Briefly about encryption

First, a quick look at what IP is in electrician. These two letters stand for Ingress Protection Rating, a notation system designed to indicate how protected the device’s enclosure is from solid objects and water ingress into live parts. The degree of protection is encoded as follows:

IP _{_} _ _{_}  _ _

where:

• X ₁ / X ₂ – quality protection against mechanical damage / moisture;
• A, M – additional properties (we will give a description below).

Value table

Therefore, I listen to the table of IP protection degrees that are useful for household electricians when selecting electrical equipment for outdoor installations, rooms with high humidity, as well as in dusty warehouses:

To make the material understandable to you, we offer another option for IP decoding according to GOST 14254-2015.

One number (X ₁ ) means:

• 0 – The device is not shielded, it can be installed in special cabinets or shields that prevent direct contact with live parts.
• 1 – The structure is designed so that a person cannot touch dangerous areas of electrical equipment with his hand or an object with a thickness of more than 52.5 mm.
• 2 – It is impossible to crawl into dangerous areas with a thickness of 12.5 mm (or with your finger). Most often, this degree of protection circuit breakers.
• 3 – The device is protected by a housing that cannot be hacked without a special tool. Any object thicker than 2.5mm will not be able to penetrate the protective casing.
• 4- A higher degree that prevents the entry of objects with a diameter greater than 1 mm. The thick wire will not get inside the case without disassembling.
• 5- High protection from dust is provided. Equipment can operate in sometimes dusty rooms, as well as when sand gets into the shell (for example, in storage areas).
• 6 – maximum index, complete protection of electrical equipment from dust and particles.

Two numbers (X ₂ ) means:

• 0 – The device is not protected from water. In this version, there may be some switching devices installed in the panel (RCD, IP20 grade automatic devices).
• 1 – Protection against falling is provided from the top to the device casing.
• 2- Actually, the same design as with IP X1, but the housing design can protect the product from dripping at an angle of 15 ^around .
• 3 – The angle of inclination of the drops can reach 60°, ^which does not allow water from below.
• 4- Protection against stains and rain.
• 5 – The housing is designed so that weak water flow does not harm the operation of electrical equipment.
• 6- The shell is impervious to the strong influx and flow of water.
• 7 – Short-term or incomplete immersion in water is permitted.
• 8 – This means that the product remains under water for a long time.
• 9 – The highest degree of IP protection from moisture, long-term immersion under pressure (including protection against hot water jets) is allowed.

We also talked about the fact that in the IP tag according to GOST 14254-2015 there can be two additional letters after the numbers. The first (possibly A, B, C or D) gives electricians an idea of ​​how to protect the enclosure from people penetrating into dangerous parts of the electrical installation. The degree of protection in this case is as follows:

• A – protective shell that prevents touching the back of the hand;
• b – protection against penetration of fingers into the housing;
• C – the tool prevents access to the danger zone;
• D- Exclude the possibility of penetration with wires.

The second letter contains additional information and has the following decoding:

• H – high-voltage equipment, voltage up to 72.5 kV.
• M – during the moisture protection test, the device was in motion;
• S – during the same tests, the device was stable;
• W – The case is protected from weather conditions.

This, in fact, is all that the IP degree of protection for electrical installations represents. As you can see, today the maximum is IP69. Below we will also consider the ratings of products that are best for different types of rooms, as well as streets.

Which signs should I prefer?

If you want to choose, for example, sockets or lamps, but do not know which IP is better for certain conditions, we will briefly tell you where the degree of protection is applied.

1. In dry rooms, for example, the rooms of a house or apartment – kitchen, hallway, bedroom will be sufficient to install switches and IP20 sockets.
2. For bathrooms and wet rooms, it is recommended to choose plugs and fittings IP 44 or higher.
3. For baths, showers and saunas, it is better to take more protected products – IP 54.
4. If you want to make the lights in your underwater pool, the LED lights must be IP68 grade.
5. For outdoor installation, it is recommended to use street lights and IP54 switches (sufficiently high protection for the street and, accordingly, against environmental influences);
6. In dusty warehouses, be careful not to let dust enter the electrical enclosure. In this regard, the minimum security should be IP44, and better IP54.