IEC 60601-1 Conformal Coating not an acceptable mitigation for creepage and clearance

T

Tkerrick

#1
Hello, I was told by a medical testing house that conformal coating is not an acceptable mitigation for creepage and clearance in 60601-1. I then asked for proof and so far there has been no response from the testing house. The customer I am working with says conformal coating is accepted as one level of protection. Please if someone knows the answer to this and where it is found in 60601-1, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks Tkerrick
 
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Marcelo

Inactive Registered Visitor
#2
Re: IEC 60601-1 Conformal Coating not an acceptable mitigation for creepage and clear

The explicit requirements depends on which edition of the standard you´re talking about.

For the second edition, this information is somewhat hidden: it´s on note three from the legend of figures 39 to 47 (the figures for creepage and clearance).

Please note that, for the coating to be accepted as insulation, you have to test to determine it´s equivalency to a foil of insulation material as described in the note.

In the third edition this is more obvious, as the same information is on item 8.9.4 on creepage and clearance.
 

Peter Selvey

Staff member
Super Moderator
#3
Re: IEC 60601-1 Conformal Coating not an acceptable mitigation for creepage and clear

The third edition (IEC 60601-1:2005) also has a range of tests to prove that any coating is sufficient under Clause 8.9.3. These tests are expected to be expensive so it is unlikely that they would be used much in practice. Given these tests exist, it seems reasonable that a test lab is wary of accepting coating in the 2nd edition.

At the same time, the third edition does allow substantially reduced distances so there would possibly be less need to prove coating is OK.

In my experience, many cases where coating is applied was when non-IEC 60601-1 (e.g. 950) power supplies are used and the manufacturer needs a quick fix to overcome the creepage shortfall. But under the 3rd edition, 950 power supplies are likely to be OK for many situations.
 
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