It certainly matters. And thus is where you will learn the ins and outs of product listing agencies. Those two or three sentences in NEC Chapter one are the tip of a very deep iceberg.
As to whether it matters? I have been burned as have others by some of the more knowledgeable local inspectors. They are infatuated with the UL koolaid and can be a pain. But not everything is UL for good reason.
We of course love them all at work. We will be happy to get our products certified for anything you want to pay for. We have frequently played this game and we know all the players pretty well. To be fair TuV has an office less than five minutes from my office in the same town. They List different products though so even though they are the home team, it’s the wrong league. UL is also in town but they are all the way on the other side of town (town=Raleigh). They donate heavily to NCSU, ECU, Duke and others. They make sure every graduating engineer has a fresh box of UL Koolaid free of charge! So we often have to send customers to re-education camps.
What you found is a Component Mark and a Listing mark. This is pretty normal. Baldor by the way despite advertising the Georgia plant mostly makes motors in Asia just like everyone else. Hopefully Covid-19 will change that.
Going through the stamps on the Baldor label right to left, first we have CE. We are looking for a Nationally Recognized Testing Lab (NRTL) stamp. Here is the official list.
www.osha.gov
Oops! CE is not on that list so you can’t use it. Why not? To begin with what is Listing? It means that a third party watchdog lab has inspected and tested a manufacturers product against nationally recognized standards (NEMA, UL, NFPA, FM, CSA, ISO, IEC, ANSZi, ASTM, NIST, etc.) and certifies that the product meets those standards. The manufacturer pays money to put the Listing agency stamp on their product, for EVERY serial number they produce.
What is different with CE is that a company can self certify that they used similar materials and manufacturing and just pay for the CE mark but never pay for a CE inspection or testing. In other words we can tattoo CE on Elizabeth Warren as a Listed American Indian but that doesn’t mean anything at all. Without a seriously deep dive you can’t easily tell the difference. Since the product is not third party tested, CE will never be recognized in the US or outside most EU member countries. Just realize that CE stands for “Crap of Europe”. But in Europe some snobbish government agencies ONLY accept CE and Baldor is owned by ABB so they happily pay for the CE mark. Dumb Swedes.
Next we have RU or sometimes UR. This means it is a UL registered Component, NOT the usual “UL” or some variation. If I am building a motor I need wire and lugs as a manufacturer. Like you as an end user raw materials like busbar and steel as well as hardware are accepted but any sub assemblies like cable and lugs have to be Listed, too. I could use properly rated lugs for building wire for instance but component grade lugs only get tested for tests that can’t be done on the final product. So I save money because I’m not double dipping on testing that I don’t need done. I buy and use Component lugs which then get the final Assembly Listing on the NRTL stamp for the overall assembly. In field repairs I use Burndy, Ilsco, T&B, etc. even on warranty jobs. I hate cheap grass factory lugs. But it is illegal for you as an end user to use Components with one exception, only Assemblies. So no RU/UR, no AWM, etc. If it’s not a Code job and you buy your materials off Alibaba, bless your heart. That’s a Southern way of saying you’re stupid.
It is sort of a legal grey area when it comes to repairs. If you repair, you are supposed to restore it to like new condition. Is it legal to buy components and use it as replacement for repairs without modification? So if for instance an MCP in a Listed Starter assembly fails can you replace it? You can’t scavenge an MCP out of an old starter and use it in your own field assembled starter. For that you need an assembly such as an MCCB (molded case breaker). Same goes with cutting a damaged molded plug off an extension cord and attaching a new plug. That’s a modification, not a repair.
Technically you probably can’t even do a repair because then the assembly would have to be certified again but I don’t know anyone that is digging that deep, not even nuclear. Maybe a UL salesman but that’s about it. So if you put in the same make/model of say a Dayton OEM motor that would qualify as a repair. That is allowed by NRC which is the most ridiculous AHJ out there. If you replaced the Dayton with the same specs but a Baldor, NRC would consider that.a modification but no other AHJ would blink. They only look at whether or not it meets the functional requirements.
NRC and sometimes PSM gets hung up on make/model. This is due to design specs. Nuclear reactors are designed for insane levels of reliability. They dig into differences in reliability of brand A and B. So you might see two valves but one is brand A and one is brand B. The idea is that hopefully they are made in different plants so if brand A has a manufacturing defect and a recall, hopefully it doesn’t affect brand B. Basically avoiding the effects of the recent air bag recall as an example which would be a Bad Thing for a nuclear reactor or say a chemical plant making explosives.
Last we come to CSA. This is on the NRTL list and it’s an assembly mark, not a component mark. We have a winner!! This one is acceptable. But keep reading because there is a twist to this story.
Then we get to the snobbery. UL claims they are a higher standard. Mostly they market themselves better. There are two big differences. First off we have companies that write standards and all of these are not for profits. Examples are NEMA and NFPA. But also many Listing companies are really two companies. There is a CSA.org and a UL.org that are also not for profit companies writing and maintaining product standards. Then we get into UL snobbery. All Listing companies such as CSA.com will test to any standard as long as they have the resources to do so except one. So CSA will test and List NEMA W and DLO cable as examples. UL.com only Lists assemblies and components based on UL.org standards with UL.com Listed components.
So motors used in North America are built to the NEMA MG-1 standard. That is NOT a UL.org maintained standard. So UL.com won’t List it as an assembly. UL.org does have a generic component spec that can be used as a Component Listing with UL.com. Companies Listing say an air handler need those motors so they can List their air handler assembly under UL.com. To be fair UL often violates their own rules. Our shop has literally taken brand new motors and rewound them because that puts them in a different category where they can be UL.com Listed. But you can’t usually get that as a new motor. This is how insane UL snobbery is.
So if you’re still reading this you made it through the UL re-education camp for free. Hopefully it makes more sense now.
