campervan glazing pictures

peasant

Right lads (and ladettes), we have to do something about that proposed test regulation for camper windows (see here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=65185309&postcount=295)

I would like to ask you all to post a picture of the markings on your plastic camper windows (any glass bits really should have a E 43R mark anyway) and to post it here. Please state year and make of camper also (in case of home conversions please state supplier/ manufacturer, if known)

This way we can hopefully get a collection of OEM (= original equipment manufacturer) markings and get an idea what kind of approval markings are out there.

Hopefully we can then get these (and others) included into the appendix of the test manual and will be spared from having to re-glaze our vans


I'd start with a picture here ...but the camera battery needs re-charging

Please keep chat to a minimum on this thread, thanks

stapeler

01042010210.jpg

This any good??

2003 Benimar

peasant

poifeckt example of an e-mark, thanks !

Aidan_M_M

All the Adria Motorhomes have E1 on them too .

*Kol*

Aidan_M_M wrote: »

All the Adria Motorhomes have E1 on them too .

From what year onwards would they have this marking as the RSA comment document says that any window that has no markings/cannot be verified as complying with the regulations may have to be replaced. That's going to be a huge issue for older motorhomes. I'm thinking of replacing my windows with wood for the test!!!

OuterBombie

Good stuff Lads,

See attached.

2001 Knaus Sun-Traveller.

Apologies for photo, crap camera phone!

Windows look be to up to spec but no E1 markings

Ray.

peasant

Aidan_M_M wrote: »

All the Adria Motorhomes have E1 on them too .

The marking is Ex R43 and "x" specifies the country of manufacture.
So it's not significant if there is a 1 or a 4 or whatever behind the E, as long as the E and the R43 are there you're grand.

peasant

Here are the markings of my windows:



Motorhome: Laika, first registered 1989


See that wave or snake like symbol?
That's what used to be the european type approval mark on plastic windows for use in vehicles before the e mark also applied to plastic.

We have to somehow work it that the RSA/DOE also recognises those marks as valid.
Going by OuterBombie's 2001 motorhome as the newest so far, there could be thousands of older ones out there that "only" have the wave mark ...we can't re-glaze them all.

Niall_G

My reading of the proposal is that the windscreen must have the e-mark. A windscreen is just the front window.

It then states that for side or rear windows not made of safety glass, one must produce a certificate. This implies that one will always have to produce a certificate for perspex windows, no matter what markings are on them. Maybe this is not the intention and is just badly worded, but that is what it says now.....

peasant

Niall_G wrote: »

My reading of the proposal is that the windscreen must have the e-mark. A windscreen is just the front window.

It then states that for side or rear windows not made of safety glass, one must produce a certificate. This implies that one will always have to produce a certificate for perspex windows, no matter what markings are on them. Maybe this is not the intention and is just badly worded, but that is what it says now.....

correct ...but when you interpret it backwards then it says that glass with an E mark is fine. By extension plastic with an E mark should also be ok (as it is the same mark)

I certainly would have a strongly worded argument with any tester that gave me hassle over E-marked plastic windows

As for the certificates ...the wave mark IS the certificate!
It is just ridiculous to expect camper owners to chase long extinct window manufacturers for non-obtainable certificates and then having to re-glaze their windows when the windows are perfectly fine and acceptable in any other countrie's test in the first place.


EDIT:
To explain further ...I'm not just pulling these claims out of thin air. I used to be in the vehicle safety glass business for a while, so I do know a bit about these markings. Unfortunately I also know that the E-marking regulation for vehicle glazing is hopelessly complicated and next to impossible to read.
So far I have also had very little success in finding any documents on the net that clearly substantiate my claims ...they are true nonetheless.

OuterBombie

peasant wrote: »

As for the certificates ...the wave mark IS the certificate!
It is just ridiculous to expect camper owners to chase long extinct window manufacturers for non-obtainable certificates and then having to re-glaze their windows when the windows are perfectly fine and acceptable in any other countrie's test in the first place.

We need some proof of this, the wave mark being the certificate.

