There are several different materials available on the market today.
- Painted Mild Steel
- Painted Stainless Steel
- Plastic
- Painted Aluminium
- A combination of the above
What are the advantages of one over the other?
Door Lock
There are many types of push button (code type) door locks on the market today, the problem with nearly all of them being that they are designed for indoor use only.
At Ce-Tek Medical we only use marine grade stainless steel push button locks which are designed to be used outside in all weathers and most importantly in corrosive salt laden environments.
Several cabinets on the market today use a cheap aluminium push button lock which over time oxidises and corrodes and then fails to work. This is not a good solution for a cabinet designed to be used in an emergency. The one thing we can say about such locks is that they are cheap so save a little money on the original purchase price of the cabinet but in the short term will need replacing so they are false economy.
You also need to look at how the lock operates. On the Ce-Tek Medical cabinets the lock striker mechanism locates into a plate or box section making it impossible to tamper with from the outside. On several cabinets available on the market the striker can be accessed by simply using a credit card to operate and open thus negating the point of having a locked cabinet.
Should I have an insulated cabinet?
We are often asked this question as there are several cabinets on the market that are insulated and their manufacturers claim this to be a superior system.
Our sister company are enclosure manufacturers and are acknowledged experts in this field, they deliver enclosures to some of the harshest environments in the World with temperatures ranging from -65C to +60C and use a powerful computer system for thermal modelling of enclosures/cabinets to determine the level of heating and/or cooling required.
Extensive testing has shown that the Ce-Tek Medical solution of a thermostatically controlled internal heater (to keep the pads operational and above 4 degrees centigrade) is by far the best one for a defibrillator cabinet. In fact the tests have shown that in the summer time when the outside temperature reaches 25 degrees centigrade a cabinet with 20mm of insulation will reach an internal temperature of 65 degrees centigrade some 15 degrees above the maximum the defibrillator can withstand. This will also certainly be enough to invalidate the warranty on your defibrillator!
For this reason the Ce-Tek Medical do not recommend that your defibrillator cabinets are insulated.
What other points should I be aware of?
Questions
If you have any questions whatsoever on suitability of a cabinet for your location, please get in touch with us will be able to guide you through this process.
