People who work for a living on Commercial Fishing boats tend not to mince words…

I mean really, why should they. The fact is that commercial fishing is one of the most dangerous jobs in America. The bureau of Labor Statistics ranked commercial fishing as the job with the highest fatality rate in the country with 141.7 deaths per 100K, almost 75% higher than the fatality rate for pilots and flight engineers. (the next highest on-the-job fatality rate). The injury rate for crews is nearly 100% due to weather conditions, working on heavy machinery on a rolling deck. In other words if you work long enough on a commercial boat you will get injured, its virtually a guarantee.

That’s why commercial boat manufacturers aren’t interested in messing around with the reliability or operational toughness of their onboard electronics and machines. Their clients wouldn’t stand for it. Sitting in a gale, 100 miles offshore in the dead of an Alaskan Winter with half a million dollars of King Crab on board, is a bad place for your electronic control systems to take a vacation.

Here at CPI we believe our waterproof marine switches were simply made for the commercial marine world. Consider the following real world switch failures and you’ll understand how critical a robust, truly waterproof marine switch can be. And incidentally, all these applications are places CPI switches have already proved themselves.

Waterproof Marine Switch Panels

Flexible mounting options for our many switch types include a standard panel mount variety. But unlike the switches used for recreational boats, our waterproof switch panels contain completely sealed switch electronics which have been qualified to 5 million cycles and can meet almost any electrical, mechanical, or endurance requirements. Typical examples of these switches include panel mount versions of our momentary and maintained pendant switches and our D1040 Panel Mount Waterproof Plunger switch.

Winch or Crane End of Cable Safety Limit Switch

Winches and/or cranes are standard on most commercial boats and a limit switch typically manages end of cable detection. It is all that stands in the way of a snapped cable, lost payload, or a dangerous and dynamic on-board crane failure

The CPI J4-Series Limit switches have been designed into dozens of land and sea based cranes for exactly this purpose due to their environmental hardness and endurance. Both lever type limit switches and our robust roller limit switches can be used depending on the design.

Flow Control Systems

One of the less glamorous jobs of a good limit switch is monitoring valve position for onboard bilge systems or lavatory system holding tanks. Failure here is more foul than fatal but our J4 Series Ball series often get the job owing to their solid steel construction, double seal design, and overall electromechanical endurance.

Hatch Open/Closed Detection

Another application for CPI J4 Plunger Switches is to reliably detect the status of watertight hatches. We have it on good authority that a few of these switches are responsible for telling US Navy submarine commanders whether their torpedo doors are fully open or closed. Either ball or plunger switch variations of our J4 Limit Switch are used for this depending on design constraints. Custom mountings can be fully specified for the basic switch assembly which is small, tough, and extremely reliable.

About Control Products, Inc.

Control Products, Inc. (http://www.cpi-nj.com) has been manufacturing a broad line of high quality waterproof and thermal switches since 1946. The company acts as an extension of its customers’ engineering departments providing full compliance testing and certification as required. CPI waterproof switches are designed to operate reliably when exposed to water, oil, humidity, sand, dirt, vibration, and shock. A building block system of basic switches, mounting brackets, and actuators provides a broad array of application solutions, perfect for marine switch applications.

Call CPI today for your truly waterproof switch solution and more.

This content was originally posted at www.cpi-nj.com.