Here we see an old windows 98 computer motherboard that I was stripping down for the power supply module and other parts.
I opened up the lid of the box to find a very grubby and lint covered motherboard, I imagine that this has accumulated over about 15 years in a workshop environment. I thought this would be a good example of where ingress can be damaging to your electronics, especially in this magnitude, as this could be considered a fire hazard around the heat sinks.
This is a good example of bad ingress protection as the protective box has gaping holes in it for ventilation but lets in a lot of environmental matter and water which is essentially what the IP ratings of electronic products are quantifying.
The IP rating or Ingress Protection rating is categorised by two numbers.
The first being the solid object protection rating and goes from 0 to 6 for example:
- 0 is no protection i.e. exposed circuit boards etc.
- 4 is for protection against objects bigger than 1mm
- 5 is protection against most dust
- 6 total solid object protection (no dust).
The second number is the liquid protection and is categorised by number between 0 and 8.
- 0 is no protective shield i.e. exposed circuits etc.
- 1 is protection from vertically falling water.
- 5 is protection against low pressure water jets from any direction.
- Up to 8 which is long periods of pressurised immersion underwater.
The format of the number is given like: IP65 which wold be a product that is protected against all dust and low pressure jets of water. A lot of retailers or manufacturers like to boast good ingress so you may see this number explicitly listed on the product specification.
So keep your eyes peeled as it may affect the performance and reliability of some of the projects you work on, especially in dirty or exposed environments.