Ex equipment: the documents to demand from a supplier

The gap between a compliant purchase and a non-compliant one is usually a folder. Two suppliers quote what looks like the same hazardous area device. One sends a brochure with a logo on it. The other sends an indexed pack: certificate, schedule, conditions of safe use, declarations, test reports, radio approvals, battery documentation and a photograph of the label. Only one of those bids can actually be assessed.

This is the pack a buyer should insist on, what each document proves, and the specific checks that catch problems before the equipment reaches a gate. It applies to any Ex equipment, and the examples are drawn from portable electronics because that is where the traps are least well known.

The pack at a glance

1. The certificate of conformity and, more importantly, its schedule

An Ex certificate of conformity is the central document, and the cover page is the least useful part of it. The cover page carries the certificate number and its status, the certificate holder, the manufacturing locations, a short equipment description, the standards and editions applied, the full marking, the issuing body and the signatory. Useful, but not sufficient.

The schedule is where the certificate becomes actionable. It sets out the specific models and variants covered, including suffixes and configuration codes; the electrical and thermal parameters; for battery-powered equipment, the specific cell types permitted; the specific conditions of use; the list of controlled drawings and documents that define the certified construction; and any routine tests the manufacturer must perform on every unit before it ships.

Checks worth making every time:

• Does the model number on the certificate match the model on the quotation, character for character, including variant suffixes? A certificate covering the “-A” variant does not cover the “-B” you are buying.
• Is the status current? Certificates are superseded, and a superseded issue is not evidence for a new purchase.
• Which standards, and which editions? Editions matter when a site register has to demonstrate a coherent basis over time.
• What is the certified ambient temperature range? It is often narrower than the commercial operating range on the datasheet, and it is a hard limit.
• Does the certificate number end in X or U? An X means there are specific conditions of use to obtain and read. A U means the certificate covers an Ex component, such as an enclosure, rather than a finished product, so it can never be the certificate for a complete device.

2. The declarations of conformity

The certificate is the technical evidence. The declaration is the legal statement, and it is issued by the manufacturer rather than a third party. An EU declaration of conformity for equipment under ATEX identifies the product unambiguously, names the manufacturer and the authorised representative if there is one, lists every piece of European legislation applied, which for a hazardous area handset means the ATEX Directive 2014/34/EU alongside the Radio Equipment Directive and the restriction of hazardous substances rules, lists the harmonised standards used, names the notified body and quotes its certificate numbers, and is signed on behalf of the manufacturer by someone with the authority to do so.

For Great Britain there is an equivalent UK declaration of conformity referencing the 2016 Regulations and the UK approved body.

Two failure modes to watch. A declaration that lists the ATEX Directive but names no notified body is not valid for Category 2 equipment, because self-declaration is not available at that category. And an unsigned or undated draft, which is more common than it should be, is not a declaration at all.

3. Conditions of safe use

If the certificate number carries an X, the certificate imposes conditions. These are not small print; they are the boundary of compliant use, and they are the buyer’s obligation to implement.

For portable electronics the recurring conditions are predictable, and you should expect to see some combination of them:

• Charging permitted only outside the hazardous area, and sometimes only with named charging equipment.
• Only battery types identified in the certificate to be fitted.
• Precautions against electrostatic charging of plastic housings, often specifying cleaning with a damp cloth only and no solvents or dry rubbing.
• Restrictions on which accessories may be connected.
• Restrictions on opening the equipment, and on where any permitted opening may take place.

Ask for the conditions in writing at quotation stage, not at delivery. They belong in the site operating procedure, in the user training and on the toolbox talk. A condition that stays in the procurement file has no effect on the person carrying the device.

4. The control drawing

Intrinsically safe equipment is only intrinsically safe as a system. Under NEC Article 504 the installation must follow the control drawing for the system, and the same logic applies internationally through the descriptive system document required by the IEC installation standards.

The control drawing names, by manufacturer and part number, what may be connected to the equipment, and it carries the entity parameters that make the connection assessable. On the source side those are the output parameters, conventionally Uo, Io, Po, Co and Lo. On the apparatus side they are the input parameters Ui, Ii, Pi, Ci and Li. The rule is straightforward: the output must not exceed what the apparatus can accept, and the cable capacitance and inductance must fit inside what is left.

For a self-contained battery-powered handset the control drawing may be short, but the question it answers is not academic. It is how you determine whether a particular charger, dock, data cable or headset is part of the certified arrangement or a modification to it.

5. Ingress and mechanical test reports

Two ratings appear on every rugged datasheet and neither means what buyers assume.

IP ratings are declared against IEC 60529. For the second digit at level 8, the test conditions are agreed between manufacturer and user rather than fixed by the standard, so the string IP68 does not by itself state a depth or a duration. Ask for the declared conditions and put them in the purchase order.

Environmental and drop testing. A claim that a device is rugged or drop tested is not a certification scheme: there is no issuing body and no pass certificate. Such a claim means some methods were run at some profiles. Ask which methods, at which levels, and for the report. For a handheld device the drop method, the height, the impact surface and the number of drops are the figures that decide whether it survives a dropped grating landing.

Neither of these is an Ex document, and neither substitutes for one. They are performance evidence, which is why they belong in the pack alongside the certificate rather than instead of it.

6. Radio approvals

An Ex certificate says nothing whatsoever about whether a device may legally transmit. The two tracks are entirely separate and both are mandatory.

