As with many industries, the heavy-duty vehicle industry faces challenges with evolving safety standards and certification requirements. Many of these requirements may come from governments or regulatory agencies or may be more informal yet voluntary standards adopted by the industry. Staying familiar with these ever-changing regulations can be a daunting task, especially when factoring in regional or country-specific nuances.
Every component you are designing into a product likely also has a required certification or standard that your product needs to be in compliance with. For instance, whether you are designing to transport people or goods, a heavy-duty vehicle will have a complex electrical wiring system. The electrical connectors and wiring materials you design into that system are critical, with the need to withstand dirt, debris, high heat, extreme cold, friction, corrosion and rigidity. Exposure to one of these elements and even the slightest damage to a small electrical component can cause havoc on the entire system.
With more than 50 years of proven experience in wire harness and heavy duty cable management, we know that designing with the right materials can mean the difference between meeting your complex specifications and regulatory requirements – or not. It is why we work so hard to push for standardization – not only to improve upon our own excellence, but to give the entire industry a benchmark upon which they can deliver quality products resulting in higher customer satisfaction, while improving their own productivity and profitability.
That is why changes happening this year are significant for those designing heavy-duty vehicles: the new ANSI UL 62275 publication has harmonized with CSA C22.2 No. 62275 (Canada), NMX-J-623-ANCE (Mexico) and IEC 62275 (Europe), establishing a standard type classification and performance ratings for plastic cable ties, mounts, metallic cable ties, and integral cable tie mounts.
Major changes include:
- A requirement of parallel entry metallic cable ties to be tested with the locking mechanism positioned at 9:00, whereas testing may have been conducted previously at 12:00.
- Coated metallic cable ties are currently classified as Type 21 products but will be classified as Type 2 under ANSI UL 62275.
- The contribution to fire test will now be needed to classify coated metallic cable ties as Type 2.
- Products classified as outdoor use products will be required to run the environmental exposure test at a spectral irradiance of 0.51, with the previous irradiance value being 0.35.
- Testing under ANSI UL 62275 will include tensile strength, minimum operating temperature, minimum installation temperature, minimum and maximum bundle diameter, UV resistance, vibration for metallic cable ties-cycling, corrosion, contribution to fire-needle flame, and plenum.
So what does this mean exactly?
The UL 62275 standard will be critical for the heavy-duty vehicles industry going because it ensures an increase in quality and safety. It also cuts down on the number of products to be tested, reducing the time, money and paperwork needed to ensure certification or compliance. Without harmonization, an OEM may be required to use different wire harness products based on a heavy-duty vehicle’s ultimate destination, taking up time and putting more pressure on workers to complete tests for each regional standard.
Instead, OEMs may now have more time for R&D to further advance their designs to better serve the end-user. Not only will this provide customers with better products, but will encourage a whole new host of innovation within the heavy-duty vehicle sector.
To get more insight into UL 622275, read our white paper Prepare for the Future: What Global Standards Harmonization Will Mean for the Wire Harness Industry.
