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UL, CSA, LLC's ETC's

4/18/2003 1:48 PM
R.G.	UL, CSA, LLC's ETC's LLC's offer the same protection as a corporation, maybe more since they're new and the body of law on how to pierce the business to get to personal assets is not as established. The LLC was a long-established part of European law, only recently imported to the US. In both cases, the law provides that only the assets inside the entity can be at risk except in certain circumstances. The intent was clearly to provide shelter for personal assets. However, the legal arms race being what it is, almost all liability specialists are well booked in how to pierce the corporate or LLC veil. I recommend you read some of Jay Adkisson's information on asset protection for what is effective and what's not. You may also want to read "How to be Invisible" if you're concerned about these issues. UL certification is essentially worthless for liability protection. It's very, very good for what it's intended for: providing an independent check on whether your product is reasonably safe or not. In spite of the anecdotes about the pickiness of the UL tests, there are reasons for every single rule. In the case of the AC ground wire, yes, the AC ground wire from power jack to chassis *must* be green or green with a yellow stripe. If it's all yellow, you fail. The reason is that UL has this idea that products should be safe after being repaired from normal wear and tear, too. In this instance, a repairman working on the equipment might need to take the ground wire loose to fix it, and when he's buttoning it up, he can be certain that it's the AC safety ground wire if it's colored green. Likewise, the hot side of the AC line must be black (for death) and the neutral side must be white (for ...um... not death??) so there's an easily available code that does not require looking it up in a manual. (Note that UL is clearly derived from western culture; Some Asian cultures regard white as associated with death from the color of a funeral shroud.) The UL safety finger gets a lot of jokes too. The safety finger is a tapered nylon rod about 8" long with three bendable joints in it. It's used to poke into any opening in the product, and if the finger can touch any dangerous voltages with any possible combination of poke and bend, the product fails. The object - don't let people stick their fingers into places where they can get hurt. It's pretty reasonable when you think about it. Do YOU want to leave a hole in your chassis where an enquiring five-year-old can poke in his finger and die? We haven't even touched on European safety regulations. They're stricter. German restrictions (without picking on Germany; this is just one I happen to have run into) are interesting. Personal computers that are "black" are not really black. They are a very dark gray. The reason is that German culture also makes the association of black with death, and German law requires that workplaces not force people to work in oppressive conditions. Large areas of black or entirely black products are viewed by the agency as an oppressive condition. The degree of gray on those PC's is just the carefully measured amount lighter than black to make the edge of the German law. Ain't the world an interesting place? R.G.

4/18/2003 1:48 PM

R.G.

UL, CSA, LLC's ETC's

LLC's offer the same protection as a corporation, maybe more since they're new and the body of law on how to pierce the business to get to personal assets is not as established. The LLC was a long-established part of European law, only recently imported to the US.

In both cases, the law provides that only the assets inside the entity can be at risk except in certain circumstances. The intent was clearly to provide shelter for personal assets. However, the legal arms race being what it is, almost all liability specialists are well booked in how to pierce the corporate or LLC veil.

I recommend you read some of Jay Adkisson's information on asset protection for what is effective and what's not. You may also want to read "How to be Invisible" if you're concerned about these issues.

UL certification is essentially worthless for liability protection. It's very, very good for what it's intended for: providing an independent check on whether your product is reasonably safe or not.

In spite of the anecdotes about the pickiness of the UL tests, there are reasons for every single rule.

In the case of the AC ground wire, yes, the AC ground wire from power jack to chassis ***must*** be green or green with a yellow stripe. If it's all yellow, you fail. The reason is that UL has this idea that products should be safe after being repaired from normal wear and tear, too. In this instance, a repairman working on the equipment might need to take the ground wire loose to fix it, and when he's buttoning it up, he can be certain that it's the AC safety ground wire if it's colored green. Likewise, the hot side of the AC line must be black (for death) and the neutral side must be white (for ...um... not death??) so there's an easily available code that does not require looking it up in a manual. (Note that UL is clearly derived from western culture; Some Asian cultures regard white as associated with death from the color of a funeral shroud.)

The UL safety finger gets a lot of jokes too. The safety finger is a tapered nylon rod about 8" long with three bendable joints in it. It's used to poke into any opening in the product, and if the finger can touch any dangerous voltages with any possible combination of poke and bend, the product fails. The object - don't let people stick their fingers into places where they can get hurt. It's pretty reasonable when you think about it. Do YOU want to leave a hole in your chassis where an enquiring five-year-old can poke in his finger and die?

We haven't even touched on European safety regulations. They're stricter. German restrictions (without picking on Germany; this is just one I happen to have run into) are interesting. Personal computers that are "black" are not really black. They are a very dark gray. The reason is that German culture also makes the association of black with death, and German law requires that workplaces not force people to work in oppressive conditions. Large areas of black or entirely black products are viewed by the agency as an oppressive condition. The degree of gray on those PC's is just the carefully measured amount lighter than black to make the edge of the German law.

Ain't the world an interesting place?

R.G.

Replies:

Soren Yes that's all very interesting. T... -- 4/19/2003 10:49 PM