Tag: NEMA Type

NEMA/UL and IP ratings

Published on by johnball2014Leave a comment
From right to left: Small NEMA 12, Large NEMA 12, Large NEMA 4X

EXAIR manufactures Cabinet Coolers to keep your electrical components inside cool.  This will help to stop any costly shutdowns or premature electrical failures due to overheating.  The EXAIR Cabinet Cooler System is a simple device that generates cold air with no moving parts, condensers, or freon.  They are maintenance-free with a long-life cycle; and installation is quick and easy.  But when mounting the system to your electrical panel, you want to make sure that the Cabinet Cooler meets or exceeds the integrity standard for that environment.  There are standards that categorize electrical panels to protect workers, shield the environment, and contain the electrical components. 

Electrical panels come in all shapes, sizes and colors; and can be used in a variety of environments; indoor, outdoor, and even hazardous locations.  Depending on the place and setting, you will need to determine the minimum requirements for the integrity of your electrical panel.  For example, you do not want to use an “indoor only” electrical enclosure for outside areas.  Also, you would not want a standard enclosure to be used in a hazardous area, as it can be very dangerous.  The major organizations that create these electrical standards are NEMA, UL, and IP.  In this blog, I will cover these organizations and how they rate them.

NEMA, or National Electrical Manufacturer Association, and UL, or Underwriters Laboratory, are generally used in North America.  The difference between these two organizations is that the NEMA ratings are self-certifying while the UL requires testing by qualified inspectors, independent of the manufacturer, for compliance.  They use numbers and in some instances letters to indicate the type of environment that the enclosure can operate. EXAIR Cabinet Cooler Systems are UL listed; so, they have been tested and verified.  Currently, there are over 20 different NEMA/UL classifications.  Here is a description by WIKA that shows the different categories for both NEMA and IP.

IP, or Ingress Protection, is an international standard commonly used in Europe and is established by the International Electrotechnical Commission, or IEC.  This organization also allows for self-certification.  They use two digits to define levels of integrity for electrical enclosures against intrusion from foreign bodies and moisture. The first digit ranges from 1 to 6 which specifies the protection rating from solids.  The second digit, which ranges from 1 to 8, specifies the protection rating for ingress of water.  The higher the number, the better the protection.  The combination of these two numbers will give the protection level of the enclosure against dust and water.  There is an equivalence with the NEMA ratings to the IP ratings, but it is up to the preference of the user to verify the protection requirement. 

EXAIR offers three main NEMA types for our Cabinet Cooler Systems which are the most commonly found within facilities. We also offer an additional two types that are designated strictly for Hazardous Locations and are separately certified by UL to meet those standards.

NEMA 12

NEMA 12 (IP54) Cabinet Coolers are rated for dust tight and oil tight. NEMA 12 cabinet coolers are ideal for general industrial environments where no liquids or corrosives are present and are located inside.

NEMA 4

NEMA 4 (IP66) Cabinet Coolers are rated for dust tight, oil tight, splash resistant and indoor/outdoor service. These Cabinet Coolers incorporate a low-pressure relief valve to allow the internal hot air to escape as well as to close and seal when the cooler is not in operation.  This allows for this Cabinet Cooler to maintain the integrity of a NEMA 4 enclosure.

NEMA 4X

NEMA 4X (IP66) Cabinet Coolers offer the same protection as the NEMA 4 but are constructed of stainless steel for food service and corrosive environments.

HazLoc Cabinet Cooler Systems

HazLoc Cabinet Coolers are designed for hazardous locations and are mounted to NEMA 7, 8, and 9 enclosures.  EXAIR catalogs these Cabinet Coolers as NEMA 4 (IP66) or NEMA 4X (IP66) as mentioned above.  But their registration by UL classified is for Class I, Class II, and Class III hazardous areas.  The reason that they do not match the NEMA rating of the hazardous panels is because they require an X-type or Z-type purge system.  In combination, they will not sacrifice the integrity of hazardous electrical panels. 

EXAIR has Cabinet Coolers in stock with a variety of cooling capacities from 275 BTU/hr to 5,600 BTU/hr (69 Kcal/hr to 1,411 Kcal/hr).  We also offer them in 316SS, high temperature versions, and non-hazardous purge.  We do have a Cabinet Cooler System Calculator to help determine the best product for your application.  If you have any additional questions, an Application Engineer at EXAIR can assist you.   

