The problems does seem to be inside the case. The rear grille is ok.
The mac met the original statement and the revised one. Its the new addendum 1 that kills it.
Fnny thing is that this is a standard from 2010 that goes in effect march 2013...
http://www.tuv.com/en/greater_china/about_us_cn/regulations_standard_updates/latest_regulations_en/latest_regulation_content_en_118211.htmlI managed to find documentation of the changes. The problem with th mac fan is that it is large and heavy enough to fall in a cat iii now. There is no problem with safety from the OUTSIDE. Howevere, there is a problem with it on the inside. This is consideed a user access area. Since this fan is a class iii it needs a grillle on the inside too...
Funny thing is that the same document has a paragraph stating that, if the same area is accessed by a technician then no grille is required.
So if a mac user,that is not a technician, opens the case the fan fails safety. If a techie opens it , it doesn't ...
There is an equation that defines the category.
K= 6e-7 x m x r x r x N x N
Where m is mass in kilograms
R is radius
And N is the rotations per minute of the fan . So its mass times radius squared times rpm squared times 6e-7.
A class i is. (Rpm/1500)+(k/2400). If that number is less then 1 it is unlikely to cause pain or injury
A class ii is (rpm/2200)+(k/3600). If that number is less then 1 it is likely to cause pain but not injury.
A class 3 is anything that does not comply tih a i or a ii and thus likely to cause injusry.
A class i is allowed in an operator area. A class ii also but needs a warning label , a class iii needs a different warning label.
They also revised the 'test finger' and it is possible that the external grille now fails.
Fixing this would require a new fan with a new grille and appropriate warning labels.
The other issue is the safety of the ports. That apparently hinges on the power plug where apple uses their own iec plug. It fails the new pull strenth at hogh temp... Something that is easily solved by usong a different power cord. As for the ports on the front side. That has to do with the current limiters employed.
Its all kinda weird. Im willing to bet that a lot of other co puters will also fail the new specs. Just apple is making this public. They could alter the machine slightly but i think they prefer to wait until later this year when the new models will be introduced.
As for the problem with europe. Everyone there want to do something and it's a bit of a twit race. They all take off in a different direction. To give you an idea of the absurd situation they end up in.
Europe has ratified regulations for emissions from cell towers. Some countries find these don't go far enough so they declare tighter regulations. It goes beyond that. Some cities in some countries declare their own rules... So right now we have a situation in brussels that effectively blocks the deployment of 4g and lte wireless equipment. So here you have the capital of europe and they have to make do with slower wireless networks links than the farmtown nextdoor. Simply because everyone there does his own thing... Lets make a unified europe , but well have the english keep their pound, the danish have their exceptions and lets not put the french and the germans next to each other at the conference table... It will never work right... Not as long as they all pull in the same direction.
By the way ,these new rules are only for a specific group in europe. I believe there are two countries that are exempt from them... ( mandatory eye-roll) . It's a mess..
The new standard also has provisions for exploding cd or dvd disks ... I just found an. Interesting online condensed version :
http://www.slideshare.net/miraclejackhsu/introduce-iec-60950-1-2nd-ed-a1for-clientGo read for yourself