Ingression protection

While reading the instrument specification or electrical equipment specification you might have seen IP classes.IP is interpreted as Ingress protection.Ip calsses stands for specifying the environmental protection of electrical equipments. With ingression protection class we can understand, an instrument can withstand in which environmental condition. While selecting the instrument it is important to consider the ip class. Price of the instrument also varies according to their ip class.

IP class is represented with number. First digit of IP indicates how much the instrument is protected from dust. Second digit of the IP rating indicates how much the instrument is protected from water.

First digit of IP rating

0 = No protection

1 = Protected against touch by hands (>50mm)

2 = Protected against touch by fingers (>12mm)

3 = Protected against tools and wires (>2.5mm)

4 = Protected against tools and small wires (>1mm)

5 = Limited dust ingress protection

6 = Total dust ingress protection

Second digit of IP rating

0 = No protection

1 = Protected against condensation

2 = Protected against water spray < 15 degrees from vertical

3 = Protected against water spray < 60 degrees from vertical

4 = Protected against water spray from any direction

5 = Protected against low pressure water jets from any direction

6 = Protected against high pressure water jets from any direction

7 = Protected against immersion between 15cm and 1m depth

8 = Protected against long term immersion to a specified pressure