there's this weird and enduring myth that electricians don't clean up after themselves
as if they think they're above it in some way we all know that it's complete nonsense and for those
of us trained by old school sparkies we also know that the job's not done until it's tidy however
in this video we'll be taking it to the next level by looking at the new addition to the Conlok range
from Metpro which is designed to be used in clean room environments so what are clean rooms and why
do we need special types of conduit and fittings for them when carrying out installation work
i must confess before i started carrying out the research for this video i had a misconception
about it as i thought it primarily related to healthcare environments like hospitals
but actually clean rooms have much more to do with laboratories for scientific research
the production of nanoscale products like semiconductors which of course
are the foundation of our modern electronic and lighting worlds and the smooth running of data
centers the idea of a clean room is one of two things either to keep contaminants like dust
vaporized particles or microscopic organisms out of them or to stop harmful items in the clean room
like biological or nuclear objects from escaping to the outside world but how does conduit factor
into all of this well it's no good doing a great job of stopping contaminants entering a clean
room if the materials used in the construction and use of a clean room start to act as contaminants
we're all aware that steel conduit can be treated in a number of different ways however
it seems now that galvanized is the go-to finish for much of the industry now galvanized in this
context basically means to coat steel or iron in a protective layer of zinc and this helps to stop
the material from becoming oxidized or rusting this can be applied by means of what's called
hot dipping which is exactly what it sounds like the material is dipped into a hot tank of the zinc
coating material which then cools and coats the steel with a relatively thick layer of protection
the alternative method of coating is electroplating which creates a very thin
but very evenly spread layer of zinc across the steel however the challenge with this
second method is that the zinc coating will start to develop a strange phenomenon called
zinc whiskers it's thought that these are created by internal compression of the zinc
which then finds equilibrium by sending out small filaments of the material these filaments are
incredibly thin just a few nanometers across but can grow several millimeters long and are
understandably incredibly delicate meaning that they can come off the parent material and then
float around the atmosphere until they come into contact with delicate electronics in data center
equipment or embedded into semiconductors being made where they wreak havoc by causing shorts
which can disable or permanently destroy that equipment and so the clean room Conlok system
has been designed to prevent the dissipation of the zinc whiskers while still achieving the
levels of protection as specified in the British standard so how's it done well the team at Demon
Cato are being very tight-lipped about this but what we can say is that all the cleanroom Conlok
accessories so that's your boxes bends adapters and couplers all receive a bespoke surface coating
which effectively encapsulates zinc whiskers and renders them harmless with the cleanroom Conlok
steel tube this part of the system is manufactured from clean room compliant material so it's all
ready to go from the very start of production the team at Demon Cato to also ensure that the tube
all thickness of each length is at least 1.37 millimeters and goes through a heat treating
process called annealing this ensures that the tube will not crack or split when bending on site
Metpro have even gone to the trouble of creating a clean room version of their rapid saddle
which ties in beautifully with their drive to keep electricians working quickly and efficiently
even in challenging installs like clean rooms and the Conlok system itself has been thoroughly
tested for tensile strength up to 1000 newtons for heavy-grade conduit with all the samples
remaining properly assembled to the conduit it survived a 450 newton hanging test which is like
having a medium-sized child swinging on it for 48 hours without cracking or deforming and has
been tested for acceptable earth continuity as well so really the only question remaining is
why wouldn't you use it so there we go that's the clean room Conlok system from Metpro it's
a spectacularly helpful addition to the Conlok system which has been proven to reduce labour
time and costs for electricians and can now be used in environments that need protection
from the dreaded zinc whiskers but as always we want to hear from you are you a convert to
the Conlok system have you ever carried out an installation in a clean room environment were
you aware of the pernicious threat of the dreaded zinc whisker whatever your thoughts or questions
please leave them in the comments section below and as always thank you very much for watching