Chris's suggestions are good but to more specifically answer your questions
UL is concerned with Safety - they have many different specifications
targeted at different products. For electronics safety related to the
primary power and to fire are the main considerations. Your design should us
UL listed components for anything connected to the mains powers e.g.
transformers, filter capacitor, terminal blocks, relays etc. You also have
to pay attention to trace spacing on the pcb and the pcbs must be of
flameproof material. Grounding, wire insulation and terminal spacing are
also issues. In addition to submitting a unit and documents, UL will
periodically inspect your manufacturing facility to insure that the product
being manufactured matches the unit they inspected.
RF emissions requirements are governed by the FCC they require testing of
any consumer electronic
Although the US doesn't have any requirement for electrical noise immunity,
if I was designing a smart home system I would want design tested to the EU
standards (CE) for impulse and RF noise withstand capability so the
electrical noise would not mess up the operation and make it dumb house
system.
If you are not designing hardware from scratch but are putting together a
system from commercially available components, then I would make sure the
units are UL, FCC and CE certified.
Dan
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Dan Hollands
1120 S Creek Dr
Webster NY 14580
[email protected]
www.QuickScoreRace.com