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Participant

Join Date: Aug 2009
Posts: 1

Equipment Performance: Low Supply Voltage and UL Tests

10/28/2009 5:40 AM

Given an electonic/electrical piece of equipment. Say a refrigerator, copy machine or computer - with the voltage rating on the nameplate. It has 115V, at 15A and 60 hz. Do UL tests include how the equipment wil repond to a low voltage? Is the sample equipment listed above required to protect itself from a low voltage condition? Is the equipment required to be designed to say not catch fire? Assume the voltage is well below 80% of nominal and was caused by the serving utility during an extended brownout.

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Power-User
Engineering Fields - Electrical Engineering - New Member

Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Toronto - Picture from Lake Superior
Posts: 190
Good Answers: 6
#1

Re: Equipment Performance: Low Supply Voltage and UL Tests

10/28/2009 12:36 PM

Most standards require that electrical equipment be tested at both nominal and hi/lo line inputs (around 10% deviation). I'm not aware of any standard that tests at a 20% line drop. There is no requirement to "protect itself", but there are various tests to ensure the equipment does not catch fire.

There are however, requirements for the utilities to provide min/max levels of line voltage and I believe a 20% drop in the supply falls below that minimum.

Power-User

Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: NY
Posts: 348
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#2

Re: Equipment Performance: Low Supply Voltage and UL Tests

10/28/2009 6:44 PM

We performed UL testing on all our low voltage(<48V) products. Requirements were NORMAL operation from 85% to 110% of rated voltage and no permanent damage for voltages below 85% rated. Sorry, but I can't access UL spec docs to verify if these are the same limits for line (AC) appliances.

Power-User

Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: USA MD
Posts: 126
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#3

Re: Equipment Performance: Low Supply Voltage and UL Tests

10/29/2009 8:47 AM

It has been 20 years since I qualified equipment with UL and CSA, but I recall testing 110 VAC rating continuously at 85VAC and 130VAC (about +/- 20%). Their requirements could have changed over the years, but because they are more safety oriented than performance oriented, the equipment could fail, but not in a way which was unsafe (fire, live access, etc.). If you need more information, I suggest you check with the current standards that apply to your specific product.

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