Published on: October 30, 2012 by Blair Haas
In these challenging economic times, saving money has become an overriding concern in all product specification. In the selection of enclosures to use on the factory floor, there are five issues to consider insuring that you choose the most effective, but economical solution for your application.
With factory floors increasingly clean, the need to protect sensitive equipment from dirt, dust, and liquids is significantly reduced. By specifying a traditional enclosure instead of a NEMA enclosure, the savings can be as much as 50-75%. Often, just an enclosure like the enclosure shown at right can provide enough protection at a very inexpensive price.
Size matters in protection. The smaller the item that needs to be protected, the less labor and gasketing goes into the protective enclosure. Therefore, a small die-cast type NEMA box can be selected to fit inside a larger piece of equipment if that is all that needs to be protected.
There is no point to specify extra protection such as UV stabilization if the enclosure is being used indoors. Often a NEMA 12 enclosure will work if there is no spray down requirement on the floor. Each increasing level of protection can exponentially increase the cost.
In the U.S., steel is often the choice for NEMA enclosures. However, plastic, the world wide standard, is less expensive and provides great protection in most applications. Steel makes sense only when using an extremely large enclosure or when the environment is extreme. Polycarbonate, fiberglass, and even die cast, all make low cost alternatives for the traditional steel enclosure.
If you are dealing with more than a few pieces, the vendor has the best equipment to insure that any hole locations, slots, or connector cut-outs are created with no damage to the enclosure. This saves significant money and time in obtaining a turn-key solution to your project
Often a last minute rushed decision, by asking a few simple questions, the design of the proper factory enclosure can save significant money. Contact your local Newark salesperson to provide assistance on any factory enclosure need.
