Cable protection

[pet100pierre]

My application need to resist against salt-spray see-coast environement.
The machine is complete maded in stainless steel 316L. So the problem is about the electrical part. Which precaution should I take to avoid maintenance for many years.

The machin also have a lot of terminal, PCB Controler board, fan heater, relay power supply circuit breaker, drive motor...

thank a lot,

 

[pamungkas]

Hi pet100pierre,

For electrical application (in salt environment), the main problem is sedimentation of salt. It will be problems for your breaker/relay contact CLOSE-OPEN, raising the temperatur of your PC and leakage current possibility/short circuit. I suggest you to give additonal protection agaist air flow (which contaminated by salt). Does your fan heater introduce salt-air environment to your system? If does, why dont you give close circulation of air?

I think about pressurize panel will inhibit air flow from environment to your system.

rgds,

pamungkas

 

[pet100pierre]

Hi pamungkas,

First, the fan heater doesn't introduce salt-air in the system.

But the machine is not completely sealed.

And we cannot encapsulated all parts with NEMA 4X enclosure because the space is very tiny.

Did exist a kind of salt air filter or utilisation of seal grease?

 

[pamungkas]

pet100pierre,
I am not quite good in either salt filter or greasing, since I am only electrical. I never know salt filter, If you find, it could be very expensive, since the salt particle is micron.

If your application's operation is limiting by the temperature, you should consider the cooling air wihtout introducing salt-air into system.

Thank you.

 

[tomcad]

I am more familiar with radio electronics than salt water engineering; but here are some thoughts. The reason for salt or moisture accumulating in an open system is mainly due to temperature differentials (eg. day to night). Warm air expands, cool air draws in the moisture. So sometimes what we do in broadcasting is to deliberately introduce a heat source which will *always* keep the air temp higher than ambient. Thus, temp differentials are held nearly constant. The heat device can be something simple, a light bulb, a power resistor, or heat strip. Hope this helps and good luck.

Tom