What X-ray machine is best for a mailroom?

For most mailrooms a self-contained cabinet X-ray such as the Scanmax 225 is the right answer: it needs no conveyor, no dedicated room and no building work, and it images letters, jiffy bags and parcels clearly enough to reveal circuitry, wires and batteries. Where daily volume is high, a compact conveyor machine that still fits through a standard door may be more practical.

Do I need special permissions to run an X-ray in a post room?

Yes. Any security X-ray brings you under the Ionising Radiations Regulations 2017: you must register with the HSE before use, appoint a Radiation Protection Adviser, appoint and train a Radiation Protection Supervisor, give radiation awareness training to everyone working with the equipment, and hold a documented risk assessment, local rules and radiation surveys. RedteQ can arrange all of it, including recommending an HSE registered RPA.

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Mailrooms · post rooms · goods-in

Screening For Mailrooms And Post Rooms

The post room is the one place in a building where a threat arrives by invitation, addressed to a named person. It is also the cheapest place to stop one, because everything funnels through a single door.

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What You're Actually Trying To Stop

Mail screening is a narrow, well-understood problem, which is good news: the equipment is smaller, cheaper and easier to run than most people expect.

Improvised devices in parcels — the classic threat, and what cabinet X-ray is designed to reveal.
Powders and suspicious substances — where trace detection and a written procedure matter more than imaging.
Sharps, blades and hoax items — common in the public-facing sectors: councils, courts, MPs' offices and media.
Onward travel — the real risk is a suspect item being carried through the building before anyone looks at it.

Scanna Scanmax 225 cabinet X-ray being operated for mail screening — A cabinet X-ray needs no conveyor, no dedicated room and no building work.

Our recommendation

What A Post Room Actually Needs

For most organisations this is a small footprint and a clear procedure, not a checkpoint.

Cabinet X-ray

The Scanmax 225 is self-contained: no conveyor, no dedicated room, one-click image clarity for circuitry, wires and batteries. Ideal for mailrooms, prisons, forensics and front of house.

Cabinet X-ray →

Conveyor X-ray

Where volume justifies it, a compact conveyor machine that still fits through a standard door and handles parcels and courier freight as well as letters.

X-ray range →

Trace Detection

Handheld or desktop explosives and narcotics trace detection for the powder and residue cases an image can't resolve.

Trace detection →

Just as important

What You Probably Don't Need

You don't need a checkpoint-sized machine. Post rooms screen letters, jiffy bags and parcels, and a cabinet unit handles that in a corner of the room you already have. You also don't need to screen everything by X-ray — a sensible mail policy that separates expected deliveries from unexpected ones does more for your risk than a bigger tunnel, and costs nothing. What you do need is a written procedure for what happens when something looks wrong, because the equipment only helps if the person operating it knows what to do next.

In practice

How It Runs Day To Day

Trained, not just installed

Operator training on the machine plus what to do with a suspicious item — the part most suppliers leave to you.

Compliant

X-ray means IRR17: HSE registration, an RPA, a trained RPS and radiation awareness training. We can arrange all of it.

Maintained

Annual IRR17-compliant servicing and radiation survey, with parts on the shelf so a mailroom is never blocked waiting on a repair.

We recommend AI detection on mailroom X-ray too: the operator is rarely a full-time screener, and the AI holds the standard on the quiet days as well as the busy ones. We supply mail screening into councils, corporate headquarters, custodial sites and public-facing organisations across the UK.

Screening The Post Before It Travels

Tell us your daily volume and what you receive. We'll tell you whether a cabinet unit covers it.

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