Technology is a very safe field, but there are some important safety procedures to consider. In this video, you’ll learn about electrical grounding, cable management, fire safety, governmental regulations, and more.
Our computers rely on a power source to be able to operate. But we also have to consider our safety when it comes to working inside of these computers. If you’re working on a computer, a printer, or anything with a power cord, you should always disconnect that power source before working inside of those devices.
And if you are working inside of those devices and you see a component that you don’t immediately recognize, you should definitely not touch that particular component. It’s possible that that device might have capacitors, and those capacitors may be storing power. The power supplies that are inside of these devices are designed to be removable so you would remove the entire power supply and replace it with a brand new one.
Generally, we don’t work on the inside of these power supplies. And certainly, there are components inside of those power supplies that could be harmful if you were to touch them. Anytime you’re working with devices such as power supplies, displays, or laser printers, you should always keep in mind that there may still be some residual power inside of those devices so you should always take proper precautions.
The goal of an electrical ground is to take the power associated with an electrical fault and put it onto that ground connection instead of that power going into you. This is an important part of any electrical system. And you’ll notice that most of your computing devices will have ground connections on the power cord.
If you’re in a data center, this also applies to the racks that you have set up on the data center floor. You not only want to ground all of the components inside of the rack. You also want to electrically ground the rack itself. That way, if there is power that finds its way onto the metal rack, you can take all of that power and send it to the ground.
This is why you should never remove any of those ground connections from your power plugs. And you should always make sure that all of those racks are always connected to an electrical ground. And most importantly, you should never connect any part of yourself to an electrical ground. That electrical ground could become energized. And we don’t want any part of you to be touching any other part of that electrical ground.
We should not only be concerned about power, but we should also be concerned about the safety of our workspace. We work with a lot of different cables. And we have to be very careful when we’re putting that cable somewhere near the floor. This would create a trip hazard for anyone walking by so you want to be sure that you tape down or cover any of these cables that may be in a walking area.
It might also be a good idea to have all of these cables bundled together to help prevent any type of trip hazard, so you should use Velcro, cable ties, or anything else that can group all of those cables together.
We also have to think about our own personal safety. And there are things you can do in the workplace to limit any type of accident or injury. For example, you should follow best practices for lifting heavy equipment. We often deal with printers and computers that are relatively heavy, so you want to be sure that if you’re lifting any of these that you lift with your legs and you’re not lifting with your back. There’s specially designed equipment that you can get for a data center that allows you to slide this equipment into the rack without having to lift and hold it into the rack.
Our electrical devices also don’t work very well with water. You’ll notice in a data center that we don’t use water and we don’t use foam. We instead use some other chemical such as FM-200, carbon dioxide, or some other type of dry chemical. And of course, if one of the devices you’re working on does catch fire, one of the things that you want to do very quickly is remove it from any power source.
Another good best practice is to always wear safety goggles if you’re working with chemicals or anything else that could splash on you. If you’re working inside of a printer with toner, or you’re working with the chemicals that might be associated with batteries, it’s always a good idea to have on a pair of safety goggles. It’s also very easy for dust or toner to get into the air, so if you’re working on a printer, you might want to wear an air filter mask to prevent you from breathing in any of that toner.
It’s very possible that there are existing health and safety laws that are associated with working in some type of technical environment so you might want to check your local rules and regulations to see what guidelines may be in place for the job that you need to do. When it comes to electrical safety or fire prevention, there are usually building codes that set minimum safety standards for all of these environments. And if you have a lot of old computers and old batteries, there are usually environmental regulations that cover how and where you should dispose of all of this equipment.