Attachment Plug and Receptacle Safety Evaluations

Understanding the plug and receptacle markets

In today’s world, there are so many different types of receptacles to choose from — straight blade, locking-type, and pin and sleeve. The variety of straight blade receptacles offered by manufacturers alone is staggering — in fact, wiring device manufacturers produce and market more than 1,000 different types. Differences include electrical rating, color, style, sizes and configuration. Receptacles are marketed using terms such as general grade, specification grade, heavy duty, industrial grade, commercial grade, residential grade, hospital grade, specialty grade and federal specification.

A straight blade and locking type attachment plug is a male contact device for the temporary connection of a flexible cord or cable to a receptacle, cord connector, flanged equipment power outlet or other outlet device. We offer both U.S. and Canada certification for these products as well as offering both hospital grade, federal specification and combination hospital grade/federal specification evaluation.

A straight blade and locking type motor attachment plug is a male contact device intended to be mounted on utilization equipment. We offer both U.S. and Canada certification, federal specification evaluation as well as global market access that can be done simultaneously.

We also offer Certification to IEC 60320 products, which include appliance couplers for household and similar general purposes.

With combined testing of your receptacles and/or attachment plugs, we can simultaneously provide U.S., Canada and Federal Specification access for the UL Mark in North America. We can also offer informative reports or CB Scheme reports to various IEC standards. One certification process may help you access global markets more quickly.

Receptacle and plug standards and services

Receptacles

We can help you navigate through the product safety evaluation. We evaluate receptacles to the following standards for compliance and safety:

• U.S. — UL 498 or UL 60320, Federal Specification – W-C 596F or W-C596G
• Canada — CSA C22.2 No. 42, CSA C22.2 No. 182.3 or CSA C22.2 No. 60320-1-11
• International — IEC 60320

Areas of expertise

• Receptacles, duplex, hospital grade, federal specification hospital grade/federal specification
• Receptacles with integral power supply with class 2 output connectors
• Current taps
• Cord connectors
• Combination receptacles with switches
• Special purpose connectors
• Stage type receptacles
• Shore power cord connector (marine)
• Utility service receptacles
• Weather resistant receptacles

Attachment plugs

We evaluate attachment plugs to the following standards for compliance and safety:

• U.S. – UL 498 or UL 60320
• Canada – CSA C22.2 No. 42, CSA C22.2 No. 182.3 or CSA C22.2 No. 60320-1-11
• Federal Specification – W-C 596F or W-C596G
• IEC 60320

Areas of expertise

• Attachment plugs – fuseless
• Attachment plugs and motor attachment plugs with overload protection
• Motor attachment plugs with switches
• Shore-power inlets, marine
• Single pole locking-type separable attachment plugs, panel inlets