New requirements for Secondary Battery Packs under UL 60950-1, 1st Edition

There were numerous recalls of batteries and battery packs used with ITE (Information Technology Equipment) in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and they continue today. Several years ago the largest ITE Industry group in the United States, the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI), proposed to revise UL 60950 and require that Secondary (Rechargeable) Battery Packs used with Transportable Equipment additionally comply with UL 2054, Household and Commercial Batteries as a component requirement.
The proposal was accepted during the ANSI/ UL and SCC/ CSA standards development processes, and when the First Edition of UL 60950-1 was published in April, Annex P.1 (4.3.8) reflected this new component requirement. The most common types of ITE impacted by the requirements are notebook computers and their rechargeable battery packs.

The Effective Date of the First Edition of UL 60950-1 is July 1, 2006, and as of that date all new constructions of ITE submitted for the UL Mark are required to comply with the First Edition, including the UL 2054 component provision if the ITE is transportable and has a secondary battery pack.

The new requirement applies to secondary battery packs that typically are:

• Intended for use with Transportable ITE (e.g., notebook computer); and
• Hard case (hard pack), accommodating use as a spare carried separately from the ITE (e.g., in a computer case or book bag)

UL generally requires battery packs to have a rigid enclosure if the enclosure forms part of the ITE and may be carried externally (e.g., as a spare). If the battery pack enclosure forms an integral part of host equipment enclosure, UL 2054 is applied even if the battery pack is not detached and separately carried from the host equipment.

Battery packs without rigid enclosure (e.g. soft pack) and that are mounted totally inside an ITE enclosure will be investigated as part of end product that provides the complete enclosure. In such cases, the component requirements of UL 2054 are not applied.

UL is currently developing a Practical Application Guidelines (PAG) (to be available via 60950 PAGOS - http://data.ul.com/pagos/) to more clearly outline all options.