Legal issues and Product Responsibility

[cboysen]

Hey!
 
So you love building amps - Some love what you build, and some even want to buy them. But is it safe, or are you about to set yourself up for potential disaster... ?

The laws in Europe roughly states that you are responsible for any damage to persons or items, caused by your amplifiers, if they are not CE-marked. They are not legal to sell, and even if they are, in worst case, you're be held accountable any way.

Getting your product CE-marked requires you to follow (among others) the harmonized standards of EMC, LVD, RoHS and WEE. One or more of these directives states that your product needs to be tested by an authorized laboratory. Lead-free solder needs to be sniffed, and paperwork needs to be filed. Overall a setback of 50.000$ or more. You'll also be hard pressed to find an insurance company to back up you and your beautiful, nice sounding, uncertified electronic creations. 

You can't stop idiots from opening up the amp and licking the power switch terminals from the inside, while the amp is plugged in. So if the once friendly, but now dead idiots mother sues you, how do you protect yourself from the potential million dollar lawsuit?  Do just hope for the best? Or do just not sell/give your amps to others?

What do you guys do, what are your thoughts on the matter?

Merry Christmas

Christian

[Lauri]

CE is not a certification, it's a declaration. It's not required to get your product tested by an authorized laboratory. For a lot of the stuff in EN 60065 standard it's easy to make sure your product is in accordance with it even without any expensive testing equipment. Some things there are almost impossible to test without access to fancy testing equipment but I think most guitar amp manufacturers do very little testing and just put the declaration of conformity in the manual and hope for the best.

I've read somewhere that you don't even need to test the EMC stuff in analog audio amplifiers as long as there's no oscillators running on over 10kHz frequency. So basically as long as there's no digital circuitry or switch mode power supplies there's no need to worry about it. 

To make sure you don't violate RoHS directive only buy components where the datasheet says it's RoHS compatible. It's hard to find components that aren't RoHS compatible and soon leaded solder won't be available for regular people to buy anymore.

None of this matters for hobbyist builders anyway. If you decide sell your amp make sure the buyer understands he is buying electronics junk and not a CE marked product.


 

[cboysen]

Thanks Lauri for the explanations

Sorry for putting things on the edge, but it seems to me many people aren't aware. And until recently I wasn't either. You'll find quite a few amp enthusiasts happily advertising and selling their products online or to friends, without knowing the potential consequences.

I stand corrected about it not being a certification, but even so, it's mandatory for any new product entering the European market to follow the directives for that particular product, and declaring that you have, by bearing the CE mark.

I thought it was a requirement for any product to bear the CE mark on the product of a least 5mm, keeping ratio - But you say that stamping the manual is sufficient?

I think the exemption is 9khz of internal switching. And now I may ask a fairly stupid question, but does that not include the AC signal of the amp? A guitar amp may very well exceed 9khz in harmonics if for example, using tubes with a broad bandwidth - But does that technically count as "switching"?

So to your best of knowledge, all it takes to get in accordance with the directives, and bear the CE mark, is to follow the EN 62368-1 (the updated version of 60065) and RoHS standard - Possibly WEE?

Kind regards
Christian

[Lauri]

I'm not an expert on any of this so don't take my word as gospel. Yes there needs to be CE mark on the product and also there probably needs to be lightning flash with arrowhead symbol to warn the user of dangerous voltages inside the device. Mains voltage and fuse size need to be marked on the amp as well. Manufacturers name or logo or something that makes it possible to identify who made the device needs to be somewhere visible too.

Your product needs to have a manual with declaration of conformity. The manual has to have specifications of the product like power consumption and all sorts warnings for the user not to do anything stupid.  You also need to have build documents like schematics, block diagrams, datasheets for components.

http://www.ce-marking.com/required-content-for-CE-marking-EC-declaration-of-conformity.html
LVD EN 60065 / EN 62368-1
EMC EN 55013, EN 61000-3-2, EN 61000-3-3, EN 50082-1I think these are the relevant standards for tube amplifiers but I'm not sure.

Most important things in the safety requirements are to protect user from mains voltage, and make sure nothing catches on fire. Safety ground needs to be able to withstand 25A for a minute. Double insulation is required for everything connected to mains voltage.

Put fuses on all secondary windings. Make sure either mains fuse or secondary fuse blows when you short things inside the amp, otherwise the device needs to be on 8 hours in the fault condition without catching on fire or becoming dangerous for the user. Don't have any sharp edges where it's easy for someone to cut themselves. Don't have any big holes like switchcraft jacks where it's easy to poke inside the amp with something and get shocked.

[pdf64]

Some good insight into this topic over at TAG a while back https://ampgarage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=28155

[jjasilli]

@pdf64  Great post!

[vampwizzard]

My background is in design/build medium voltage switchgear and mining power centers. I dont work for the company anymore so i feel ok talking about some of these things.

On standard gear you run into situations where a total custom build *should* meet all applicable standards for its install location. It has to meet all code. Most of the time on a one off custom piece of gear nobody cares but youre still liable if it screws up.

On mining gear everything gets inspected by Federal and State inspectors for conformance. Manuals for everything on the BOM. Operating manual for the overall gear. Every gear gets individual manufacturer, federal, and state serial numbers. Every time an identical design is manufactured it gets reinspected (but usually happens quicker).

It isn't hard to get a design UL approved.. Intertek and other companies provide this as a service. To get them to help you out is expensive.. you want to make sure you conform to every applicable standard already before they test it. Testing is expensive too, but if you really want to make a production run of amplifiers and create income, you need to be responsible. I'd get a good lawyer on retainer and get a PE to sign off on plans/documentation.

[cboysen]

Hi guys, I'm sorry for never getting back to you - I do appreciate all the help you provided, but I ultimately decided not to sell any amps, due to legal issues.

I think it's very important, no matter where you live, that you are aware of the legal repercussions that could make life troublesome for you, if one of your builds were to hurt someone.

Thank you for a great forum :)

kind regards Christian

[PRR]

So you are back?

> A guitar amp may very well exceed 9khz

My ignorant interpretation: they don't test with Eric or Neil on the axe. Even if they did there would only be occasional blips of >9kHz, not enough to sight-in on a meter. This is quite different from a power switcher or CPU which whines ALL the time.

[cboysen]

So you are back?

As you can see, I'm not the best at responding promtly, but I do visit the forum from time to time. You are all a great source of inspiration and knowledge. PRR, HotBluePlates, Sluckey and many other extremely educated people on this forum, has made it very easy to trouble shoot and become better at building and fixing electrical equipment.. So thank you :)

Slightly off topic.. Since making this topic , I actually quit medical school, after five years of doing something I ultimately didn't care for.  Now I'm about a year into the a 3½ year study in High Voltage Electronics, and loving every bit of it.

See you out there.

Kind regards
Christian

[shooter]

and loving every bit of it.

 
I got 6 weeks, then it's; here's the 140kv PS, don't do anything stupid 
Scary Sheeeet, does keep you "on your game"

[cboysen]

and loving every bit of it.

 
I got 6 weeks, then it's; here's the 140kv PS, don't do anything stupid 
Scary Sheeeet, does keep you "on your game"

Ohh congratulations!

And yeah, it's pretty marvelous and a slightly frightening amount of juice those stations put out ;)