Bring a product to market without certification?

[JamesG-J]

Hello!

I'm ready to bring my project to market and am trying to navigate the certification process. I'm in Canada, though looking to sell globally, and am aware of the standard approach to certification - I just don't have money and time.

My product is essentially just a low voltage power controller running custom software (raspberry pi controlling mosfets to 12V solenoids), and has already been tested on-site by my business partner / pseudo-first-customer. The only custom electronics I built were the power controller boards, using I2C GPIO expanders and mosfets, and a sensor board with more GPIO expanders and some pull-down resistors to measure simple open-close switch sensors.

In order to avoid having to certify this product I thought I could just swap out my custom boards for some off-the-shelf boards from a reputable source (like sparkfun), but in looking around I noticed that those boards don't seem to have any certifications either...

So now I'm wondering whether it is at all possible to avoid borrowing a few grand and getting the paperwork, and also how sparkfun and other kit builders are allowed to sell, perhaps because their products are 'educational'?

If anyone has any thoughts or has been in a similar situation before, any advice or ideas would be much appreciated!   

Also wondering if I can at least delay the process by selling 'engineering samples' or 'prototypes' while I get the certifications, then have my customers switch out the hardware once I have the paperwork in order...I'm selling to a pretty niche market so the volume should be pretty small at first - though, of course, this is not ideal for a lot of reasons including safety and hassle...

Maybe I can make the hardware open source and sell 'the assembled kit' until I have the money to certify...?

[ataradov]

What specific certifications you are looking for? If your product does not connect to mains and does not have any intentional radiators, you should be fine in most cases.

Also, worry about it when you get enough sales to justify it. Unless your product is actually dangerous enough that you are personally worried.

[JamesG-J]

Thanks for the quick reply, ataradov!

My main concern was with the CSA certification (general safety from electrical shock and fire), I thought that selling any electronics in Canada without that mandatory certification would be a bad idea.

The other one would be UL / testing by a NRTL for sales in the states...would I not be taking a big risk if I was exporting a product to the U.S. without that certification since it has to pass through customs?

The product will be installed in commercial facilities, so harder to pass through than a person product.

The only intentional radiator would be the raspberry pi, which is already certified.

The product does connect to mains but I'm using a certified power supply to convert to DC.

[ataradov]

Customs should not be a problem. But "commercial facilities" is key point here. For them to even consider your products, you would need certifications in place.

[JamesG-J]

Very interesting idea, blueskull!

The goal was to make the entire system very modular so the end user can buy different expansion 'cards' to control any number of inputs/outputs. So there was already a plan to have 'some assembly required'.

And the idea was to make most of the profit on the software as well, so this seems like a good way to go, at least until I can afford to certify everything properly.

Thank you both very much for your insights!

[penfold]

Hi,

Unfortunately in these situations, there is no get-out legally. The wording is very specific in its ambiguity for most "certification" routes, it is the end product in its intended application which you must certify.

I would urge you to avoid take any advice offered by anyone who doesn't know the exact nature of the product. There are no get-outs even for modularity, the certification of the RPi will be invalid when installed. If your product requires a RPi or a certain configuration of modules to be installed to work, that configuration must be certified.

Just what you're classifying as "commercial facilities" is most important, the rules are different for offices or factories, and if its permanently "installed" in the building you've got more considerations to add. UL testing isn't just one thing, there is a lot that goes into it and it is only valid for a limited number of use-cases and monumentally expensive if you want a "catch-all". It's worth getting some advice under non-disclosure agreement with an experienced engineer. Even speak to target customers and see what they're looking for in certifications, it'll have to get signed off at some point, if they have to do it, it might turn them off your product.

Max

[frozenfrogz]

Legally you are required to comply with RoHS / REACH / electro-magnetic testing standards / and various other things depending on the class of product - at least here in Europe. There is no exemption any longer for kits / modules /...

For Europe, you must include a certificate stating you are compliant with EU regulations. This includes a written statement of you, having taken into account all legal standards regarding the product class your product falls into (CE). Also, user manual, datasheet and the likes would most likely be mandatory.

You could go ahead, skip all the testing, simply assume your product is meeting all the requirements and "provide" the necessary paperwork that has to be present for the product. However, if for some reason your product actually is not meeting the required standards and someone will point that out, you might be in for quite some legal trouble.

My guess is, that similar laws apply to U.S., Canada, Japan, ...

For a very small run of products you might be good flying under the radar. I would not recommend that though.

[angrybird]

There is a lot of paperwork no matter what certification you are going for, and if you need EMI, ESD, etc this also means some costly days in an approved lab.  IMO, for some certifications, you are just paying the "compliance mafia", but that's just the way it is.

