Are Adapter Plugs Tested for Touch Current

Eamon

Involved In Discussions
#1
Hello.

I am in the process of preliminary safety review of a device with an internal battery that will be charged from a charging adapter.

Three of our previous products have passed external 60601-1 safety certification review with Class II AC adapters terminating in a typical AC adapter connector, which has an accessible metal barrel connected to the negative adapter output. The adapters have all been switchers, with listings for 60601-1 for their isolation MOPs, but with leakage current from secondary to ground exceeding 100 microamps, presumably due to Y-capacitors for EMC.

In other words, our testing lab did not test the adapter plug barrel for enclosure leakage / touch current. If they had, we would have failed.

So I'm trying to figure out whether we got a free ride, or whether there is a good rationale for exempting connectors like this from testing. If there is no good rationale, I will think twice about using a connector like this with an adapter that exceeds the 60601-1 leakage limit.

Does anyone else have experience with the question of whether adapter plugs might get exempted from enclosure leakage / touch current testing, and if so, by what rationale?

Best regards,

Eamon Egan
 
Last edited:
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Marc

Hunkered Down for the Duration with a Mask on...
Staff member
Admin
#2
Just a quick "Bump" in case someone can help with this one. My Thanks in advance!
 

Roland chung

Trusted Information Resource
#3
This is a common issue and a CTL decision (sheet 404) has been made to allow such configuration, quoted as follows:
Question:
In practice, many standard SIP/SOPs are constructed so that live parts of the SIP/SOPs are accessible with the standard test finger or, alternatively, the air clearances and/or creepage distances between these live parts and the standard test finger are too short. This means that
these live parts of SIP/SOPs are to be considered as part of the enclosure and therefore the corresponding enclosure leakage currents shall be measured, and hence, many existing standard SIP/SOPs fail to comply with the standard.
Should, for instance, concession be granted for SIP/SOPs with accessible live parts with a voltage (to earth) not exceeding 25V AC or 60V DC?

Decision:
Include SIP/SOP in the list of sub-clause 16e)1.
Instructions for use must contain the warning given in 16a)5.
 

Peter Selvey

Staff member
Super Moderator
#4
It is definitely the free ride scenario.

Unfortunately, there is wide spread black box approach to measuring leakage currents, where test labs get in the grove of measuring "enclosure leakage" from foil around the enclosure in some arbitrary place, taking hundreds of meaningless measurements, while missing the one point where leakage actually comes from.

Leakage currents should be the result of inspection of circuit and design to identify points of measurement (i.e. white box testing).
 
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