraded solutions by the deadline.
The first edition of the IEC standard (04/1994) focused on contact protection. Little attention was paid to fire safety. Therefore, unsupervised appliances such as coffee machines, dryers or high-speed heaters repeatedly caused fires. With the fourth edition of the household appliance standard IEC/EN 60335-1, the fire safety of these appliances was improved in May 2001 in that all components had to pass a glow-wire test. Now the requirements defined for the household appliance standard are also being applied to the fuseholder standard.
This has consequences for the manufacturers of fuseholders and appliance inlets with integrated fuseholders. They must test the glow-wire resistance of the used materials and replace the materials used with new glow-wire resistant material if need be. The transition period runs until the autumn 2017: beginning in October 2017 manufacturers may only supply products that have been authorized according to the new standard.
About 80 of the Schurter product types are affected by the updated standard. The company is in the process of converting the broad assortment of fuseholders and appliance inlets to fuseholders that meet the new requirements. Beginning no later than October 2017, Schurter guarantees that it will supply only products that have been approved according to the latest fuseholder standard. For an overview of the affected products we have made a website available that will provide information about the status of the compliance with the new standard.
Schurter's FPD4 meets the new requirements of IEC 60335-1 for appliances in unattended use (clause 30.2.3). This includes the enhanced requirements of glow wire tests according to IEC 60695-2-12 and -13. It is a vertical style fuseholder and meets standards IEC 60127-6, UL 4248-1, and CSA 22.2 no. 4248-1. It has approvals from VDE and UL and is intended for use in industrial electronics, household appliances and medical equipment.
