Standards Development

Scope

This clause of Part 1 is replaced by the following:

This document applies to automatic thermo-electro-mechanical current sensing controls intended to be incorporated or integrated into appliances. These products are designed to limit the load current below a certain value to prevent a potential hazard due to misapplication or overloading condition during user operation of the appliance. These products are:

           for use in, on, or in association with appliances for household and similar use that are not in fixed installation;

EXAMPLE 101 Controls for motor-operated appliances within the scope of IEC 60335 series.

           for assembly within the scope of IEC 60884-2-7;

           for equipment that is used by the public, such as equipment intended to be used in shops, offices, hospitals, farms, and the like;

NOTE 101 Throughout this document, the word "equipment" means "appliance and equipment".

EXAMPLE 102 Controls for commercial catering.

           used as supplementary overcurrent protection in appliances;

NOTE 103 These devices are not intended to replace fuses, circuit-breakers, etc.

           used in, on, or in association with equipment that use electricity.

This document applies to

—        the inherent safety of automatic thermo-electro-mechanical current sensing controls, and

—        functional safety of automatic thermo-electro-mechanical current sensing controls,

—        the operating values, operating times, and operating sequences where such are associated with equipment safety.

—        Thermo-electro-mechanical current sensing controls that incorporate manually actuated switches as part of its construction.

NOTE 104 Requirements for manually actuated mechanical switches not forming part of an automatic control are contained in IEC 61058 series. However mechanical switches that are part of the overload protection function are subjected to additional requirements for functional safety in conjunction with this document, specified in Annex H.

This document specifies the requirements for construction, operation and testing of incorporated or integrated thermo-electro-mechanical current sensing controls used in, on, or in association with an equipment.

NOTE 105 An example of such controls is current sensing cut-out control.

This document does not

           apply to electronic controls.

           take into account the response value of an automatic action of a control, if such a response value is dependent upon the method of mounting the control in the equipment. Where a response value is of significant purpose for the protection of the user, or surroundings, the value defined in the appropriate equipment standard or as determined by the manufacturer shall apply.

           apply to current sensing devices such as ground-fault circuit interrupters (GFCI), arc-fault circuit interrupters (AFCI), circuit breakers (CB), residual-current devices (RCDs).

Compared with fuses or circuit-breakers, current sensing cut-out controls have different functions in current protection, and they can't replace each other. Fuses are covered by IEC 60127 series or IEC 60269 series. Circuit breakers intended to provide protection against overcurrents are covered by IEC 60898-1.

NOTE 106 Current sensing cut-out controls are typically used to address overload situations that occur during user operation, rather than for the protection against systemic faults.

For more information about guide to the application of current sensing cut-out controls see Annex AA.