“Failed safety means failed innovation.” it is a powerful sentence that I quoted from the CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of UL SOLUTIONS, one of biggest testing laboratory companies. Although the quoted sentence speaks in general, but it can also describe individually how important the electrical safety testing process is.
In general, Electrical Safety testing is performed to make sure the safeness of product’s electrical and installations. So, as this takes essential part in ensuring the product users, many certification bodies in all countries have been requiring this electrical safety test before issuing some compliance marks or certificates. Including Indonesia, DJID as the certification body for the telecommunication device certification has been requiring this kind of testing for its certification process.
In this short article, we will provide you some information regarding electrical safety testing in DJID certification process, kind of mandatory products for the testing process, testing environment and equipment, and testing items.
1. History of Electrical Safety Testing implementation for DJID certification process
In 2019, when the ministerial name was still KOMINFO [Ministry of Telecommunication and Informatics], SDPPI or recently DJID updated almost all technical standard regulations which also listed the Electrical Safety Requirement for the certification process [https://www.dimulti.id/blog/electrical-safety-testing-requirement-for-wireless-product-in-indonesia-would-it-be-applied-real-soon/].
When the updated regulations were issued, SDPPI still gave some grace periods before implementing the requirement of electrical safety in the certification process, it was to give the time for all available local test labs to prepare their capability and capacity to perform this test around the end of 2019.
2. Kinds of mandatory product for Electrical Safety Test
Not all products are applicable for the electric safety testing in DJID certification process, only the product which uses the following power supply that is mandatory to conduct electrical safety testing:
- direct AC powered products [television, refrigerator, washing machine, etc]
- using DC adapter as the main power supply [scanner, photo printer, electric fan, etc]
- operating with SELV[Separated Extra Low Voltage]
Usually, when we receive the testing inquiry from customers, we will check this power supply information first to determine if the electric safety testing is needed or not.
3. Testing Environments and Testing Items
The electrical safety test is performed in a designated room which is equipped with the following test equipment:
- Withstanding voltage/ Insulation resistance Tester: It is the equipment to provide some level of excessive voltage to the EUT or tested sample.
- Leakage Current Tester: It is the equipment to provide some level of current to the EUT or tested sample.
- Transformer slide: It is the additional testing equipment that helps to adjust the voltage and current level smoothly
- Thermo-hygrometer: It is to check the testing environment’s temperature and humidity
- Digital Power Meter: It is the measuring equipment that reads the testing results from the Withstanding voltage/ Insulation resistance Tester and the Leakage Current Tester.
4. Testing Items
The electrical safety testing process for DJID certification takes the reference from international standard IEC60950-1. Before starting the testing process, the test lab will classify the product class first based on the product’s electrical specification.
There are 2 product class are available for conducting Electrical Safet Test for DJID certification process:
- Product Class 1: it has the limit touch current 3.5mA for the product which uses grounding
- Product Class 2: it has the limit touch current 0.25mA for the product which doesn’t use grounding
After knowing about the testing standards and product classes, now we will explain the testing items to be done.
- Leaking current (touch current, protective conductor current)
This testing will use the normal voltage supply 240V to the sample then measure the leaking touch current from the sample surface and its grounding based on the limit for each product class. The leakage current tester will be set to conduct the touch current and protective conductor current. - Overvoltage (electrical strength)
This testing will use higher voltage supply from 1500V to 3000V depending on the insulation or the casing of the product to the sample to see if the product can withstand the overvoltage supply on part between power plug and output electrical port and between the power plug and samples surfaces.