Posted By Ron Young Surely this product should be CE marked by an authorised agent. This website will assist. http://europa.eu.int/com...uide/document/chap07.pdf

Posted By Jane Blunt Dear Brian This equipment may well not come up to the standards required, but identifying it as having no earth is not the critical factor. There is a whole class of British equipment without an earth - known as Class 2 equipment. This has reinforced or secondary insulation. You can recognise it by the double box symbol and the fact that the flex is flattened (because it only contains two wires!). The earth pin on the plug is frequently plastic, and is necessary in order to operate the spring-loaded shutters that are fitted to the live and neutral sockets. Jane

Posted By Geoff Burt Without a full description its hard to visualise but how can you tell it is not double insulated? Modern metal kettles are double insulated but unless you know what you are looking at they don't appear to be. If you use a transformer to step down the voltage, the output winding will be centre tapped to earth - giving 55V on each leg and a much reduced risk. In fact it could well be safer than using a 240V equipment! Rather than throw it away just post it on to me. Geoff PS: By the way what is a bench top centifruge?

Posted By Geoff Burt In that case I don't need it - I've got a built in one already judging by the times I go round in circles. Geoff

Posted By Geoff Burt Come on Graham, even I know you couldn't get 100 Italians on a bench top.

Posted By Geoff Burt Also, my understanding is that CE marking is self certificated.

Posted By Geoff Burt Jim 'However you have to declare on the (self) certificate that the equipment is tested to a standard; with centrifuges this is IEC 1010 –1:2000 (General Requirements) and IEC 1010-2-20 Particular requirements for laboratory centrifuges. These are sitting on my desk at the moment and are about an inch thick. Additionally they then refer to (I estimate) 40-50 other standards which have to be ( I stress) understood. Briefly, to be competent in signing one of these is not a job for an amateur who has done a little PAT testing.' I don't think that was the intention Jim. The question was purely about electrical safety eg under the EWR to maintain equipment so as to avoid danger. I don't expect amy person who checks electrical safety to be au fait with all of the equipment standards being tested whether it be a centrifuge, an electric drill or whatever. What this thread does indicate is how easily it is to take H&S into depths which were unimagined when the question was being asked. Just where do we stop? Geoff Burt

Posted By Jim Walker Geoff, Where do we stop? Yes a difficult question. "Maintain to safe standard" as required by EWR assumes the machine was safe (via good design) in the first place. In other words you are looking for deterioration. The original question was one of aquisition of equipment designed for use is a very different environment. PA testing could not indicate a safe macine, in this instance. On the one hand I know from experience you cannot trust the CE mark as an indicator of a safe product. On the other hand it is impossible to be expert at everything. The only advice I can give is buy (in this case aquire)from reputable sources. Don't buy on cost alone - with the bean counters about, this is virtually impossible in itself. Remember what ol' John Ruskin had to say:" There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only, are this man’s lawful prey "

Posted By Jim Walker Geoff, They are pretty strict mainly for the reasons you suggest, they will sue anyone who gives them a chance. In the market we operate all equipment is third party certified otherwise it gets held up at customs, the Americans assume everything foreign is iffy and everything USA made is OK. There is a North American treaty (Canada /USA/Mexico) that allow each other’s standards to be used. We use CSA (Canadian standards) to get in, mainly because I “know” the requirements better than UL (USA std) and it is easier to get testing in the UK. The safety aspects applied are now very similar for all of our world markets, even China is specifying the EEC Medical Equipment directive requirements for their Blood banking Centrifuges. USA H&S at work law is far more prescriptive and their version of HSE are real fascists, however it wouldn’t take long for a UK H&S competent person long to gain competence as the principles are the same. The equipment safety standards traditionally veer towards fire risk, fewer deaths touching 115v than 240, but it is becoming more like ours. From a design point of view there is not much difference in the safety methods used, except the fusing is in the distribution board not the plug or the equipment. In a non-domestic situation there are about 10 power variants all which have their own plug & socket style. It is easier, in my experience, to modify UK stuff to sell there, than the other way around. In an USA home, the power is generally 115volts 5amps with a few 240v (two 115V phases essentially) up to 20 amp outlets (usually hard wired) for the washing machine etc. The first thing that is noticeable in an USA home is the absence of electric kettles.

Posted By Hilary Charlton What was the question? I think to get back on track that the question here is not are US standards higher or lower than UK standards, does it need earthing, what is CE marking, what is EMC and Low Voltage spex and so on, the question is "do you feel confident and competent to work with the equipment and allow your staff to do so?" if the answer is "no" which I strongly suspect, then dump it! Hilary