Site Safety Boosted
Protecting fire and gas monitoring and control systems in hazardous applications is vital to the safe and successful operation of many sites.
England-based company Cooper Crouse-Hinds supplies explosion proof enclosures for a number of applications. One of its most recent customers is PDC Systems, which provides hazardous area electrical instrumentation. PDC designs, installs and commissions monitoring and control systems to such sectors as oil and gas, petrochemicals and other applications where explosive gas or dust is a risk.
Its combined pressure fire and gas range of panels have different control and instrumentation systems, which are typically programmable logic controllers (PLCs), contactors and power supplies that monitor fire and gas levels in hazardous environments.
PDC Systems Director Richard Cow-ling said his company uses a CEAG EJB 241-M1 enclosure from Cooper Crouse-Hinds because they had proved to be reliable and offered easy access for maintenance.
“There is adequate depth both from the front and back in order to carry out maintenance work without having to blind-guess where you are putting your fingers. For our customers, downtime costs money, so a reliable, easily accessible enclosure is critical.”
PDC also requested that the enclosure has a viewing window that enables the end user to see LED displays on the PLCs at all times and allows the company to remotely discuss maintenance or installation issues with an on-site engineer.
Cowling added, “As long as the engineer can tell us which LEDs are flashing, we can usually diagnose the problem and guide them through a step-by-step solution over the telephone. This also means the customer’s engineer doesn’t have to open the enclosure, which would require a hot-work permit.”
PDC said it is experiencing strong export demand with around 60% of its control systems exported to the United States, Middle East and Far East.
