Don’t be Misled: Know UL Certification Right

Don’t be Misled: Know UL Certification Right

Authored by Ravi Raj U Brand Head, Director – Sales & Support, NetRack

The Power of Standards

Certifying products within your business can have numerous advantages. It guarantees the safety and reliability of the products and also ensures brand loyalty and long-term business success. Standards not only help make lives more efficient, but they also help save them.

UL stands for Underwriter Laboratories, a third-party certification company that's been around since 1894. They certify products intending to make the world a safer place for both workers and consumers. Besides testing, they set industry standards to follow when innovating new products. Last year alone, about 14 billion products with the UL seal entered the global marketplace. In a nutshell, UL is a Safety Organization that sets industry-wide standards on new products. They continually check these products to ensure they're up to the standards. UL testing makes sure that all Components used will meet the necessary criteria and ensure that products are constructed correctly for the highest safety.

UL classifications

UL Product Certification is broadly classified as UL Listed and UL Recognized. While UL Recognition is for components and Sub Assembly, UL Listed is for complete product. UL Standards encompass UL's extensive safety research and scientific expertise. UL Listed is so much more recognizable to most people because it ensures the safety of consumer-ready products that go to market.

It is very clear that all the components used in UL Listed Product has to be UL Recognized, allowing the customer to get products with Global safety and Compliance standards. Below are a few tests conducted by UL for product Certification specific to the AV | Telecom Racks | PDU & IT Industry.

At Power Distribution Unit level

1.            Protective Bonding Test

2.            Dielectric test

3.            Grounding (earthing Continuity) test

4.            Impact test

5.            Drop test

6.            Stress Relief

7.            Humidity test

8.            Working Voltage measurement test

9.            Heating Test

10.          Touch Current test

11.          Electric Strength

12.          Abnormal Operation

13.          Overload test

At Rack level

1.            Limited short circuit test for grounding continuity

2.            Load test with rack tilted to 10֯ Inclination for different mounting options (Casters, levelers, Plinth)

3.            Horizontal Push force at 250 Newtons with Full Load

4.            Rack rotated in circular pattern 360֯ with Full load on castors

UL misconceptions

End customer needs to understand that UL certification is given for specific Model or Series of products and not for the Company, like ISO certifications. 

UL also works on tests for specific Criteria given by Customers such as Load Capacity Test, Ingress Protection Rating which is nowhere connected with UL Product Certification.

It is very unfortunate that sometimes owing to sales pressure; the OEM uses this specific Test Certificate and claims them as product certification. It is high time for Customers to understand and ask for the right online Certification Link to ensure that they are buying the right Quality Products, also the products should carry Below labels on Products with File No. 

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