Revisions to UL 676, the Standard for Underwater Luminaries and Submersible Junction Boxes

By Michael Shulman, Principal Engineer, Lighting

UL wants to help you leverage standard revisions to optimize your product offerings. Not all standard revisions compel you to change your products.  In some cases, standard revisions allow you to offer new or revised products that previously were not permitted. 

For UL 676, the Standard for Underwater Luminaires and Submersible Junction Boxes, revisions published on Oct. 22, 2019, now allow for the following designs to be declared compliant:

• Lens guards – Luminaires installed on the bottom of a pool or fountain, facing up, had previously been required to include a lens guard.  Now, an option exists for the luminaire lens itself, without a guard, to be evaluated for strength and impact resistance.  Also, the impact resistance test has been modified to more proportionately evaluate smaller lenses. 
• Grounding connections for submersible junction boxes – The number of required separate grounding terminations has been reduced, and instead now allows multiple ground conductors to share a single terminal.  This better aligns the product requirements with the installation expectations of the National Electrical Code® (NEC®), Article 680.

If you produce upward-facing swimming pool or fountain luminaires, or submersible junction boxes, our engineering staff is ready to help you fully understand how these relaxations in the requirements can improve your product aesthetic and/or reduce its size and cost. 

Our goal is to help you expand and solidify your market position by working with the most trusted partner in safety. For more information, reach out to your UL Lighting experts at lightinginfo@ul.com.

To learn more about these standard revisions, visit UL's industry file review website.