3000W Chinese Gensets Info.

professor95 wrote:
Do any portable gensets have or need UL approval? My knee jerk is no. They produce power, not consume it. Maybe we need UL approval for all the electronics in our cars and trucks?

Generally speaking, nothing "needs" UL approval unless required by the manufacturer's customers. In other words, a company can manufacture a product and place it on the market without UL approval. However, if they want Walmart to stock it, Walmart will require it to be UL approved. The reason is that UL approval provides them some level of liability protection in case of a safety related incident. For things that may be permanently mounted as part of a system (such as a home backup generator permanently wired to the house) the local electrical inspector may want to see some sort of safety standard applied to the generator.

Not everything can be UL approved. For instance, I believe UL made a decision years ago not to touch motorcycle or bicycle helmets due to the possible litigations against UL that it might cause.

I don't know specifically about safety standards for vehicle mounted electronics, but I do know that there are electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) standards that apply, and they are generally far more restrictive than the standards that apply to home equipment. A lot of the automotive EMC standards are based on the military standards tests (Mil-Std 461).