On Sun, 31 Oct 2010 20:38:13 +0000, the renowned David Billington
wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
David Billington wrote:

Pete C. wrote:

Out of curiosity, has anyone here ordered the Enco 81 pc economy gage
block set (Enco 630-4115)? I ordered one recently with the sale and
October 20% discount, and it seems pretty nice, especially for the
price.

It came with an inspection certificate claiming NIST tracability and
listing the size deviation from the reference standard for each block in
millionths by block serial number. Every block I've measured with my
digital micrometer so far has been spot on, which would be expected
since the blocks are supposed to be 10X more accurate.

The set certainly seems plenty accurate for my needs, but I'm curious if
the inspection certificate is legit or if every set has the same
certificate and serial numbers. If you have this set, please post the
set SN and a few block SNs and deviations.

Set SN 81PCS-1723
0.100" SN 61398 +4
0.500" SN 73231 -13
1.000" SN 79604 -1


I bought a set like that but in the end went for a 2nd hand British made
set with calibration certificate still in date. It a grade 2 set and the
uncertainty of measurement is given as +/- 0.000 005" upto 2" and +/-
0.000 01, the biggest deviation is the 3" slip at -27, most are much
smaller. The certificate notes the deviations are at the centre of the
blocks. I asked 2 people the day I bought them what I might expect from
Chinese ones and they mentioned issues of flatness and parllelism as
being likely ones even if the dimensions were as specified where measured.

No idea about their certificate authenticity but a company I work for
checked out the CE certificate on some Chinese made tablet PCs recently
and the testing house confirmed they were fake, same with the supplied
power supply.



CE is a fraud. It's commonly reffered to as 'Can't Enforce'.



I don't think it's that bad, the company I work for has its products
tested to make sure they conform to the appropriate regulations,
normally the industrial regs. As I understand it though the rules
require companies to have there products tested or do self certification
and after that if CE marked products are found to fail then they should
be reported for failure so the enforcement bodies can prevent further
sale. I'll ask the next time I'm in the office when the guy is back, if
he reported the products to the appropriate authority.

The penalties for self-certification a product which doesn't conform
can be severe, but practically they cannot be applied to offshore
manufacturers. Presumably importers or retailers could be on the hook.

What, if any, action do the US authorities take to fake FCC or UL
markings on products. I've seen it mentioned that those are all too
common like fake CE markings.

Yes, they are, and I've been bitten, but at least they can be checked
out in a central database from the numbers, and I always do that (and
advise clients to do the same). I held up payment on one shipment
because the company had delayed their payment of "protection money" to
UL and had their certification on hold. They paid, and all was good.
Nothing at all wrong with the product, which is top-notch and uses all
good materials and workmanship. More rare, but watch for it, is a
company that has UL approval on a product, but states or implies that
it's valid on another product hwich hasn't been fully tested.

IIRC one person on this newsgroup said
recently that they would prefer CE certified equipment to FCC as the FCC
only dealt with emissions, whereas the CE dealt with emissions and
susceptibility to environmental EMI.

I can buy you a big roll of CE stickers at the market, and you can
stick them on the FCC certified stuff, so you'll have the best of both
worlds.

Regarding CE being "Can't Enforce", I liked the meaning of NTSC being
"Not The Same Colour", likely obsolete, or almost, these days with the
change over to digital.


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
--
"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com