A Quick Guide to Fabrication of Electrical Cabinets and Cubicles

Blog | September 27th, 2018

Electrical cabinets are uniquely equipped with special design features. To begin with, there are rails and fittings inside the enclosures, parts that support electronic circuit boards, power supplies, and electrical relays. Compact automated switches, which are often called contractors, activate when their magnetic coils are triggered by a control signal. That means there are vibrations inside the sealed cubicle, so the fabricated enclosure must adopt a reliable parts-locking system.

Choosing the Base Material

Is this metal enclosure inside a boiler room or mounted on an outside wall? Are there environmental hazards picking away at the fabricated electrical cabinet. Ingress protection ratings are important, for they assure a properly sealed casing, no matter the environmental setting. However, that IP rating isn’t going to do much good if the source metal isn’t corrosion-resistant. A tough stainless steel or aluminium alloy is essential here, with its softly folded panels blocking all manner of situational hazards.

Folding and Shaping Demands 

And why are these softer edges so important? Well, there are plastic-insulated conductors threading their way through electrical cabinets. If they encounter sharp edges, they could be stripped of their insulated coating. Composed of overly sharp edges, substandard control panels cause circuit breaker trips and blown fuses because of this insulation-abrading effect. Similarly, all drill holes and board entry points must be debarred and clean. Those burred edges, yet again, cause damaged wire insulation. Employed as a post-processing stage, after the curved and rolled enclosure edges have been applied, rubber grommets and rubber door seals are used to prevent element penetration and insulation damage.

Electrically Oriented Fabrication Services 

Powered equipment cubicles are loaded with singular features. Bonding continuity is essential in here, so the panel must include at least one grounding post, plus a consistently designed profile that assures bonding integrity. As for the electrical systems inside the panel, sometimes they generate heat. A thermal dissipation feature, a design that incorporates fins and ventilation ports, is also absolutely essential when fabricating an electrical cabinet or cubicle.

Undertaking the project, the initial features are easy enough to fabricate. Mounting rails and fastener holes are applied. Next, the front panel receives drill holes and punch marks, plus a series of profiled cutaways. The switches and instrument gauges are mounted on the front of the panel. Then there’s the fact that electrical switchgear generates heat. Cutaway vents dissipate the heat. Earthing and bonding requirements, rounded edges, and IP protection systems, every one of these internal and externally influenced factors must be accounted for during the design phase and incorporated into the final fabrication drawings.

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