cable-assembliescablessafety
I am currently developing some electronic sensors for use in monitor food quality. This type of device requires running electrical cable though piles of food products. What type of electrical cables (or cable insulation materials) are considered food safe? and are there any standards which I should familiarize myself with?
Would standard CAT5 or CAT6 cable which is used in networking be safe to use in this application?
Use an FFC cable.
Arrange it in a spiral, with your accelerometer in the centre. As ThePhoton mentioned, you must use strain relief at each end of the cable, otherwise you're liable to get fatiguing there.
Alternatively, use a longer FFC, and arrange it like this if you want lots more rotation:
YouTube video of revolving cable chain.
This application uses cable chain, which is better, and can take whatever cables you want. It's more expensive, but still affordable. 2.4ft of chain is less than 20 GBP from RS. You can arrange the chain in the spiral form as I have shown in my purple rendering.
If you're really strapped for cash, you may be able to get away with simply wrapping your cable around the axle a couple of times in a helix. This spreads out the bending motion of the cable along the spiral length, so that no one part of the cable is bending much. We do this in our robots where there's absolutely no room for any solutions involving cable chains. And, while those robots don't usually do 250,000 cycles, we have never seen a cable fail in this situation.
It's all about the current ratings. The wall outlet has some maximum current it can deliver safely. A fuse or breaker should pop if you exceed that, so that should take care of itself. However each splitter may have a lower current rating. Anything plugged into a splitter must not exceed the current the port is rated to, and together will the other devices plugged into the splitter what the whole splitter is rated to. These generally don't contain a fuse or breaker, so will just catch fire and burn down your house if overloaded.
This logic proceeds down the tree with each new device you plug in.
Best Answer
The FDA has a list of substances which are considered safe for food contact. It might be a bit difficult to find the correct material in that list.
This is also something you can ask the manufacturer of the cable: is you cable FDA certified?
Phoenix Contact for example advertise PP cables (polypropylene) as especially suited for food industry because:
Well the first point is probably true for any PP, the other two might be specific to the Phoenix Contact ones.