Fire at SWE/SME Event!

On February 5, 2008 at a joint meeting of SWE and SME, fires were ignited and wires were fused! Lucky for us all this was a good thing; we were touring the testing facilities for FCI Burndy in Manchester, NH.

FCI manufactures power connectors and tools. Testing is conducted at their lab on all of their tools and connectors to ANSI standards. Connectors are certified by the Underwriters Laboratory (UL) for use in our homes offices and
factories. We saw a number of their testing processes, including tensile strength, salt fog, current cycle testing, and most dramatic, the short circuit testing. Most important, we learned from FCI Senior Director for Global Standards, Ron Lai, about UL labels, why they exist, and that UL’s website has a listing of all authorized users of the UL label so forgeries (labels and products) can be spotted. Pictures are posted on the website. Thank you to SME for having a joint meeting and FCI for opening their labs to us and for the great pizza!