On Mon, 29 Aug 2011 11:03:07 -0700, "Steve B"
wrote:

A friend of mine has retired. He was a master electrician. He wants to
make some widgets used in electrical work like kerneys, and some smaller
connectors and widgets.

In order to get UL approval, is that a process of submission and approval,
or is it a procedure where one would have to pay to have it tested, etc?

TIA

Steve

The approvals I've been involved with- you had to submit it to a
testing laboratory (UL is one, ETL and CSA are others) and have it
tested. If it fails, you modify the design and pay for more tests.
Total cost depends on the hours it takes, but figure on $ thousands if
not more. Testing a whole series of related doodads may not be much
more expensive than testing one device. There are also some
maintenance costs (miss a payment and they'll pull the certification).

Consider talking to them at an early stage:
http://www.ul.com/global/eng/pages/o...le/evaluation/

http://www.ul.com/global/eng/pages/o...mittalprocess/

I've dealt with CSA and they're quite decent guys (at least on an
engineer-to-engineer basis).