Outdoor card readers or indoor, readers are the most integral part of any security & access control project. The devices gather the data from the cards or tags or any device used by the pedestrian or any user assigned or delegated to enter the premises. The location of reader is of great importance, it can be outdoor or indoor again different environments. The types of readers can be radio frequency or biometric or hybrid, depends on the application & requirement of the site.
In general readers are designed for indoor application with standard plastic housing or what we can call as ABS. While choosing the housing of readers various factors are to be considered at the production level. The generic readers as agreed can be any housing regardless of basic indoor environmental requirements. The standard features are enough to satisfy the access control conditions for the most of the projects. Each reader can be with pigtail connector for power supply, Wiegand data ports or OSDP ports and a proper location to fit on wall or other require place. The housing used is IP44 rated.
IP44 rated housings are not completely waterproof & cannot be used for outdoor applications without proper housing or casing. The reader with IP44 rated housing means that it is protected against solid objects that are bigger than 1mm and water splashing from all directions but not waterproof P54 rated housing means protected against dust ingress sufficient to prevent the product from operating normally but it’s not dust tight. The device is fully protected against solid objects and splashing of water from any angle. So technically such housings cannot be used for outdoor application.
The outdoor environments are diverse from hot summer to harsh winters hence variation in temperature, the dust in sandy areas, humidity at peak, variation in light from morning to mid day to night and vandalism caused from any reason. This makes it impossible to use any available housing to be used for outdoor application. The specific design and material grade is needed to insure the desired life cycle of product & beyond.
The available electronic boards are designed for particular temperature range for operation & storage ranging from -25°C to 75°C with the relative humidity of 90%. The devices are provided with the ant vandal metal housing with impact resistance of to resist any sort of vandalism. The housing if made of metal need to be galvanised or RAL coated to resist the formation of rust. In case of biometric devices for face recognition the proper glass or anti-reflection material is needed to avoid rejection rates & provided proper detection. The housings for outdoor card readers are generally IP67 or IP68 rated hence certified & guaranteed water and dust proofing. The impact resistance of IK10 is also desired for the outdoor readers to resist vandalism.
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