John Ball
Application Engineer
Email: johnball@exair.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_jb

Selecting the Right Cabinet Coolers with our Sizing Guide

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Selecting the proper Cabinet Cooler to solve your electrical panel overheating problems is simplified by using the Cabinet Cooler Sizing Guide and allowing EXAIR Application Engineers to calculate which Cabinet Cooler will be best. It is important to size Cabinet Coolers properly to ensure the most efficient cooler is chosen and the proper NEMA rating is chosen for your cabinet. This video illustrates how simple it is to gather the information for a long term solution to heat related problems.

Cabinet Coolers install in minutes, not hours. They protect your electronics from seasonal hot weather spikes, normally high temperature environments, or too much heat dissipation from electrical components in an enclosure. EXAIR’s selection of Cabinet Coolers include NEMA 12, 4 and 4X ratings. They normally operate with a thermostat control to turn themselves on and off as needed throughout the years and this is the most efficient way to run them. They are available from stock to solve your problem quickly and will fit nearly any environment with a variety of materials (Aluminum, 303 stainless steel or 316 stainless steel) and temperature ratings.

If you have any questions, please contact EXAIR.

Brian Bergmann
EXAIR Corporation
Ph. 1-800-903-9247 (U.S. & Canada)   1-513-671-3322
Email: brianbergmann@exair.com

 

What’s an EXAIR?

Published on by Dave WoernerLeave a comment

Sometimes taking customer’s phone calls remind me of an Abbott and Costello bit (but I have to be Costello). Conversations can feel a bit like twenty questions. Instead of opening with mineral, vegetable, or animal, customers call in wanting more information on an “EXAIR”.  For our brand manager and marketing department, it is a clear sign that what they are doing is working, but to me can be a bit confusing.

Before you start thinking I don’t know my product, please remember an “EXAIR” can be quite few things. We make the broadest variety of problem solving end-use compressed air products for industry which equates to many possibilities of what an “EXAIR” may be. Is it an Air Nozzle, an Air Knife, an Air Wipe, an Air Amplifier, an Atomizing Spray Nozzle, a Safety Air Gun, a Static Eliminator, a Vacuum Generator, a Line Vac, an Industrial Vacuum, a Vortex Tube, a Cold Gun, or a Cabinet Cooler?   Unfortunately, with no moving parts to wear out, our products sometimes will outlast their labels, so the customers don’t have anymore information. Then, I have to ask what the product does.

So I ask the customer, “does the EXAIR blow off, vacuum, clean, dry, cool, convey, evacuate, coat, divert, dust, float, open, lift, purge, or spray?”

And then I wait for the customer’s detailed and eloquent response…”It works”, they sometimes say. But most of the time they respond with all of the details or enough to determine what product they have. In, in the end, an “EXAIR” is generally a Cabinet Cooler or a Vortex Tube (though it may be any of the above selection) – and we won’t complain that our company name can be so closely associated with our products.

We have so many products because compressed air is so versatile and useful.  We have taken our expertise in compressed air and used it to solve numerous problems for our customers. This is not as easy, as it sounds.  First, you need to know how well our compressed air products can perform. Second, you need to know what kind of performance the customer needs to get the job done. For instance when working on a Cabinet Cooler sizing exercise: A customer has a control box that is 24″ tall by  36″ wide by 12″ deep.  This box is reaching temperatures that cause the electronics to fail. Generally, this temperature is going to be between 110 degrees Fahrenheit to 130 degrees Fahrenheit. The temperature in the plant was 95 degrees Fahrenheit, when it failed.  The customer would now like a Cabinet Cooler System to protect his enclosure from future temperature failures.

To calculate the heat load of the electronics, first we need to calculate the surface area in square feet. In the example above that would be 22 square feet. Second, we need to calculate the temperature differential between the outside and the inside of the cabinet.  The maximum temperature differential is 130 F – 95 F, which is 35 degree differential. With the temperature differential chart from our website, we can calculate the BTU/HR per square foot.

Temperature Conversion Table

For our example, it would be 13.8 BTU/HR/ft^2. Multiply this by our surface area. Our Cabinet Cooler needs to cool at least 303.6 BTU/HR. Our 4308 Cabinet Cooler System would be a good cabinet cooler for this enclosure. It can cool 550 BTU/Hr. It is rated for a NEMA 12 enclosure to prevent dust and oil from entering the cabinet.

To help the customer, you have to first ask the right questions. Most of these questions are listed on the Cabinet Cooler Sizing Guide on our website. What is the internal air temperature in the cabinet? What is the ambient air temperature? Are their any fans in the cabinet? What is the NEMA rating for the Cabinet? Sometimes it is best to speak with an Application Engineer to know for sure you have your bases covered.

Dave Woerner
Application Engineer
DaveWoerner@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_DW