Standard and fixtures
To be up to standards is the great anguish of the apprentice lighting manufacturer. Not a trade show without passing a student who asks us “what standards do you apply?” or an architect “are you M1?”.
As far as technical responsibility is concerned, there is no ambiguity: a light fixture must be well insulated, equipped with traction stops, meet anti-tilt tests, and be labeled as required. …. A training session at the GIL (lighting union) and there you have it, creativity can express itself, nothing like constraints to stimulate it. You can’t fool around with criminal liability, not to mention the fact that the fraud authorities could come after you, even in the middle of the Maison et Objet show, which is a shame!
Applying the right adequacy between the architect’s project and the standard level of a luminaire is more delicate. To be M1 (fireproof) on the whole luminaire, and not only on the connection terminals, implies laboratory tests with incandescent wire. What designer can afford to spend thousands of dollars on each type of luminaire? And why apply a standard intended for surfaces (fabrics, ceilings, carpets…) to luminaires?
Among colleagues it is said that a luminaire becomes surface when it occupies more than 25% of the space of the room where it is located. That’s a relief! But others stipulate that a luminaire must be classified M1 or even M0 in certain cases (high-rise buildings, specific ERP). It gets complicated!
To put everyone in agreement, and as no one is supposed to ignore the law, even when it is unavailable, expensive and indigestible (hundreds of pages), here is an excerpt from the standard NF EN 60 598:
The glow-wire test is governed by the IEC 60 695 standard: it is to determine whether the luminaire installed in a building can burn and especially participate in the spread of a fire.
The test consists in applying a heated wire at defined temperatures (650°C, 850°C, 960°C…) for a determined period of time (5 or 30 seconds for example) on the most sensitive parts of the luminaire and to examine the behavior of the envelope, in particular if it catches fire.
The NF EN 60598-1 standard requires for all luminaires the application for 10 seconds of an incandescent wire at 650°C with extinction of any flames or incandescence within 30 seconds. (glass, ceramic or metal luminaires are not concerned)
Concerning ERP (Establishment Receiving the Public), the requirement of resistance to the glow wire test at 850 ° C for the luminaires has been removed in 2010: only applies NF EN 60598-1, ie the glow wire test at 650 ° C.
For high-rise buildings (IGH), the 850°C test must be validated for luminaires in stairways and common horizontal circulations. For lighting fixtures in general, only NF EN 60598-1 applies, i.e. the glow-wire test at 650°C. (We can see that the M1 standard (850°C) is not required, and that the standard papers of lampshade manufacturers can be recommended almost everywhere)
At the Anne-Pierre Malval workshop, as manufacturers of lighting fixtures using papers and fabrics glued on polyphane, we have retained as a solution to use standard components and lampshade envelopes, which have themselves passed the 650°C tests with success, and not to promote products classified M1 more than necessary: who says that the chemical agents used as retardants today will not be banned tomorrow as allergens, or worse?
