Where there’s smoke, there’s fire! That also applies to defective components which may possibly ignite inside an appliance and in a non-standard design set fire to surrounding parts made of insulating materials or flammable materials. In order to assess the hazard of such a fire, we use a special test procedure: The needle flame test. In this test, we simulate the effect of a small flame such as could occur in defective components or faulty operating conditions. The test engineer analyses which parts with which defect can become a potential source of fire, and tests them with a needle flame in a defined environment. Individual components may also ignite, e.g. because of a leakage current over a creepage distance, or through overloading or faulty electrical connections.
Standard: VDE 0471 Part 1/IEC 60695