Harold Hallikainen wrote:

>I have not been overly impressed with my workings with ETL. More often
>than not, they would test to the wrong standard. When there was a change
>in UL508A, they kept telling us we had to retest to the new spec, but our
>equipment was listed to UL508, not UL508A. The inspection guides the field
>inspector had were generally the wrong ones (several years out of date),
>so he'd write up a bunch of noncompliance reports. I understand they
>recently charged $16k to safety test a heat sink with two solid state
>relays, a couple chokes, four circuit breakers, and a terminal block. Of
>course, it was six months work...
>
>I've worked with some of their RF test engineers in their anechoic
>chamber, and that seemed to go ok.
>
>Anyway, on hipot, you are generally shorting the power input leads
>together, then applying the high voltage to those shorted leads and
>measuring leakage to the grounded case. So, as long as your circuit is
>isolated from the case, it should not be damaged.
>
>Good luck!
>
>Harold
>
>
>  
>
Hi Harold,
I tend to agree with you that big, beauraucratic, governmental-wanna-be 
agencies are not very impressive as a whole these days.  But, they've 
managed to make themselves seem necessary mostly due to the total lack 
of common sense in the general population.  And yes, $16K seems about 
right to test a product, but I find UL more of a 6 - 8 month ordeal.  
ETL has generally been 4 - 6 weeks.  I will put in a plug for their LEX 
noise testing facility though.  They are fast, efficient and 
knowledgable.  They will even call in the middle of a test if they find 
a problem with suggestions on how to remedy the problem.  That saves 
bucks in lab time and shipping.  And yes, the test unit passed all the 
hipot tests in the lab, it's just line testing every unit I've challenged.
Bill
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