Most products that you come across in your day-to-day life have been certified to meet certain safety standards. A certification is documentation provided by a certifying organization to show that a product meets all the requirements of that specific organization. If you look at your phone charger or most other electronics, you will probably notice the markings of UL, CUL, or some other certifying organization saying that your specific product meets their requirements. Control panels also have their own subset of certification. 

Some of the most common types of certifications are as follows: 

• UL/CUL 508A – Underwriters Laboratories control panel standard for the US and Canada respectively 
• CSA – Canadian Standards Association control panel standard 
• CE - Conformité Européenne for European standards 

When certifying a panel, many factors need to be checked to ensure that all standards are met. Some of the different factors include: 

• Voltage, current, and short circuit current rating of all components in the panel and of the overall cabinet 
• Component temperature/airflow spacing requirements 

• Wire type, termination quality, color, and sizing 
• Environmental type ratings 

• Matches NEMA ratings (1, 12, 4x), but is referred to as “type” 

• Appropriate labeling 
• And many others 

You can easily tell if a panel is certified by looking for the appropriate certifying organization’s labels. These will either be on the front of the cabinet or on the inside of the door. These labels can be accompanied by useful information about the panel such as the system voltage, full load current, SCCR ratings, fuse replacement charts to help find the proper replacement components if necessary, and torque requirement charts for terminations. 

At Premier Automation we can provide in-house UL/CUL 508A certification and have the capabilities to have other certifying organizations come in to certify control panels to whatever standard you or your customers require.