Raspberry Pi / CE marking in europe

[gregariz]

Looks like Raspberry Pi may have to be delayed until they get the mark - see todays news item

http://www.raspberrypi.org/

[slateraptor]

Oops.

[mikeselectricstuff]

..like anyone gives a shit about EMC compliance on a device like this.

[Bored@Work]

..like anyone gives a shit about EMC compliance on a device like this.

Apparently RS and Farnell.

[mikeselectricstuff]

..like anyone gives a shit about EMC compliance on a device like this.

Apparently RS and Farnell.

..who currently sell hundreds of other non-CE marked devboards.

[Bored@Work]

..who currently sell hundreds of other non-CE marked devboards.

Now we come to the point. Why did RS and Farnell suddenly found religion?

[8086]

I'd like to know why, too. It seems a bit random to decide that this one product needs to be CE certified...

[EEVblog]

Dev boards are/were exempt from that.
We never had to get the Altium boards certified for sale through Farnell or Digikey.

Dave.

[Rufus]

..like anyone gives a shit about EMC compliance on a device like this.

It is only a PCB layout mistake, they forgot to put CE on the silkscreen.

[mikeselectricstuff]

It could be argued that Rpi is not a devboard as it is a fully functional item, primarily intended to be used as such.
My guess is Farnell/RS got nervous because of the high volumes, orders of magnitude higher than any other devboard is going to sell.
The issue of approvals for devtools has always been a very grey area, and the low volumes mean nobody has bothered looking seriously at it.
Microchip wasted a lot of time many years ago making a CE compliant version of their Picmaster ICE,changing to cumbersome shielded cables & connectors that were a total pain to use. I doubt there was a single user that didn't discard the metal probe cases as soon as they came out of the box as they just got in the way.
It was utterly stupid as it was always going to be hanging off a prototype board.

An unfortunate consequence of RPi could be that once it appears on the radar of the beaurocrats it could open a can of worms that will become an unnecessary PITA for everyone.

RPi should have just done what everyone else does - stick a CE mark on it & say nothing, keeping it under the radar. 

[Psi]

CE, that means 'Chinese Export'   right? 

[G7PSK]

I read that the problem was the wrong ethernet socket was fitted by the manufacturers. The specification was for integrated magnetics but the board manufactures fitted one without and so there is no network connection.

[Rufus]

I read that the problem was the wrong ethernet socket was fitted by the manufacturers. The specification was for integrated magnetics but the board manufactures fitted one without and so there is no network connection.

"price much cheaper, much cheaper - why you no like?".

[Bored@Work]

I read that the problem was the wrong ethernet socket was fitted by the manufacturers.

That was the previous excuse. The current one is lack of CE mark.

[BravoV]

Why it smells like a spin doctor's job ?

[Dago]

Afaik you don't "get" a CE sign, you just put it there to affirm your device conforms to the standard. Or hope no one bothers to test it.

[Short Circuit]

Dev boards are/were exempt from that.
We never had to get the Altium boards certified for sale through Farnell or Digikey.

Maybe, but the marketing around Raspberry presents this board more like a tiny almost-ready-to-run 1080 mediaplayer without enclosure than as a dev board...
That and the intention to produce 10000's of them makes it an ordinary electronics device, subject to normal legislation.

Besides, a quick look at the EU EMC directive 2004/108/EC reveales only a few exceptions, and dev boards are not among those;

(c) radio equipment used by radio amateurs within the meaning of the Radio Regulations adopted in the framework of the Constitution and Convention of the ITU (2), unless the equipment is available commercially. Kits of components to be assembled by radio amateurs and commercial equipment modified by and for the use of radio amateurs are not regarded as commercially available equipment.
3. This Directive shall not apply to equipment the inherent nature of the physical characteristics of which is such that:
(a) it is incapable of generating or contributing to electromagnetic emissions which exceed a level allowing radio and telecommunication equipment and other equipment to operate as intended; and
(b) it will operate without unacceptable degradation in the presence of the electromagnetic disturbance normally consequent upon its intended use.

Afaik you don't "get" a CE sign, you just put it there to affirm your device conforms to the standard. Or hope no one bothers to test it.

Yes, but the manufacturer is still responsible. In this case that means Farnell and RS, so they have good reason to demand formal testing for CE compliance. When another (EU-based) company produces or imports a product and puts a CE label on it, then it's their problem if lack of 'real' CE compliance becomes an issue. So no reason for Farnell or RS to worry too much about it.

