Panel and cabinet vent filters.
Dust on boards and terminals causes tracking, intermittent faults and corrosion. A cut foam pad in the fan aperture is one of the cheapest reliability improvements available on a panel.
Intermittent faults have a cause.
Dust in a control cabinet is not cosmetic. Conductive dust bridges terminals; hygroscopic dust absorbs moisture and starts tracking; both accelerate corrosion at every connection. The resulting failures are intermittent, which is exactly why they are expensive — an intermittent fault costs several visits to diagnose and is usually blamed on something else first.
A vent filter costs almost nothing against that. It is the reliability measure most often skipped on a panel build and most often retrofitted after the second unexplained trip.
Cool it and keep it clean.
Panel fans generally have modest static pressure capability, so this is a balance rather than a maximise-capture problem: too fine a filter starves the cooling the cabinet needs, trading a dust problem for a thermal one — and thermal problems kill electronics faster than dust does.
- 45 PPI — sensible default for most panel fan and louvre housings.
- 30 PPI — where the environment is heavily dust-laden and you would rather wash more often than restrict airflow.
- 60 PPI — cleaner environments, or where the fan has genuine headroom and finer capture is worth having.
Filter the intake, not the exhaust. Filtering the outlet does nothing to stop dust entering through the inlet, and a slight positive pressure inside the cabinet actively helps keep dust out through cable entries and gaps. Filter what comes in; let what leaves do so freely.
Cut to the housing.
Most panel fan and louvre housings take a square or rectangular pad, and we die-cut to those dimensions. Send the housing size, the old pad, or a drawing for custom louvre shapes and non-standard apertures.
- Electrical and control panels — fan and louvre pads on switchgear and PLC cabinets.
- Server and network racks — front-door and fan-tray filters.
- Electronics enclosures — vent filters behind grilles, often supplied with the enclosure itself.
- Outdoor cabinets — telecom and instrumentation housings where black foam's UV resistance matters.
When we are also making the enclosure, the vent filter is cut from the same drawing set — see custom PCB enclosures.
Common questions.
Why filter a control cabinet at all?
Because conductive and hygroscopic dust settling on boards and terminals causes tracking, intermittent faults and corrosion — failures that are expensive to diagnose precisely because they are intermittent. A vent filter is one of the cheapest reliability improvements available on a panel, and it is usually the thing nobody thinks about until the second unexplained fault.
Which grade for a fan filter?
Between 30 and 60 PPI. Panel fans generally have modest static pressure capability, so going too fine starves the cooling the cabinet needs — which trades a dust problem for a thermal one. 45 PPI is a sensible default; go coarser if the environment is heavily dust-laden and you would rather wash more often.
Can you cut foam for standard fan filter housings?
Yes. Most panel fan and louvre housings take a square or rectangular pad, and we die-cut to those dimensions. Send the housing size or the old pad. Non-standard apertures and custom louvre shapes are cut to a drawing in the same way.
Should the filter go on the intake or the exhaust?
The intake, always. Filtering the outlet does nothing to stop dust entering through the inlet, and a slight positive pressure inside the cabinet actively helps keep dust out through gaps and cable entries. Filter what comes in, and let what leaves do so freely.
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