Updates to UL 62133 Standard Requires Product Reassessment

Updates to UL 62133 Standard Requires Product Reassessment

Are Your Batteries UL Listed or Recognized to UL 62133-1/-2?  If so you’ll be getting an industry-wide file review mandate letter from UL that requires defined action or you will be subject to losing your UL Listing. We can help!

What does this mean?

These letters require action from the Listee or the products will be withdrawn and no longer be able to bear the UL Mark.  There are a couple of important dates to keep in mind on these letters.  The first is the cutoff date.  UL has set a letter response date of October 1, 2021.  While a year seems to be a long time to respond to the letters, it’s always best to get started sooner rather than later so that you can be sure to have your product completed by the effective date of January 10, 2022.  Any products not completely brought into compliance by the effective date will be withdrawn.  Any product stakeholders not responding to the letter by the cutoff date will be withdrawn as well.  The provided letters should detail the items that will need to be evaluated in a table on the first two pages as well as provide a summary of affected products and required actions on the last page.  If your product was evaluated to the 2020 version of the standards, you should receive a letter stating no further action is required.  All others should have a list of the items that will need to be reviewed or evaluated and the affected products.  Your response options are as follows:

      1. Request to bring the file up to date or
      2. Withdraw the product entirely

What does the file review include?

There are nine (9) items that will be reviewed as part of this changeover from 2017 to the 2020 versions of the standard and they range from a review of markings to a retest of products.  The review can impact both cells and battery packs although most cells are covered under UL 1642 and not UL 62133.  The strictly review items under the requirement include design criteria revisions from section 5.6 of the new standard.  The revised or new testing is more extensive and includes the addition of vibration and mechanical shock testing at the battery pack level as well as changes in the test procedures for cell and battery external short circuit, thermal abuse of cells and over-charging test for batteries.  Additionally, the pre-conditioning step required prior to some of the testing has been altered.  The final item is the addition of a gauge verification for small (coin size) cells to determine the need for additional markings.

What are the next steps?

When you receive your letter from UL, please contact us or your UL representative to simplify the effort needed to maintain compliance.  We can help interpret the requirements for you and guide you on the best path for your needs.

We can also provide a quote to complete any testing that might be necessary.  In the end, we submit our report to UL (with whom we work closely daily) and ensure a seamless transition into the new standard.  Or, if you want to get ahead of the game contact us now and we’ll let you know what your letter is going to say so that we can jump right on the requirements today.

By | October 29th, 2020
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