Wood Dust within the Electrical Enclosures

I went out last night on the planers interlocks and there was a small wood dust fire near one of the electrical contactors.
It was not a fire risk for the facility due to it being a sealed metal enclosure but it did bring up significant concerns to me as many of the tools within the woodshop also use contactors. I will be looking for better ways to seal out wood dust on the interlocks but it opens up a conversation on dust mgmt.

I took the opportunity to inspect the other machines and they all had significant dust within the enclosures which creates an opportunity for a larger fire.

I have seen a similar fire on the Sawstop within the electrical connector that connects the mains to the machine.

What I would like to do is create a process for cleaning out these electrical junctions as part of routine cleaning so I will work on building a document that I will get published to the woodshop wiki.

I also wanted to look into better ways to seal these junctions.

I started looking at

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Gardner-Bender-1-lb-Plug-Duct-Seal-Compound-DS-110/100212441

https://www.duraline.com/accessory/hydra-seal®-s-50

Etc.

Would anyone like to assist me with this research as well as identifying a long term solution for DMS that is sustainable for an organization like DMS?

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Use NEMA boxes, and use compression seal cable glands. If something gets in the unit is being left open when it shouldn’t be. Focus on the ingress to the boxes first since it’s a more fundamental design issue if that’s happening.

As for the tools themselves and not the electrical boxes feeding them, I’ll leave that to the people that maintain it.
For things like controlling contactors and the like:

List of standard types: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEMA_enclosure_types
Sample compression gland: https://www.amazon.com/Lantee-Cable-Gland-Waterproof-Connector/dp/B0736VVJHF/ref=pd_day0_hl_328_9?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B0736VVJHF&pd_rd_r=af1483c9-2571-11e9-8fda-23ec39d64fe3&pd_rd_w=gE49x&pd_rd_wg=WRwXJ&pf_rd_p=ad07871c-e646-4161-82c7-5ed0d4c85b07&pf_rd_r=RD8NVSEEJFBHPZYM0QZC&psc=1&refRID=RD8NVSEEJFBHPZYM0QZC

Additionally you can get such glands for Ethernet connections (they seal around the whole RJ-45 head when installed) as well as various sizes: https://www.amazon.com/Adafruit-Cable-Gland-Waterproof-connector/dp/B01BMRDCTU/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1548950761&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=sealed+rj-45+gland

Additionally, I see a lot of places use these types of twist locks (I have some stored in Metal, but they aren’t installed anywhere at the moment): https://hubbellcdn.com/ohwassets/HCI/WiringDevice/Catalog/C%20-%20Watertight%20Devices/Twist-Lock%20Devices.pdf

Having seen electrical boxes all over the space without glands on them or other openings the first thing that should happen is just using the right type of connections rather than hoping you can glob stuff onto it, from both an upkeep and efficacy standpoint.

-Jim

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I could not agree more!