I thought I would share some upcoming legislation changes regarding the CE mark for power supplies.
Currently the CE mark is applied to “embedded power supplies” (supplies installed in end-users equipment) that meet the Low Voltage Directive 2006/95/EC. Assurance of conformance is usually backed by compliance to EN60950-1.
Non-embedded units like external power adapters or DIN rail power supplies have to comply with the EMC Directive 2004/108/EC in addition to the Low Voltage Directive. Compliance is backed by testing to the immunity standards described in EN61000.
DC-DC converters that operate with a DC input of less than 75V were exempt from CE marking, a subject of my 2009 blog post.
On January 2nd, 2013, the CE legislation changes! In July 2011, the Recast RoHS Directive was published, and next year becomes enforceable. The six hazardous and restricted substances originally covered by RoHS remain the same, which is good for manufacturers.
Prior to the recast, this was applicable to 8 product categories:
- Large household appliances
- Small household appliances
- IT & Communications equipment
- Consumer equipment
- Lighting equipment
- Electrical & electronic tools
- Toys, leisure and sports equipment
- Automatic dispensers
Post recast, 5 more categories have been added (but not immediately):
| Medical devices | July 2014 |
| In-Vitro Diagnostic devices | July 2016 |
| Monitoring & Control Instruments | July 2014 |
| Industrial Monitoring & Control instruments | July 2017 |
| All other electrical & electronic equipment | July 2019 |
To apply a CE mark to a product, one must have proof of compliance available; it is insufficient to say, “to the best of our knowledge our products are compliant”. I have read articles in the press that random testing for RoHS compliance has uncovered that a large percentage of consumer products failed to meet the standard. By including RoHS into the CE mark gives the EU the ability to severely penalize importers of non-compliant product.
Power supply manufacturers are now updating their Declaration of Conformance documents (D of Cs) to include RoHS.
One other impact is that the previously exempt low voltage input DC-DC converters (<75VDC) will now have to have the CE mark applied to indicate compliance (just for the RoHS). This will not be a problem as most manufacturers have already converted their manufacturing over for current products.