NEMA Standards: What They Are and Why It Is Important to Comply with Them

There are some protocols and safety standards to maintain the manufacturing of any kind of industrial electrical enclosures. NEMA standards are one of those protocols applicable mainly to North America.

NEMA, in short, stands for the National Electrical Manufacturers Association. They are a trade association of electrical manufacturers, the largest of this kind in the United States. They have a set of standards, based on which they provide safety ratings for all kinds of electric enclosures including electric motors manufactured for industrial use. These protocols are known as NEMA Standards, under which each part of the electrical enclosures is tested and given ratings for.

The importance of complying with the NEMA Standards are multi-fold, as they not only ensure highest safety standard for both the manufacturer and the user but also helps to eliminate any kind of misunderstanding about the characteristics of a particular product. Thankfully, manufacturers like OME Motors are already aware of its importance and benefits, and thus, offers readily available electric motors manufactured complying with the protocols in place. Learning about them in details can also benefit you to make a sound purchasing decision.

NEMA Standards and Ratings

After careful testing and crosschecking of each part of an electric enclosure like electric motors, NEMA provides a pre-defined rating defining the process, procedures or the end product. In the process of doing so, they consider many aspects of the product – composition, construction, dimension, tolerance, safety, performance, operating characteristics, as well as the appropriate application of the product. When a particular manufacturer follows all the standardized guidelines in every step of designing and manufacturing the product, they are given a particular rating denoting its level of safety, efficiency and purpose.

The ratings are usually given in numeric numbers, sometimes with an alphabet denoting any differences. For example, the rating ‘3’ is given for a weather-resisting product. However, if the same product doesn’t include protection against windblown dust, it is given a ‘3R’ rating. While the ratings may seem incremental – ranging from 1 to 13 – they don’t necessarily refer to how safe or how good the product is. They just refer to different tests and characteristics.

Importance of Complying with NEMA Standards

The single most important factor for complying with NEMA standards is to offer a universally agreed safety measure in electrical enclosures. The more complicated industrial electronics are, the more important it becomes to comply with it.

Not only do they enhance the safety of a product, but they can also be useful in enhancing the efficiency of a product if and when integrated into the manufacturing process. They can also eliminate any misunderstanding of the purchaser by offering rating that communicates about the characteristics and application of the product. So, while buying, you can immediately know which electric motors to go for based on their NEMA ratings. Anyways, while companies like OME Motors comply with both NEMA standards and IEC IP Code, they can’t be converted directly.