• European Union: conformity with the Radio Equipment Directive 2014/53/EU, declared in the same EU declaration of conformity, with a notified body involved where the harmonised standards have not been applied in full.
• Great Britain: the equivalent UK radio equipment regulations under the UKCA framework.
• United States: an FCC identifier for the device, and the associated grant.
• Elsewhere: national type approval or registration, which in many markets is a distinct application with its own lead time and in some cases its own in-country representative requirement.

Add RF exposure documentation to the list where your own policies require it. And check the country list against your actual deployment: a device approved for three countries in a six-country operation is a problem you want to find during evaluation.

7. Battery safety and transport

Battery paperwork sits at the intersection of three regimes, and buyers of hazardous area devices need all three.

• Ex identity. The cells permitted in the device are listed in the certificate schedule. Any spare or replacement must be one of them. Ask for the part numbers and check that the spares quotation uses them.
• Cell safety testing. The relevant product safety standard for secondary lithium cells and batteries, commonly IEC 62133-2, with the report available.
• Transport. The UN 38.3 test summary, which manufacturers have been required to make available for lithium cells and batteries, together with the shipping classification and the safety data sheet. This is what your freight forwarder will ask for, and its absence stops a consignment.

8. The manual, the marking and the label

The instruction manual is a certification deliverable in its own right under IEC 60079-0, because it is the mechanism by which the certificate’s limits reach the person using the equipment. In the European market it must be supplied in the language of the country of use. Check that the manual actually reproduces the conditions of safe use rather than referring vaguely to a certificate the user will never see.

Then ask for a photograph of the actual product label and compare it, character by character, with the marking quoted on the certificate. Equipment group, category, gas and dust letters, protection concept, gas group, temperature class, equipment protection level, ambient range, IP rating, certificate number, and on ATEX equipment the CE mark, the notified body number and the specific marking of explosion protection. Label discrepancies are one of the most common findings in an Ex equipment audit, and they are trivially cheap to catch at quotation and expensive to catch on site.

9. Quality system and service evidence

A certificate proves that a sample was assessed. Something has to prove that production units match the sample.

• Under IECEx, the certificate rests on a quality assessment report covering the manufacturing site, alongside the test report.
• Under ATEX, Category 2 electrical equipment requires a production-phase module with notified body involvement, which is why the notified body number appears next to the CE mark.
• ISO 9001 is useful supporting evidence and is not a substitute for either of the above. A supplier who answers a request for an Ex certificate with an ISO 9001 certificate has not answered the question.

On the service side, ask how repair is handled. Repair, overhaul and reclamation of Ex equipment is governed by IEC 60079-19, and repair facilities can be certified under the IECEx service facility scheme, which assesses equipment, staff competence and procedures. Get the route in writing before you buy, because the first failed handset is a poor moment to discover there is not one.

How to verify a certificate number

Never take a PDF at face value. Verification is quick and free.

• IECEx. The scheme operates a public online certificate system. Search by certificate number or by holder name, with no account required. The published version is the master version, so if a certificate is not there, it does not exist. Check the status field on the first page: a current certificate says so explicitly.
• ATEX. There is no single public register of EU-type examination certificates. Verify with the issuing notified body directly, and separately confirm that the body is listed in the European Commission’s NANDO database with a scope covering Directive 2014/34/EU. Check the four-digit identification number quoted on the label against that listing.
• North America. Check the certification body’s own online directory for the listing, and confirm that the file or report number on the label appears there against the model you are buying.

Red flags

1. A certificate supplied only as an image or a flattened PDF, with no issuing body letterhead or reference that can be looked up.
2. A certificate for a similar but not identical model number, offered with an assurance that it is “the same product”.
3. A U-suffix component certificate presented as the certificate for a finished device.
4. An ISO 9001 or CE self-declaration offered in place of a certificate for Category 2 equipment, where self-declaration is not permitted.
5. A certificate whose marking string does not match the product label.
6. An expired, withdrawn or superseded certificate, or one issued against a withdrawn standard edition with no explanation.
7. Conditions of safe use that the supplier cannot produce, which usually means nobody has read them.

When the product is pre-launch

Some of the equipment you evaluate will not be certified yet, and that is a legitimate stage of a product’s life rather than a disqualification. What changes is what you can reasonably ask for and what you must not accept.

Ask for the certification programme in writing: which schemes are being pursued, which certification body is engaged, which standards and editions, and what the target dates are. Ask, in plain words, what is not held today. Run handling, network and device management trials in a non-hazardous area, where nothing is at stake. Hold the classified-area pilot until the certificate covering that area exists, and put that condition in the evaluation agreement so that it does not depend on anyone’s goodwill later.

The SAMS IS-04Z1 is in exactly that position, and we would rather say so than imply otherwise. It is designed for Zone 1 and Zone 21, with an ATEX target marking of II 2 G Ex ib IIC T4 and a NEC 500 Class I Division 1 target. IECEx, ATEX and NEC 500 certification are all in progress ahead of a Q4 2026 launch, so what a buyer can have today is the datasheet and the written certification schedule, and what a buyer cannot have is a certificate that does not yet exist. The country routes that sit on top of the Ex certificate are set out on the market pages, including Saudi Arabia, the United States, Germany and Australia, and the rest of this series is in our insights library.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

• IECEx scheme
• Directive 2014/34/EU (EUR-Lex)
• European Commission: ATEX equipment
• HSE: equipment for explosive atmospheres