CE2

Models Currently Available:-

PHF001 - Motorola V & T Series

PHF002 - Sagem 920/930/3020

PHF003 - Sony J5/J6/J7

PHF004 - Sharp GX10/GX20

PHF005 - Nokia 3310

PHF006 - Nokia 7210

PHF007 - Nokia 5110

PHF008 - Siemens C34/C45

PHF009 - Philips C12/Savvy

PHF010 - Ericsson T28/T68

PHF011 - Ericsson T10/T18

A good starting point is to ask your supplier for the approval certificates, normally these would be two separate documents covering LVD and EMC testing.

Any reputable supplier should be able to provide copies of the certificate fairly readily even though they may chose to keep the factory information confidential. Unfortunately this is only a starting point since it is not unknown for factories to produce ‘golden samples’ in order to gain approval and then to supply a cheaper product to meet a lower price point. Also since many approvals are now done in Chinese testing labs there have been an increasing number of cases of phantom testing where official looking certificates can be gained without serious testing taking place. So what else can you do?

Fortunately you do not need to be an electronic engineer to make some fairly basic checks which can at least give you some reassurance about the status of your stock

1) Check the labelling of your product – all UK mains chargers should display the CE mark along with the square inside a square logo which denotes double insulation. In addition all approved products have to clearly show input and output specification along with a brand name or manufacturer’s name. This allows the product to be traced back to a particular supplier should anything go wrong.

2) Insulation – this one will require you to open the mains charger, but don’t worry it’s not too technical, but just make sure it’s unplugged! If you open the casing and look at the back of the pins where the wires connect the circuit board, it is important that the solder joints and wires are well insulated. This can be done by several methods, often with a piece of shrink tubing to cover the joint or a large blob of silicon. In the case of our own brand chargers a separate plastic plate completely covers the underside of the PCB. This kind of insulation means that should a voltage spike occur the circuit board remains protected. If there is no insulation at all you should seek further advice.

3) Flammability testing – this one is the fun one but you should make sure to try this outside since you can end up with lots of black smoke! The aim is to check whether the correct plastics have been used in the construction of the charger, since the approvals will call for flame retardant plastics for obvious reasons. All you need to do is to take the chargers apart and then apply a flame from a match or a lighter to the plastic part if the correct plastic has been used it will give off some smoke and probably melt but should not actually catch fire. Alternately if the plastics start to burn like a roman candle drop it in a bucket of water and you will know this is a fail.

NB Please just take care if you try the flammability test, it will be a good idea to have a bucket of water handy before you try this. If you do not feel confident to try any of these tests yourself by all means send us a sample of the charger that you have concerns about and we can check it for you.