Technical Articles & Industry Trends

The Importance of IP Ratings for Food & Beverage Operations

Anyone that works in a food or beverage manufacturing/processing facility knows that these environments are a nightmare for computers, especially those that are not designed to operate in this type of environment. Many facilities attempt to retrofit consumer-grade equipment to function in these demanding environments by building and assembling custom enclosures to protect their computers from dust, food particles, spraying water, wash-downs, and harsh disinfectants.

To ensure that equipment maintains its integrity and is not compromised by environmental factors native to food & beverage facilities, it is important that these enclosures are designed to withstand the elements. The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) has created standards to help determine and classify exactly how well an enclosure protects the electrical components housed within.

These standards assign ingress protection (IP) ratings based on the degree to which enclosure protects its contents from the environment. These ratings range from IP00 (no protection from solids or liquids) all the way up to IP69k (full protection from dust ingress and protection from water jet cleaning). The numbers in the rating represent the levels of protection from solids and liquids; with the first number indicating solids protection level and the second indicating the liquids protection level.

In order for an enclosure to adequately protect electrical equipment from the hazards found in food and beverage environments, Teguar Computers recommends an IP rating of at least IP65. This level of protection provides total ingress protection from food particles and dust, as well as liquid ingress protection from a 6.3mm nozzle spraying water against the enclosure.

Teguar offers a great selection of reliable touchscreen computers designed with ratings of at least IP65. Each unit has been tested and certified for its IP rating so you can have piece-of-mind that your computing solutions from Teguar Computers will operate reliably in even your most demanding facility!

View our IP65/NEMA4X rated touchscreen PCs
View our IP69K rated touchscreen PCs
View our wash-down touchscreen PCs