Battery Manufacturing EquipmentFAT and SAT for battery equipment: what to test where
A factory acceptance test in China and a site acceptance test at your plant check different things. Plan both before you sign.
By BatteryEquip Editorial Team · 2026-11-04
Buying battery equipment from China usually means two acceptance tests. The factory acceptance test (FAT) happens at the supplier's plant before shipment. The site acceptance test (SAT) happens at your plant after installation. IEC 62381, whose third edition was published in 2024, sets out these tests for automation systems and is meant to give owner, buyer and vendor a common basis for agreeing scope and responsibilities. The same logic works well for battery machines.
What each test is for
The FAT shows that the machine as built meets the specification before it is crated. Problems are cheapest to fix here: the supplier's engineers, spare parts and workshop are close by. It is also usually tied to a payment milestone, so the criteria must be written down in advance.
The SAT shows that the machine works in your building, with your utilities, your materials and your neighbouring equipment. Transport damage, wrong voltage, poor compressed air and interface problems with the next machine appear here, not in the FAT.
IEC 62381 also defines integration tests at the factory and on site for systems that must work together. On a battery line that means checking that a coater hands over to the dryer, or that a formation system writes to your factory software.
What to test at the factory
Use your own materials whenever the result depends on them: your foil and slurry for a coater, your electrodes and separator for a winder, your cells for a sorter. Bring enough for a meaningful run and agree in advance who supplies it, how it is shipped and what happens to the output.
Check dimensions and tolerances against the drawings, the main functions in automatic mode, alarms and interlocks, and the recipe or programme handling. Run the machine long enough to measure a realistic rate, and count stoppages. For measurement equipment, check accuracy against calibrated references you trust. Record every result on a signed checklist; IEC 62381 provides checklist annexes for building such plans.
Typical FAT checks by type:
Coaters: coat weight and thickness across the width, front-to-back alignment and speed at the agreed oven settings.
Winders and stackers: alignment and overhang, tension, rate over a full roll and changeover.
Formation and grading: channel accuracy, temperature uniformity in a full tray and data records.
Drying ovens: vacuum level and time, temperature uniformity under load and residual moisture on samples.
Welders: weld strength and resistance on sample joints, and helium leak rate where sealing is involved.
What to test on site
Repeat the key performance checks after installation, now with your utilities and operators. Add the things the factory could not show: the interfaces to upstream and downstream equipment, data transfer to your systems, dry-room conditions where relevant and a longer run that shows availability over several shifts. Training, spare parts, documents and software backups belong in the SAT checklist too.
Safety and documents for Europe
Machinery placed on the EU market needs CE marking and a declaration of conformity. The current Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC is being replaced by Regulation (EU) 2023/1230, which applies from 20 January 2027, so for equipment delivered around that date ask which one the supplier's declaration follows. Electrical safety, guarding, emergency stops and the instructions should be checked during FAT, because they are hard to change once the machine is installed. Other markets have their own rules; state the destination in the enquiry.
Writing it into the contract
Put the acceptance criteria, the materials, the run length and the measurement methods in the purchase contract, and link payments to signed FAT and SAT reports. The RFQ guide and the guide to comparing supplier responses show where these items fit. Process pages on BatteryEquip, such as the coating width page, the winding throughput page, the formation page and the vacuum drying page, list the quality figures worth testing for each machine type. Manufacturers on BatteryEquip, for example LEAD and Hangke, list many machine families; ask each for a sample FAT protocol from a past project.