Hard to find: list of deviations from harmonized standards - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: MichalPL
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2018, 07:04:05 pm
content: Hi,As everyone knows, the European Union has harmonized standards, which means that you can manufacture your device according to the standards published in any member state of the EU, so that it meets the criteria for CE marking, and then you cantheoreticallysell it in the whole of EU.However,member states are allowed to introduce their own, additional, more restrictive regulationsthat you have to meet before your product can be sold in a given country. Unfortunately, I've never found these summed up on a single website, which means that you have to manually analyze the laws of 27 member states, which seems quite impossible, especially given the language barrier and lack of ideas on where to look for such information.So I'd like to ask you if you happen to know such a page, or at least websites that point out the differences between the EU laws, and the local laws of your own country.Or, if you don't, let's try to write these differences out here, for the benefit of all of us.My knowledge in this area is limited, however I know that:1) There are differences between the EU member states in the exact allowed frequencies from the ISM band and percentage of time for which you can utilize the band.2) Some countries, like France, have much more stringent requirements on the maximum output RF power and that's why e.g. Wi-Fi routers in France must be limited to 10mW vs 100mW used in the rest of Europe.3) Some countries (France again? I'm not sure) forbid using encryption.4) Still others (Germany?) make it illegal to sell your product without an instruction manual written in their local language.Come on,let's work on such a reliable list together!As a side note, having to see all those animated icons above the text box while you type your post on the forum is very annoying, isn't it?

author: wilhe_jo
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2018, 11:03:14 pm
content: Well, you're talking radio... there is not such such like "harmonization" for radio... except the recommentations from cept... but every country has it's "own rules".Member states need to implement directives (at least the ones for CE marking) 1:1 in national law...there's that free-movement of goods... so there shouldn't be any differences.for the harmonized standards, it's different... there are some which are not accepted (read transformed to national ones) by some countries... but you'd know that if you'd do such products... however, a harmonized standard stays a harmonized standardinstructions need to be in a easy to understand language... so translation in the national language is somehow mandatory...btw. the same is true for your DoC... you should have them in all the different languages since your product has to be in line with the national laws (implementing the European Directives).the 2.4GHz band should be the same in the whole EU... 5G is different... that band was never really intended for such applications like WiFi.. hence you (should) see an exclamation mark (well for the RED it's more like an exclamation mark on a book.. seehttps://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/electrical-engineering/red-directive_en) on the rating plate and a detailed description about the usage in the manual...you may findhttps://www.efis.dkhelpful... but believe me, all that stuff will drive you at least half way crazy...for wifi there's the regulatory database of linux:https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/developers/regulatory/wireless-regdbthat document is pretty good!73

author: MichalPL
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2018, 09:27:26 pm
content: Please note that my intention wasn't narrowing down the issue to RF. Let's discuss other deviations from the general EU rules that we know of as well.

author: chris_leyson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2018, 10:05:36 pm
content: For EMC I am not aware of any deviations in the EN standards. For RF there are some restrictions in some countries possably due to existing band planning.

author: wilhe_jo
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 23, 2018, 11:15:35 am
content: Quote from: chris_leyson on July 22, 2018, 10:05:36 pmwell, there shouldn't be any... free movement of goods and stuff...I got aware of some LVD standards not adopted as an VDE standard (maybe some EMF standard???) some time ago - I cannot recall the number though...However, if you apply an harmonized standard, you're good as you have the presumtion of conformity for the whole EU market.But, in fact, in each memberstate, the national language version of the directive and (if available) of the harmonized standard needs to be followed...(both are usually somewhere mentioned in the national laws). This does bring up challanges since the translations are not perfect (how could they?).But we're talking very minor things... e.g sometimes the german translation calls for "immortal" rating plates instead of being just permanent... difficult to translate that back to english...73