Products made in china and sold online seem to be exempt from all of these requirements, there are so many hazardous electrical devices still sold on Amazon even today, as an example.  There is still hope, however - In the USA, they have been agressively working to level this playing field and the American people area also making their own little war against all the chinese products sold online, so just push foward with this project and don't try to do something dishonest like the chinese guys, it always burns you in the end.

There is possibly an easy and honest way to avoid needing some certifications - Contracting directly for your customer.  In some countries, if you contract for the customer as a "consultant" or the like, and the customer has final sign-off on the product (i.e. you work with them to build their own specifications, and you build it to these specifications), you may be able to make the product on a per-customer basis and be excempt from some requirements, but this will vary with industry, country, and application.  There are and always will be numerous applications exempt from RoHS, EMI/EMC and safety certs, but it's up to you and your customer to determine what apply and be able to defend this decision if the braindead bureaucrats come sniffing around 

[SiliconWizard]

Thanks for the quick reply, ataradov!

My main concern was with the CSA certification (general safety from electrical shock and fire), I thought that selling any electronics in Canada without that mandatory certification would be a bad idea.

The other one would be UL / testing by a NRTL for sales in the states...would I not be taking a big risk if I was exporting a product to the U.S. without that certification since it has to pass through customs?

The product will be installed in commercial facilities, so harder to pass through than a person product.

The only intentional radiator would be the raspberry pi, which is already certified.

The product does connect to mains but I'm using a certified power supply to convert to DC.

From your short description above, I unfortunately doubt you can sell that without proper certification. You should probably start with contacting them: https://www.csagroup.org/
and see what they say. You will need to describe your product way more accurately than this before even getting a proper answer IMO.

As someone else said, the fact it contains parts that are "already certified" doesn't make your product, which is an assembly of all this that you will be held liable for, itself "certified". It may just help with the certification/testing process (sometimes only marginally!)

Regarding the process for CE mark, the same ideas prevail, but unless your product lies in a specific category that requires going through a notified body (such as medical devices), you can self-mark your product. Be aware that you are considered fully responsible for this: you can perfectly self-mark (with the appropriate declaration) a given product without any testing (so at very low cost), but in case something goes wrong in the field, you can get in a lot of trouble - because basically, a CE declaration of conformity implies that your product is compliant with the corresponding directives. If you haven't tested that it is, you'll have no way of proving it: which means you effectively signed a false declaration. The risk management is up to you, as so far, you will never get controlled randomly (for products that are not regulated), so the risk is there only if something goes wrong in the field. That may change in the future, although I doubt that as it would require way too much resource to be enforced.

One way to possibly circumvent this, as angrybird suggested, would be to put the burden of the certification/CE mark on the shoulders of your customer(s), in which case you would essentially be selling "spare parts". I doubt any customer would accept that though. Besides, some regulations may still apply, such as RoHS and the like (but this is relatively easy to document.)

[angrybird]

Generally speaking you can also protect yourself in the "self marking" case IF you can demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt (by documentation, reports, and at least a little bit of external certification assistance) that you have done your due diligence in conforming to the spec.  This does mean a lot of documentation but this combined with good business setup (in the states, you can start with a Limited Liability Company, for example) gives you a decent firewall against trouble.  I've never had any problems past EMC due to deviation from original/design setup or parameters, and this is solved easily enough.

In regards to UL certification, in many ways, these guys are the "certification mafia"...  You are paying to play, all of the work is up to you even when they "perform" the testing with one of their techs.  I am not at all discounting the value of an entity like UL, it's just that sometimes I think they have gone too far in the "profit" direction 

[SiliconWizard]

Generally speaking you can also protect yourself in the "self marking" case IF you can demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt (by documentation, reports, and at least a little bit of external certification assistance) that you have done your due diligence in conforming to the spec.  This does mean a lot of documentation but this combined with good business setup (in the states, you can start with a Limited Liability Company, for example) gives you a decent firewall against trouble.  I've never had any problems past EMC due to deviation from original/design setup or parameters, and this is solved easily enough.

Certainly, in case of trouble, anything you have done to document your product and assess its compliance will certainly be better than having done nothing. Just know that it may not be enough.

When you're only selling low-voltage devices, the risks are way lower usually, and as you mentioned, apart from possible EMC issues (which are rarely deadly), you take limited risks even if you haven't tested it thoroughly. But as soon as it's connected to mains, safety issues could obviously potentially lead to death, so that's a lot more risks.