[Neilm]

Dev boards are/were exempt from that.
We never had to get the Altium boards certified for sale through Farnell or Digikey.

Maybe, but the marketing around Raspberry presents this board more like a tiny almost-ready-to-run 1080 mediaplayer without enclosure than as a dev board...
That and the intention to produce 10000's of them makes it an ordinary electronics device, subject to normal legislation.

Besides, a quick look at the EU EMC directive 2004/108/EC reveales only a few exceptions, and dev boards are not among those;

Were they in the directive that 2004/108/EC replaced?
Also, the possibility exists that those dev boards were either not sold in the EU, or were independently tested prior to sale. (or were sold illegally.)

Neil

[Short Circuit]

No, 89/336/EC has pretty much the same exemptions.
FFC15 has only exemption for homebuild stuff, but with the requirement to the builder to use good design practises.
Only exemption I can find is in the Australia EMC book;

• Test or educational electronic equipment—any
  product designed or adapted for the purpose of
  conducting any test, measurement or study of
  electromagnetic phenomena in an educational, training
  or research establishment.
• A prototype or product to be used for exhibition and
  demonstration purposes, for example, at trade fairs.

Nothing has to be illegally, the only hard requirement is to have a CE marking on the product, and a declaration of conformity.
Worst case scenario is that someone finds it not compliant and reports this to authorities, authorities take it as a relevant case (unlikely) and you end up with a recall and prohibition of further sales until the problem is resolved. No really big deal if you're talking about a lov-volume development board.

[gregariz]

RPi should have just done what everyone else does - stick a CE mark on it & say nothing, keeping it under the radar.

Any company (RS/Farnell) that has people who sit around and ponder the legality of a product is going to be a problem for a small company. I suspect if they had sold through someone like sparkfun it would of been straighforward. I wouldnt be surprised if this is a 3 or 6 month delay.

[westfw]

Makes you wonder just what constitutes "success" for a "charitable" non-profit entity...
More traditional charities eventually get published reports about how much of their "income" actually ends up at the charitable target, vs how much is absorbed by the organization itself for overhead, administration, and cost-of-fundraising.  I wonder how you'd compute something like that for Rasberry Pi, especially before they actually ship any product...  And I wonder what the numbers would look like.

[gregariz]

There's obviously some generous benefactors behind the scenes somewhere (maybe the benefits of being in Cambridge?). I guess the $25 price tag is driving the hype but I find it difficult to believe thats a break even number. I guess time will tell.

[Zad]

It isn't Raspberry Pi themselves who have dropped a clanger. Their product was fine in the format which they were originally selling, that of a development board. The problem came when Farnell and RS's marketing droids got their hands on it and went way over the top. Instantly it was mass-market, and they were selling to householders, students, anyone who had watched the news that week/month. At that point it stopped being a simple dev board for techies, and the CE legislation became applicable.

http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/878

Oh how I just love European legislation.

[westfw]

Huh?  The original target was "we're going to sell lots and lots of these to kids so that they can learn programming", was it not?  It's a pretty significant stretch to call that a "development board."  If they're lucky, they won't have to meet any even more stringent "educational product safety for <age-range> publicly funded schools" requiements (like, say, playground equipment.)

Arduino Uno has CE and FCC markings.  AFAIK, this was one of the things required to get it into retailers like Radio Shack...

I'm not saying it was intentionally omitted, but it's definitely something I'd expect a for-profit business to have thought of before having thousands of them built.  (And Farnell/RS aren't without blame as well.)

[gregariz]

Huh?  The original target was "we're going to sell lots and lots of these to kids so that they can learn programming", was it not? 

My understanding is that is correct but I believe that was to be the cased version which was always going to be CE tested. I thought the bare pcb was always intended only for developers.

Somewhere along the line someone has decided instead to sell the bare pcb to kids. Now they've taken so many pre-orders for the pcb they want to call it a finished product by getting CE testing. I'm having trouble believing that a bare pcb can really ever be a finished product. For one thing its going to get hot, the kids are going to spill stuff on it, its going to end up on the floor and they are going to be stepping on pin headers. I'd love to be in the returns department some months after they ship and see some of them.

I think the real solution is to make all these kids wait for the cased version.