Industrial Enclosure prevent machine and wiring from direct
contact with human and other external bodies that can create an accident
or damage to human life or machine. These cabinet requires standard
practice in manufacturing to provide adequate strength & protection
for critical components fitted inside.
Contamination
and electrical /electronic device should not gel together if your equipment
need longer life. Failure of equipment leads to costly affair of
production down time that’s why people start putting focus on better
cabinet for their electrical systems.
Few years
back Indian market is dominated by local manufacturers & Price of enclosure
was generally quoted on per kilogram basis and that always carry risk of
poor quality due to no real criteria defined except sheet thickness
(Gauge).
Panel
builder and machine manufacturer who primarily used their in-house facility
also found difficult to run their facility due to pollution norms, huge
capital cost allocated in it and for the latest certification needs.
The branded
manufacturers of the Industrial enclosure not only concentrate on the safety
aspect of it, but also on the attractiveness, to make the enclosure
pleasing to the eye. This article highlight quality, cost and changing
demand pattern for electrical enclosure.
Enclosure
are now made with standard rules & certification: changing scenario and
demand from critical application forces supplier to use standard rules in
enclosure manufacturing. Usually Enclosure selected based on below
parameters→
Sheet Steel
Thickness & Grade, Paint/Power Coating thickness & Types, Types of
Gasket, Degree of protection, impact strength, and usage like – outdoor or
indoor application.
These
parameters vary based on criticality of application and certification enforce the
manufacturer to meet the requirement.
Degree of
protection is measured in IP as per IEC 60529 certification, Impact strength is
tested under IK as per IEC 62262 certification. IP & IK Certification
ensures degree of protection under defined impact load.
Common
problem found in metal enclosure are rusting and main causes are improper
pre-treatment of surface and manual procedure for power coating. When a
manufacturer claim high salt spray life e.g 500 Hrs, 1000Hrs,they need to
have set up of 10 tank cleaning, preferably zinc phosphating and spray
gun/dip coating shops with baking facility. The full procedure has to be
automated to avoid any manual errors to keep consistency in finish and
finally product has to be test for impact, bend test and paint thickness
to ensure quality.
The Gasket
plays an important part too of maintaining the IP rating of Industrial
enclosures on actual field application, nowadays all branded enclosures
manufactures are doing jointless PU gasket to ensure very long running IP
life.
Different
kind of Industrial enclosures like Wall Mounted Boxes, Floor Mounted Panels,
Compartmentalised Enclosures, IT Cabinets and Console Desks are used in
Automotive, Food and Beverage, Chemical, Aerospace, Shipbuilding/Off-shore
Industry Production Control, Engineering Machine Control,
power distribution Control Systems and Plant engineering applications.
Variety of
applications demand more and more customised enclosure sizes, different paint
shade specification and cut outs. Industrial Enclosures are just like raw
material for panel builder, OEMs and they need it as a base to start
assembly of devices and wirings if customer need to make cut outs or
make accessories brackets that again increase their delivery cycle time so
customer is looking for branded customised enclosure ready to use and it
reduce their cycle time.
Customisation
in size with low volume is difficult to handle because it requires effort to be
done from design build to manufacturing and many global companies are not
able to handle it easily and another customisation is for cut outs that can be
handled in two ways by doing cut out on fully finished enclosure or doing cut
out while manufacturing the enclosures.
Customisation
in enclosure still ensures IP & IK certification by following the same
procedure as followed in certified enclosures.
Consistency,
flexibility & modularity in branded enclosure attracting many machine
manufacturers and OEM to use branded enclosure that bring praise for their
machine and panel as outer cabinet quality impress the end user. Warranty,
approvals & certification for branded enclosure is another driving
factor.
Usually
enclosure cost is very less 3-5% of machine cost and approx. 8-12 % in
electrical distribution panels but capital cost is huge to run the
enclosure manufacturing facility and maintaining the stringent pollution norms
for welding, Electroplating & paint shop.
Growth in
branded customised enclosure demand is happening due to growth of existing
customer, customer shifting for branded enclosure from local fabricator,
proven & tested products from branded manufacturers, and standard
certification availability for export market.
Handling
low volume customisation is always challenge for Branded enclosure
manufacturer, because there will be no stock and they will never able to
make extra quantity due to uncertainty in order schedule.
To cater
Customised Enclosures, more steps to be followed over standard listed
enclosures like: New prices Quote, drawing approvals, new machine program and
component drawings etc., Need more resources to deliver the customised enclosure.
Customer always advised to pre-plan the enclosure ordering and cut down some
variations to keep less nos. of variant to get faster delivery.