In regards to UL certification, in many ways, these guys are the "certification mafia"...  You are paying to play, all of the work is up to you even when they "perform" the testing with one of their techs.  I am not at all discounting the value of an entity like UL, it's just that sometimes I think they have gone too far in the "profit" direction 

Well, all those certification bodies and testing labs cost an arm and a leg, especially for small companies.... that said, I have known a notified body and two big testing labs from relatively up close, and their operating expenses are way higher than you may think. But yeah, you will spend way more time on a given certification for your product than they will ever do - usually a few hours for them, sometimes months for you.

[JamesG-J]

Thanks for all the input everyone!!

I definitely do NOT want to try my luck flying under the radar, I'm trying to start a legitimate company here and have dealt with improper import/export paperwork at my old job (after a few times through secondary screening at customs they stop giving warnings and things start getting scary) - and I can only imagine that illegally selling uncertified electronics would be just as bad if not worse. There's also the morality of selling something to people that could potentially harm them - I don't sleep enough as is, don't need to be losing sleep over that too...

Was hoping to hear that I could use other peoples' modules to piggyback off their certifications but seems that's not the case (and does make sense, you can wire up other peoples' good designs incorrectly and still risk harming someone).

Even though it sucks to have to pay that much to play, seems like I'm going to have to do a round of fundraising to get this product certified (luckily I have a few people lined up to get in on the first round)...let's just hope I make it modular enough that this design can last a while!

I'm going to call CSA today and will post here if I get anything more than "you must certify with us" as a response.

Thanks again everyone for helping me out! First post on the EEVBlog forum and the community here is amazing! 

[Ground_Loop]

Thanks for the quick reply, ataradov!

My main concern was with the CSA certification (general safety from electrical shock and fire), I thought that selling any electronics in Canada without that mandatory certification would be a bad idea.

The other one would be UL / testing by a NRTL for sales in the states...would I not be taking a big risk if I was exporting a product to the U.S. without that certification since it has to pass through customs?

The product will be installed in commercial facilities, so harder to pass through than a person product.

The only intentional radiator would be the raspberry pi, which is already certified.

The product does connect to mains but I'm using a certified power supply to convert to DC.

I deal with import and export of electrical equipment in and out of US fairly often.  CBP couldn't care less about certification.  They just want the taxes and to ensure its not a bomb or drugs.  My inbound equipment is UL certified at final point of use by either UL directly or NRTL (TUV), if the customer requires it.  End user and local jurisdictions specify the required certifications.  I have never had emissions questioned.

I've dealt with CSA and it's a royal pain.  Fortunately, I've had competent consultants to get me through the process.

[splin]

Products made in china and sold online seem to be exempt from all of these requirements, there are so many hazardous electrical devices still sold on Amazon even today, as an example.

Cracking down on the really dangerous stuff would be good ... but

There is still hope, however - In the USA, they have been agressively working to level this playing field and the American people area also making their own little war against all the chinese products sold online, so just push foward with this project and don't try to do something dishonest like the chinese guys, it always burns you in the end.

I would hate that we reverted back to the bad old days pre-cheap Chinese goods. All those dirt cheap electronic modules including Arduino (clones!), sensor modules, relay boards, motor controllers, DC-DC convertors etc. ad infinitum have massively fuelled the 'maker' movement if not actaully created it. Without them we would be back to the position where you either made everything youself from scratch, or paid $50+ for the simplest module, assuming it was even available.

A significant part of that cost would be needed to cover certification and compliance given the resulting limited size of the market. $5 to $10 costs/item could easily multiply to $20 to $30 or more by the time distributer and retailer markups and sales tax/VAT are included.

Yes its totally unfair and it sucks that local manufacturers are put at such a massive competitive disadvantage to Chinese suppliers who have additional tax (typically no VAT) and shipping cost advantages. But the real problem is the excessive  regulatory burden imposed on small businesses. Of course safety is important but the emission requirements in particular are, in my opinion, almost totally pointless.

Yes there were cases of equipment being sold which caused severe interference to radio reception so regulation is good. But for a great deal of equipment and electronic modules almost nobody cares. It hardly matters if a set of electronic scales is 'noisy' given they are typically ony used for a few minutes at a time, but they can be fantastically useful on odd occasions. When they cost < $10 they are an easy purchase but if you had to pay $50+ for a fully compliant approved variety you likely wouldn't bother.

Same applies to an awful lot of stuff. Ultimately, cracking down on enforcing the regulations probably won't help small to medium local manfacurers much anyway. If forced, the Chinese suppliers will find ways to get very low cost domestic certification testing. I believe EMI certification is much cheaper in China anyway, but for low cost and/or lower volume products I expect they would respond with very low cost certification facilities providing as much 'certification' as justified for the type of product and its value, whilst being sufficient to cover regulatory controls in most export markets.