I'm spent some time searching the web. I did find the R43 details (http://www.unece.org/trans/main/wp29/wp29regs41-60.html) but have had no luck tracking down any sort of documentation around this wave marking. It looks like seitz don't have a site, the only reference I found to seitz suppliers are www.dometic.com. Are there any other window manufacturers on motorhomes that might have better documentation?

Must be some documentation somewhere that we could use, aside from creating fake stickers with the correct markings for the windows

EDIT: no luck either with web search....

peasant

OuterBombie wrote: »

We need some proof of this, the wave mark being the certificate.

I'm spent some time searching the web. I did find the R43 details (http://www.unece.org/trans/main/wp29/wp29regs41-60.html) but have had no luck tracking down any sort of documentation around this wave marking. It looks like seitz don't have a site, the only reference I found to seitz suppliers are www.dometic.com. Are there any other window manufacturers on motorhomes that might have better documentation?

Must be some documentation somewhere that we could use, aside from creating fake stickers with the correct markings for the windows

EDIT: no luck either with web search....

It is my intention with this thread to collect a few pictures of those markings and then do two things:

1) write a letter to Dometic/Seitz asking for clarification on the wave mark.
Seitz windows (as you can see from my old windows) have dominated the market for decades under ever changing ownership, so we should get a few pictures, enough critical mass hopefully, to spurn the people at Dometic into an act of customer service and supply something useable in writing

2) take this confirmation from Dometic (or if it can't be got just the pics) and the collection of pictures and write to the RSA outlining the situation. These old windows don't all have the same wave marking for the fun of it. The wave mark means something in terms of approval for vehicle use. With enough pictures collected hopefully the RSA will see the light and amend their criteria accordingly.
This is after all what the consultation process is supposed to be for.

loobylou

No battery in camera at present but my 1999 Euramobil has the same mark as Outerbombie's, ie Seitz SRE, the wavy thingy then D2307.

peasant

Further to this topic:
The history of vehicle safety regulations is a long and complicated one. Every country (especially those with a car industry of their own) was cooking up their own regulations, often with the intention to make life difficult for competing foreign manufacturers. That's why there is a multitude of foreign standards out there. The E-regulation is an attempt to have universal regulations in regards to vehicle components ...they have been fighting an uphill battle for decades and the whole document is a jungle of legalese and technical complications, amended and annexed every few years.

The wave mark is the german variant of pre-e marking on glazing products. But as Germany is such a big market, the wave mark was also necessary for foreign manufacturers if they wanted to sell into Germany. So in case of my motorhome you have a vehicle made in Italy (Laika) with a window made in France (ParaPress) that carries the german wave mark. So by default, the wave mark came to be a semi-international standard.

E marks have been slowly finding their way on to all sorts of automotive components. The latest example is tyres, where you will now fail the NCT if your tyres don't have them. As for vehicle side and rear windows made from non-glass materials, the e-mark only became the standard early in this decade ...previous to that you will find wave marks and possibly some other markings on motorhomes built outside of Europe (possibly Britain as well)

(if you have a european made classic (British made may be an exception) sitting around somewhere, you will probably find wave marks on headlamps, indicators and rear lamps as well, unless they already have the e-mark)

I'm a happy camper. This is what I found on my '94 Merc 308d this morning. Now I Just have to track down a report for my chandlery window, hopefully shouldn't be a problem seeing as it's perspex and 10mm thick.

sunchaser

Birkholz were taken over by Seitz and in turn Seitz were taken over by Dometic. You can write to Dometic in relation to the markings on either of these two companies.

Des32

This is the marking on the windows on my motorhome, do you think I have a problem there is no sign of an E marking apart from the cab windows.

peasant

Des32 wrote: »

This is the marking on the windows on my motorhome, do you think I have a problem there is no sign of an E marking apart from the cab windows.

As it stands, all of us that don't have e-markings on our plastic windows have a problem in that the draft of the test specifications aks us, the owners, to write to the manufacturer of the window to obtain a not further specified certificate that states that our windows don't break into lethal shards on impact.

