Electrical things do not have to be listed by someone like UL. Some state and local governments may require UL (or something similar) as part of the fire and electrical code. The reason manufactures use approval services like UL is liability. Stores will often not sell things that are not listed because of liability concerns. Getting something listed shows the product was properly designed and has been tested by a qualified group of independent engineers to verify it meets the appropriate safety levels. When You connect to the grid then the power company has say in anything that can energies the power lines and they may require only listed devices.
David Kerzel Modulsar EV Power LLC -----Original Message----- From: EV [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Robert Bruninga via EV Sent: Wednesday, October 1, 2014 7:52 AM To: Electric Vehicle Discussion List Subject: [EVDL] Chinese inverters legality? You EV experimenters must have some facts here... Is it illegal to purchase, own or operate a non UL approved appliance? (Which?) (How do I prove it is OK)... We are trying to support a grass-roots solar panel idea for people in our church who don't have good sunny roofs or who don't have the money for a whole-house solar to at least buyin to solar in the form of a single panel and 250W inverter (ebay) that they can place in their front yard to show support for addressing climate change. We call it "SunFlowers"... See http://aprs.org/sunflowers.html But we cannot move on this until we resolve the legal issues. Since we are not "selling anything" but simply group-purchasing the solar panels and letting the individuals connect (and/or buy their own inverter) the two wires and plug it in, then who will prevent us (or sue us) for doing this? I am certain the utility will say it violates their terms of service., even though we will test each house and ASSURE that there is no backfeed and the house does present at least the minimum 250W load to assure there is no backfeed... But no utility would probably officially accept our testing... What if it was a licensed Electrician? Probably he would never approve a non UL appliance either... SO lets keep it at the UL appliance level. Is it ok to plug in a non UL approved appliance? And where does it say that? Bob, WB4aPR _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