At the same time it would be just robust enough to cover any legal challenge that might be expected. Eg. smartphones etc. would get top of the line testing and certification. An automatic pet feeder would get the 'ecomomy' certification given that any domestic competition is likely to come from relatively small competitors with limited funding for legal action to prove that the Chinese certification was not up to standard.

To summarise, regulation is good up to a point but as always it seems to get ever more onerous over time as large
bodies of regulators have to continue to justify their salaries by perpetually changing and 'improving' the regulations. Cost benefit analyses be damned!

[Mr. Scram]

I'm under the impression a lot of products are sold without any real certification or with certifications borrowed from other products.

[ataradov]

Yes, I (and probably others) would be more inclined to actually advocate certifications if it was not a pure hell at a very high cost.

Most of the certifications are nothing but a way to extort money.

It would be nice if Chinese managed to organize something like PcbWay, but for certifications - cheap, heavily automated service.  And put all those greedy certification places out of business.

[floobydust]

Approvals and certification are a huge, fat industry, at least in North America. Because they have intimate knowledge of the standards and the expensive test equipment, and purport to have a government mandate.

Formal approvals are $10,000-$50,000 for testing to one safety standard. A Dilbert kind of company can spend over $100,000 if they can't get the it right and mess around.
Afterwards, it's $5,000 to re-open the file and make a small (component etc.) change, if you are lucky. $350/hr to talk to a certifier.
You get charged lab tech time, any estimates or quotations are meaningless because any findings mean extra time and charges beyond the quotation. Certifiers have $cash$ revenue targets to achieve, to make month-end. The projects that get closed, money brought in, it's all part of their scorecard as a revenue-driven industry under the guise of 'safety'.

It too bad approvals are so outrageously expensive- it kills any entrepreneurs/inventors from making and selling anything. Yet china sells unsafe products with no approvals, no liability, no morals.

I think the largest mistake is thinking certification is done after the product design, as a last step. This is totally incorrect. It's common for certification to have findings about a product, so you have to make changes to the pc board, components, firmware etc. which takes many weeks or months before you can re-submit for certification.

[angrybird]

Products made in china and sold online seem to be exempt from all of these requirements, there are so many hazardous electrical devices still sold on Amazon even today, as an example.

Cracking down on the really dangerous stuff would be good ... but

There is still hope, however - In the USA, they have been agressively working to level this playing field and the American people area also making their own little war against all the chinese products sold online, so just push foward with this project and don't try to do something dishonest like the chinese guys, it always burns you in the end.

I would hate that we reverted back to the bad old days pre-cheap Chinese goods. All those dirt cheap electronic modules including Arduino (clones!), sensor modules, relay boards, motor controllers, DC-DC c[.......................]ng and 'improving' the regulations. Cost benefit analyses be damned!

I understand what you are saying, and I totally agree that regulations cripple an industry, but I don't think I was clear enough on my point.  My point was that the playing field is not level.  People making the same products in the chinese are subject to massive restrictions and regulations while the chinese generally avoid them.  IMHO imported products should always be subject to more, not less regulations than domestically produced product in the same class.  This is how you keep your economy strong and keep money from flowing out of the borders.

This is what I meant when I said that America is doing something about it.  I believe that consumers are more conscious about this than they were even a few years ago, and this means the government is becoming more aware of it as well.  There is also a hilarious aspect to it - People taking matters into their own hands, buying chinese knockoff products they know are junk on amazon, opening them, observing them immedaitely malfunction break (as they were obviously going to do), then sending them back just so that they can leave a 1-star review with "verified purchase" next to it.  I had never even heard of this concept, and I can't believe how many people I've talked to in the past couple years who are doing some variant of this.  I would feel ashamed for this next one, but lots of people doing this too - Buying the cheap chinese knockoff tool online for a quick job on the house, using it and returning it when they are done with a 1 star review.  I don't know how common it is but I've seen quite a few people mention this tactic on other forums as well.  The bottom line is that everyone is becoming wise to the unlevel playing field and hopefully over the next couple years we see it leveled... finally!

[duak]

The playing field is also tipped in favor of corporations to keep competition out.  For the past 30 odd years, who do you suppose participated in writing & OK'ing many of the regulations?

When I designed for production I worked with our in-house safety approval people - one was ex-CSA.   It was easier to have something passed if the components used eg., relays, switches, fuses, etc. indiviually had agency approvals.  If the voltage was less than 42 VDC, it was far less exacting than above it.  If the product can be operated from a wall wart that contains all the hazardous voltages, you can really simplify things.