As mentioned earlier in this thread I think that this is an ill thought out part of the test. As these pictures are beginning to show, all older plastic windows (while having no e-mark) have the wave mark in common.
The wave mark is the predecessor of the e-mark and we have to get the RSA to include and accept that mark into their test criteria as a valid equvalent of the e-mark.

I have to say that I'm very disappointed in the RSA. Because if they had researched this properly (and not just drafted the test criteria on the back of an envelope) somebody in the know about vehicle glazing would have told them about the e-mark (and the fact that most motorhomes don't have any glass behind the drivers' cab !)

Mountainsandh

This is the markings on our windows :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38994151@N03/4499156187/



Thanks for your initiatives in that regard, wouldn't have an iota of a clue in these things

The windscreen and side cab windows have E2 and 43R.

peasant

just found this on a site that sells Roxite windows ...old marking and new marking in comparison

*Kol*

peasant wrote: »

just found this on a site that sells Roxite windows ...old marking and new marking in comparison

Can it be taken that windows made from material supplied by Polyplastic conform to the standard even if they have no markings?? I was in contact with EECO in the UK and they source their ,material from Polyplastic, however they are unwilling at the moment to make any sort of statement as to the conformity of the windows that they manufacture. They did mention that the material they use is thicker than the OEM material. There is hope though as they are in contact with Polyplastic to see if they can can any statement from them as to the standard of material used. As the RSA document does not specify that the markings are required for side windows a statement from the manufacturers (even if they were to publish a generic statement) would suffice.

JUst for info the marking V-X/B means V= safety glazing having a regular light transmittance less than
70 per cent. X= rigid plastic double-glazed unit. B = for side, rear and roof glazings.

zoltar_boi

I have a German import - 2000 Dethleff Globetrotter which has Roxite 94 windows (without the "E" mark). When this DOE test and window issue surfaced, I wrote to Miriad Products in the UK who I tracked down as manufacturers of Roxite for windows.

He was very helpful, and sent me retro-certification documents from Germany, along with a letter explaining the retro-grading of Roxite windows. I have attached the pdfs from Germany, I also have a letter explaining the new grading, but for some reason, I cannot upload it as either a word doc or a PDF file. If anyone wants a copy of this letter, PM me and I'll email it.

They may be of use to anyone else with similar windows, or perhaps for inclusion with any response to the RSA.

Z

peasant

Great Stuff, zoltar_boi

I'm just after composing an hour long e-mail to the "Kraftfahrtbundesamt" asking for something similar to cover all windows with a wave mark. Hopefully I'll get something ...otherwise what you've got there should go a long way too.

Des32

I got the same document from Polyplastic in Rotterdam a few days ago.

*Kol*

Des32 wrote: »

I got the same document from Polyplastic in Rotterdam a few days ago.

Do you have an email address for Polyplastic. I have a few questions for them about the certification of raw material that they sell to other manufacturers.

Des32

Hi Kol

The email is info@polyplastic.nl

peasant

*Kol* wrote: »

Can it be taken that windows made from material supplied by Polyplastic conform to the standard even if they have no markings??

Not entirely.

As far as I'm aware the wave mark and definetly the e-mark contain test criteria that concern the finished product and not just the raw material

peasant

So far we have been concentrating on windows from european manufacturers.

There probably are a few owners of US motorhomes out there ...anyone got any pics of their window?

Would be nice to see if there is a DOT (department of transport) marking on them and what that looks like.

I know that DOT marked windows were accepted in Germany at the time like for like to be the same as wave mark windows ...so DOT marks ought to be acceptable here as well.

vinniem

Hi Peasant, all my perspex camper windows are marked E1 43R (Mfg PARA-PRESS) and van windows marked E17 43R. Make Chausson Flash09/ Transit year 2007. Will try put up some pictures later.

*Kol*

peasant wrote: »

Not entirely.

As far as I'm aware the wave mark and definetly the e-mark contain test criteria that concern the finished product and not just the raw material

Thanks. My angle is that a statement to the effect that the material doesn't break into pieces that would cause severe cuts when broken would suffice for any window made from polyplastic material.

peasant

Yepp ..that should do it actually