On Tue, Jan 31, 2006 at 04:18:07PM -0700, Bob Axtell wrote:
> I've consulted for a few big companies, and I've seen how important it is.
> 
> One of my clients makes a gadget that allows the customer to virtually 
> "sign"
> their receipt during a financial transaction. I was there when a lady 
> from Chicago
> insisted that she was electrically "shocked" by the pen portion of the 
> device.
> Working with my client's lawyers, it made my job very simple when I was able
> to show how impossible that was, and could generate a rebuttal deposition
> based on their UL approval of the product. The lawsuit was bogus- and 
> everybody
> knew it- but juries hold UL/CE in very high regard, and facing that, the 
> lady
> decided to take her lawsuit elsewhere.

Very scary alright.

> On the other hand, I was at the Comdex trade show about 12 years ago 
> when the
> FCC went down the  aisles fining companies who were selling PC peripherals
> without FCC  Compliance Stickers. The FCC can be BAD NEWS.

Definetely, and I'm already pretty sure some of my art would fail FCC
tests. My 8^2 Automaton has 64 stepper motors and pic chips in it,
totally unshielded, with dozens of feet of equally unshielded wire
connecting up the i2c interface... Also add in an equal number of feet
of power runs, using a total of 40A max... 

So under what circumstances must a product be FCC complient? Are there
minimum volume/sales exemptions of an kind?

> The problem is that the specs and the applicable designs change almost 
> daily.
> You have to keep up.

Sounds expensive overall, a big fixed cost for a very small operation
like me.

Might explain why I've *never* heard of anyone making UL certified
electronic art, no matter how big the budgets were... :)

-- 
pete@petertodd.ca http://www.petertodd.ca
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