ifm's ecolink product family undergoes rigorous testing for various environments. Explore the highlights of our product testing below.
The global leader in the development of premium cleaning, sanitizing and hygiene products for the food processing, beverage, dairy, and pharmaceutical industries, ECOLAB® performed tests on ifm ecolink cordsets for material resistance.
Test definition -- Henkel Ecolab test method F&E no. 40 -1 includes complete immersion in the test medium for 28 days at a specifief temperature. Refer to the material test certification for full test details.
Result
Test definition -- 30 second cycles, 4 gpm water at 140 °F and 1500 psi at various angles
Result
Test definition -- 50 cycles, 15 minutes each immersed in water bath at 0 °C and 100 °C
Result
In the ifm impact test, connectors are exposed to extreme shocks. In addition to the individual components, the vibration protection of the coupling nut is tested. Only a coupling nut which permanently stays firmly in the optimum position guarantees the tightness of the connector.
Test definition -- 750 g velocity for 1 million shocks
Result
Products with approval for the US market must meet certain requirements regarding the behavior in fires.
Test definition -- exposure to defined fires twice in 1 minute per UL746C
Results
Connectors are exposed to increasingly harsh environmental conditions. New, more powerful bio oils, oils and coolants are brought on the market. Unfortunately, these products sometimes are very aggressive towards materials, in particular plastics. To meet these requirements, only materials which have been tested and which are of particularly high quality must be used. ifm carries out extensive tests with media currently common on the market. To shorten the test period, the test conditions by far exceed the usual operating conditions of the media.
Test definition -- Immerse cordset into medium for 1200 h at 80 °C
Result
Many applications in manufacturing plants require cordsets to withstand extensive flexing. ifm tests flexing and recommends a bending radius of 10 x the cable diameter.
Test definition
Result
In addition to the general requirements such as volume resistance and insulation resistance, temperature resistance, electric strength and crimp extraction forces, the number of insertion/withdrawal cycles is an important characteristic regarding the quality of a connector.
Test definition -- 100 insertion / withdrawal cycles under defined test conditions, standard requires 0.2 Nm pin extraction force
Result
In this test, the strength of the connection between the cable and the housing is tested.
Test description -- pull until destruction, standard is 100 N
Result