IEC 60950-1 Has Been Replaced. What Does That Mean for Rubadue Products?

For many years, IEC 60950-1 and its UL equivalent, UL 60950-1, have served as the governing safety standards for Information Technology Equipment (ITE), or more simply put, consumer electronics and electronic components. As of December 20^th, 2020 though, IEC 60950-1 was replaced by IEC 62368-1 and UL 60950-1 was replaced by ANSI-UL 62368-1. The change was made to combine two very similar standards, IEC 60950-1 (ITE) and IEC 60065-1 (A/V devices), into a single safety standard. That standard is IEC 62368-1, which replaced both of those standards on December 20^th, 2020. ANSI-UL 62368-1 replaced UL 60950-1 and UL 60065-1 on that date as well.

Customers of Rubadue Wire will likely know that Rubadue has certifications to IEC 60950-1 and UL 60950-1 for our insulated winding wire products, and they may be wondering what the impact of the new standard will be for Rubadue Wire products. The short answer to that would be to say that there will most likely not be any impact at all.

On the IEC side, Rubadue’s existing VDE certifications for insulated winding wires already include certification to IEC 62368-1:2014. We are ready to support customers needing certification to IEC 62368-1 with our VDE approved products.

When it comes to UL certifications, however, Rubadue’s UL certifications will still reflect UL 60950-1 for some time, because UL has not yet incorporated ANSI-UL 62368-1 into UL Standard 2353. UL 2353 is UL’s safety standard for Single- and Multi- Layer Insulated Winding Wire, and UL certifies insulated winding wire products to that standard. Before manufacturers’ certifications to UL 2353 can be updated, UL needs to propose the necessary changes to incorporate ANSI-UL 62368 into that standard to the STP (Standards Technical Panel), the STP needs to vote to adopt the changes, and UL will need to publish the revised standard. That process will take months, possibly even years, to complete, and UL 60950-1 will remain active during that time, as far as insulated winding wire products are concerned. UL does not anticipate that UL 60950-1 will be retired before 2023.

So, what does that mean for customers who need to have their electronic devices and components certified to ANSI-UL 62368-1 in the interim? To put it simply, not much. The testing requirements for insulated winding wires in IEC 60950-1 and IEC 62368-1 are practically identical, meaning that existing OBJT2 listings can be updated to reflect certification to the new standard without additional testing. In the meantime, manufacturers’ OBJT2 listings to UL 60950-1 can still be found on UL’s website.  As such, we do not anticipate any impact to our customers’ ability to use our insulated winding wire products in their devices as a result of this standards change.

Questions about the contents of this article, Rubadue’s UL ad VDE certifications, or Rubadue’s insulated winding wire product offerings? Contact our knowledgeable sales and engineering teams to discuss your application at sales@rubadue.com or +1(970) 351-6100.