how and how much to become a UL panel shop?

I'm having a hard time getting a reply back from the UL people.

I can't ask the people that build the electrical panels for me.

Any advice or info would be appreciated.

But were just a "bunch of dicks"

ganutenator said:

I'm having a hard time getting a reply back from the UL people.

I can't ask the people that build the electrical panels for me.

Any advice or info would be appreciated.

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There is no fixed dollar amount because there are too many variables. The last time I went through it for myself 15 years ago, it cost me about $20k all total. 6 years ago I helped another shop get their listing, they said it only cost them about $5k.

Part of the problem is that you must pay for the inspections by UL, and if the closest UL office involves air travel, the costs add up quickly. So in my case I was in Seattle and the UL office was in California, in the second case the panel shop was in California within a 2 hour drive of the UL office. There is also a huge administrative cost burden of data gathering and record keeping of all of the UL file numbers of all of the components you intend to use. Modern PCs and internet data mining capabilities have changed that dramatically from when I first did it with little 3x5 index cards.

Goes against my better judgement. But I'm an A$$

A UL rating is alot like and ISO rating. Once you have it your telling all your would be customers that you are now operating on a recognized standard.

The inspection can last for days they will crawl thru every record, financial, human resources, maintenance, shipping receiving, purchasing.

You'll have to invest in the UL specifications or standards pertaining to your part of the industry, digest, process, apply the standards, and practice, practice, practice.

I went thru an ISO Inspection about fifteen years ago. As a production facility we went thru the motions for about a year before we were ready for an inspection. Ironically Underwriters did the inspection.

It will cost you the price of the standards ( unless you have a friend who has your exact standard) but that will only be the beginning. The real cost is in the cultural shift, the training, the record keeping, the effort to change the way you do business to a specific standard of doing business, the material cost for all UL approved components, the human investment in training. That's the real cost of getting UL certified.

NOW, stop calling names. Rude.

bright676 said:

But were just a "bunch of dicks"

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yes, a lot of engineers are. deal w/ it.

John Morris said:

Goes against my better judgement. But I'm an A$$

A UL rating is alot like and ISO rating. Once you have it your telling all your would be customers that you are now operating on a recognized standard.

The inspection can last for days they will crawl thru every record, financial, human resources, maintenance, shipping receiving, purchasing.

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This is not true for the UL Listed Panel Shop program
http://industries.ul.com/blog/become-a-ul-listed-panel-shop

With ISO you are getting certified that, as a whole, your facility meets certain standards. At least that is my understanding of it as we are not ISO anything.

With the listed panel shop program, UL is granting you the right to "list" (Put a UL sticker on) industrial control panels at your facility. They really don't care what the facility process is for you to make the panels, just that the panels meet the spec when you have completed them and that you keep a record of what you have listed. You do have to have tools to torque things that the spec says require torquing and keep them calibrated. We also had to send someone to the UL508 class. I have actually sent all our electrical engineers to class on 508 but it's pretty easy for us since we are only 40 minutes from UL headquarters where they run classes regularly. They do have other around the country, just less frequently.

I don't remember our costs to get listed (we started out as a manufacturing facility tacked on to a partners UL file but eventually became our own panel shop under our own file) but I know we pay a yearly fee for our "file" and then pay for quarterly inspections. These are un-announced, roughly quarterly inspections where they get to inspect anything we are working on that is getting listed. We do not list all the panels we build. I believe the inspection interval is based on quantity of UL marks used. Then we pay for the stickers themselves which are really quite reasonable. They do "expire" because the adhesive ages so you can't just by a gazillion and say your good for life.

As a listed panel shop, you get access to the UL 508 Industrial Control Panel standard. So far, you also get access to all UL standards that are wholly UL owned. Some joint UL/ANSI or other joint standards are only available for purchase but, for instance, I can get UL489 for circuit breakers. You also can see the proposal for changes and special decisions that have been made between editions of the standard that clarify things.

Occasionally someone asks us to prove that we can build UL panels and that is easy because UL publishes this information. I just point them to
http://database.ul.com/cgi-bin/XYV/template/LI***T/1FRAME/gfilenbr.html

and have them put in our file number E312540 and our name pops up so they know we are legit.

One other requirement is to get along with your inspector. No two ways about it, a bad relationship here can make your life miserable. You'll only be seeing this person 4 times a year and it's not worth your time to push little things even if you 'know' you're right. If you need to change a relay or wire or something small, just do it and move on.

Here's a kicker I recently learn. UL is now an at profit company. No longer a not for profit. It bevintersting how that will play out with service versus fees....

sparkyinak said:

Here's a kicker I recently learn. UL is now an at profit company. No longer a not for profit. It bevintersting how that will play out with service versus fees....

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That has been true for quite a while . 5+years at least on paper. Longer in reality as they were acting this way before they officially changed.

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/arti...rwriters-labs-plans-to-test-for-profit-status

ndzied1 said:

Occasionally someone asks us to prove that we can build UL panels and that is easy because UL publishes this information. I just point them to
http://database.ul.com/cgi-bin/XYV/template/LI***T/1FRAME/gfilenbr.html

and have them put in our file number E312540 and our name pops up so they know we are legit.

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That link might not work. A safer one seem to be:
http://www.ul.com/database

ganutenator said:

yes, a lot of engineers are. deal w/ it.

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Are you an engineer?

Elcan said:

Are you an engineer?

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nope, self taught. Been in the controls automation industry since 1996.

nm

bright676 said:

But were just a "bunch of dicks"

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we're

pretend that the apostrophe is replacing a letter.

I thought I knew what a UL panel shop was but Norm's descriptions makes me think I don't.

I have been operating under the impression that there were two different UL paths for 508A. The first is a type certification. You submit a design, build a panel and have it inspected. If that inspection passes you can build and sticker as many of that panel as you like as long as you change absolutely nothing. If you change something the whole deal needs to be re-inspected and re-certified. This type of operation would be subject to periodic inspections to make sure the design is still unchanged and that the panels are being built to standard.

The other path requires inspection of every panel manufactured. In a funny twist the inspection is free. It is the writing of the report if a variance is found that costs the money. In this case you might ask "what is the value; I could do that myself". The difference is that, as I said, inspections for UL panel shops of this type are part of the yearly fee. Also, each panel shop has a list of recognized components they are allowed to use along with a procedure that indicates how they are applied. Each procedure costs money. I think this is the data gathering thing that jraef was talking about. We have been politely asked by our UL panel shop to use specific components if possible so that we stay within their described procedures list.

It sounds like what Norm is talking about is a blending of the two. You can build whatever you want and you determine if it can get a sticker. You just get inspected every once in a while to make sure you are playing nice. For an organization like UL the seems king of "fox-in-charge-of-the-henhouse"-ish but I may be wrong.

We don't do too many UL panels since the majority of AHJs in the US do not require UL inspection prior to putting equipment into service. The exception is when we do jobs for large, multi-site companies who might have an issue years in the future because they move a machine from a non-UL jurisdiction to a UL jurisdiction. Those guys just get UL inspection on everything whether they need it immediately or not.

Keith

(Slightly OT) Speaking of UL 508, glad people at this forum pointed out that this only covers equipment for 0-40C. Gives me a good defense when people ask if we're a UL panel shop.