Dust is prevalent in many workplaces. It is not necessarily a lack of good housekeeping that can cause a build up of dust but processes in industrial applications in particular generate lots of dust.
Dust has terrible consequences for people’s health but it can also have other hidden dangers as well as being highly damaging to equipment and machinery.
One of the problems of dust is that it can consist of literally any material from skin cells and paper fibres, to metals, ceramics and chemicals. These different constituents can have differing effects on the health of workers and the machinery.
Face masks, coveralls and gloves can protect your workforce from breathing in any hazardous dust particles but what about the expensive IT solutions that are controlling your production processes? Dust has a myriad of effects on a computer. It can clog moving parts, block filters, cause over heating and even short circuit PCB’s.
In some industries, such as food production, explosive dust clouds can that when they come into contact with electrical items such as computers they can ignite and explode. Even innocuous substances such as flour or custard can have highly explosive results if the dust gathers in enough quantities.
For this reason many computers, monitors and printers used in industrial areas are housed in dustproof computer enclosures. These industrial computer cabinets are normally rated to European IP or International NEMA rating systems to describe the amount of dust protection they offer. Some are also ATEX compliant (ATEX – European explosive atmospheres guidelines).
Dustproof industrial computer enclosures are used in all types of businesses from heavy industry to food production and packing areas.
