What is the IEC 61549 Standard?
Up until recently there have been large grey areas surrounding shatterproof coating standards in the Shatterproof Lamp market. The IEC 61549 standard is the highest standard to which Shatterproof Lamps can be coated and has become the recognised industry standard for coated lamps.
The IEC 61549 standard has been introduced to set a production and product quality standard for Shatterproof Lamps, a market that until now has operated with little legislation surrounding actual production and quality standards of Shatterproof Lamps for fragmentation retention. The regulation has been introduced through BSI / IEC with input from the LCA (Lamp Coaters Association) of which The Greenstock Lamp Company is a founding member, helping to provide a benchmark of quality assurance and the production standards of lamps supplied into the shatterproof market. Whilst aspects of this new standard will not become a legal requirement for a few years, the standard has become recognised as best practice by standards auditors - and subsequently many end users.
Greenstock FEP coated lamps are suitable for all manufacturing environments where preventing contamination is of key importance. Using Greenstock FEP coated lamps can help towards achieving and maintaining stringent health and safety, tractability and hygiene regulations as well as global standards in production quality, which is being utilised now more than ever as a result of globalisation. The Greenstock Lamp Company has Independent Drop Test Reports to show their conformity to the IEC 61549 standard that are now available online. In addition to these drop test reports, there is a requirement for certain information to be displayed on each lamp. Shatterproof lamps, when viewed from the ground level, need to be marked in a way that would show they are suitable for that given application (open or enclosed fitting). This is stipulated by the IEC 61549 standard as shown below...
"4.2 Marking
4.2.1 Lamp Marking
Marking to identify the lamp as a fragment retention lamp shall be legibly and durably marked:
a) lamps suitable for open and enclosed luminaries shall be marked with one visible band/ring 3 mm minimum width applied around the lamp within 150mm of one lamp cap, or
b) lamps ONLY suitable for open luminaries shall be marked with two visible bands/rings 3mm minimum width and spaced between 3mm and 10mm apart applied around the same end ofthe lamp within 150mm of one lamp cap."
This showing the differential between the single and double banded tube, it is of upmost importance that it is understood that the single banded amps represents the FEP coated lamps which is the more superior of the two conforming to the IEC 61549 standard and is recognised by standard auditors as the best practise.
If you wish to find out more about this regulation you can visit http://www.iec.ch/.