As far as EMI is concerned, you design something using certain rules and then you have it tested at a facility where it passes or fails.  It's important to decide where the product is intended to be used.  Home and medical are the tightest and industrial is less so.

Having looked at some CNC machines imported from China, the better vendors use European modules like Siemens or Telemechanique rather than from their indigenous suppliers.  Design, on the other hand violates many UL/CSA requirements such as adequate wire gauges and fusing of branch circuits.  eg., one machine has a 40 A, 3 pole breaker on the input power, and that's it.  The 18 ga branches are tapped off the mains bus without any current limiting devices whatsoever.  This thing would never pass inspection, and so it never was.  The same place has a 9000 CFM dust collector.  The local fire department inspected the facility and wrote them up because you cannot have a dust collector larger than 5000 CFM inside a building.  Here's why: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/abbotsford-fire-dust-explosion-1.3759400  The video is quite interesting.

Best o' luck,

[angrybird]

I have never had trouble passing any certification or compliance test.  I have to pay for it, just like the corporations do, and quite frankly for EMI and various compliance testing it takes me a lot less work and money to pass than a larger corporation.  The larger the company, the less "nimble and quick" they tend to be.
On the other hand, the china region products simply have no certification and this must change.  They must pay for the same certifications in the country they sell into that a person like you or I (or that corporation) would have to pay to.

It's funny, because not only do you get an uncertified product when you buy chinese, you also get junk.  Not to sound offensive to any chinese people on here but it just blows my mind again and again how warped their view of "good quality" is.  It's almost as if they have never seen a quality product before, but that can't be true, they copy quality products and turn them into disposable rubbish!  It defies all logic.  I honestly don't care as long as we start making them pay for the certs.

[ataradov]

Many American and European corporations actually get their FCC certification in India, where it is faster and cheaper. And if there was a team in India that actually worked on the product (as often the case), it is actually more convenient. So that theory does not work that well.

Also, I do get a lot of great stuff from China at the price point I like. American corporations all decided that things either need to last for 100 years and cost a lot, or don't exist. I don't care for my thing lasting long, but I want the price I like. And China delivers here. And that's why they successful.

[angrybird]

If you live a disposable life, I agree, china stuff works.  Personally, I like to ponder my purchases well and only buy something that will serve me for a very long time if I care for it.  This disqualifies 100% of items designed in china, and disqualifies many items manufactured in china.  Everyone has different needs.  I like to grow roots in places, care for the belongings that I am fortunate enough to have, and make them last as long as possible.  Some people like to live in tents!  That's cool too!

[ataradov]

It is not a "disposable life". Things improve over time and I more likely than not will want improved things. The most up to date oscilloscope  from 15 years ago is trash now compared to a cheap Rigol of today.

I'm selective with what I buy, but on average I'm very happy with the stuff I get from China. And I'm tankful that China exists and that they manage to make stuff affordable.

Also, quality of western stuff steadily goes down. And the "brand" itself will only get you that far.

[angrybird]

It is not a "disposable life". Things improve over time and I more likely than not will want improved things. The most up to date oscilloscope  from 15 years ago is trash now compared to a cheap Rigol of today.

I'm selective with what I buy, but on average I'm very happy with the stuff I get from China. And I'm tankful that China exists and that they manage to make stuff affordable.

Also, quality of western stuff steadily goes down. And the "brand" itself will only get you that far.

"The most up to date oscilloscope  from 15 years ago is trash now compared to a cheap Rigol of today." -> This is absolutely incorrect. A better statement would be "A high end Rigol outperforms a high end oscilloscope from 15 years ago".

That is great that the china stuff is affordable, but if you're like me and want something to serve you well for many years, it just isn't a workable solution.  I speak from experience as I do have the unfortunate experience of buying chinese tools when in a rush and the fastest option is Amazon prime.  I'm amazed at how quickly even a "high end"chinese tool can fail.

I agree that western quality is going down, because they are forced to compete with chinese products being sold on an unlevel playing field to uninformed consumers.  A majority (or all?) of those western brands whose quality is going down are manufacturing in places like china.

[radioactive]

I agree that western quality is going down, because they are forced to compete with chinese products being sold on an unlevel playing field to uninformed consumers.  A majority (or all?) of those western brands whose quality is going down are manufacturing in places like china.

If western quality is diminishing, it isn't because of China.  If anything, it is because investors have determined that they can get better short term gains by forcing MBA types to make decisions by proxy that should be made by the engineers doing the work.  Chinese quality has been going up for many years now and has become very good for many areas related to manufacturing/engineering/design.  Short term strategies for profit only work for so long.