Dust, Grime and Dirt Can Ruin Sensitive Equipment
October 25, 2021
When we talk about messy environments, we don’t mean the garbage can your custodian forgot to take out or the papers all over your coworker’s desk. We mean the kind of mess that can carry germs, create dust, and cause computer equipment failures.
Dust, grime, and dirt can all find their way into your computers and components… clogging up cooling fans, the ports, and even critical power connections. More than that, a dust-filled environment can make your workplace’s filthiest item even filthier.
Countdown to the Top 5 Messiest Work Environments
Every workplace has its cleanliness issues and computers are at especially high risk for equipment failure. Although you have to touch computer equipment, Dust Free Pc has solutions for protecting your sensitive equipment in all sorts of messy environments. Naturally, some workplaces are messier than others. Here’s a countdown list to our top five messiest work environments:
Number 5 – Sawmills and Milling Operations
With wood flying everywhere and dust accumulating all over the ground, it’s no wonder so many sawmills struggle with cleanliness. If you’re picturing a workshop full of circular saws with mounds of sawdust piled on the ground, you aren’t far from reality. Even the cleanest sawmills will still have enough dust particles in the air that every employee must wear safety goggles. But what about your workstation computers, bar code readers, printers, and other sensitive equipment?
If sawdust can get in your eyes, it can get in the crevices of all your favorite devices, including the computers needed to keep your operation running smoothly. That’s why so many sawmills use dust free PC enclosures to keep sensitive computer equipment safe from harmful residue.
Number 4 - Manufacturing Workshops
It almost doesn’t matter what you’re manufacturing. If you run a workshop, you know just how dirty your space can get. Unless you don’t clean the shop regularly, dust, debris, and scraps of materials can overwhelm even the highest-quality vacuum systems. Wood and metal chips pose a particular hazard because of sharp edges that allow them to wedge their way into the worst possible places.
You can do a deep cleaning every day - even every hour if you want - but that won’t keep your workstation PCs and other sensitive electronic equipment safe between cleanings. Only custom-made full enclosures can protect your investment.
Number 3 – Casting and Foundries
Your typical foundry isn’t just dirty, it’s hot. And that heat can create convection currents in the air that spread silica dust and other grime throughout the plant. Like all other dust, airborne silica can be a hazard to your health, and to your computers. Just like you cover your eyes and mouth around airborne dust, you should cover your PC too.
The right enclosure for a foundry won’t just protect your workstations, PCs, printers, scanners, and numerically controlled equipment from dust, it can also be designed to keep it cool with Dust Free PC’s state-of-the-art cooling system.
Number 2 - Medical Labs
Now more than ever we know about the importance of medical safety, but the experts who work in laboratories already knew this. Whether you’re working with bodily fluids or with patients carrying disease, keeping a clean environment is one of the most important parts of running a medical lab. Anything you bring into a lab can be contaminated, and then you risk carrying that contamination back out into the world.
But it also goes the other way in medical labs. It’s not enough to keep yourself clean, you also have to keep contaminates out of and off the equipment being used. Computer components you’ve been touching all day must contain the smallest particles to maintain a clean room. That’s why Dust Free PC enclosures used in medical settings can have system fans reversed to contain harmful particulate rather than allow it to be expelled.
Number 1 - Meat Processing Plants
Even with strict sanitation standards and OSHA regulations, meat processing plants will never be as clean as whistle. Some processing plants can be cleaner than others, and most meat processors are much cleaner than those from the past, but these facilities naturally house the filthiest byproducts and smallest particles of debris in the food production process.
Unfortunately, as safe as the typical processing facility is, accidents can still happen. Those waste products are the last things you want getting on your workstations, computers, and other electronic components. Not only can they cause damage to your PC, but they can also spread disease as airborne particulates.
When it gets down to it, you don’t want your workstation PCs, office computers, printers, bar code scanners, or other sensitive equipment exposed to workplace contaminants. After all, shutdowns for repairs can compromise the plant’s production schedule whether you’re testing for deadly diseases or rough cutting lumber. For the best enclosures that will not only protect computerized components from internal damage, but also protect your workspace from contamination, Dust Free PC offers custom solutions. Since 1999, Dust Free PC has been your one-stop-shop for made in America products designed to keep your expensive equipment clean, protected and running without costly downtime that can reduce your ROI.
