The global site of the UK's leading magazine for automation, motion engineering and power transmission
29 March, 2024

LinkedIn
Twitter
Twitter link

Future enclosures will have built-in cooling 'like a fridge'

04 January, 2017

Ritttal used the recent SPS IPC Drives exhibition to preview its vision of the future where enclosures will have built-in cooling systems, avoiding the need to assemble cooling systems on enclosure roofs or side panels. It showed two prototypes: one with the cooling system at the top; the other at the side.

Steffen Wagner, Rittal’s director of climate control, says this approach will avoid the time-consuming need to install conventional cooling components. “Just as with a commercially available refrigerator, our customers receive one product from a single source, based on one model number – with all the time and cost advantages that result from a simpler ordering process, as well as lower installation costs and improved accessibility during servicing.”

The prototypes on show at SPS were based on Rittall’s TS8 enclosures and Blue e+ cooling technology which combines inverter-controlled cooling with heat-pipes. For the horizontal version, a 400mm-high 2kW cooling system is inserted on rails on the top level of the rack, without any installation effort or cut-outs. For the vertical version, a 300mm-wide 2.5kW cooling module provides one-sided cooling for single enclosures or suites.

Because the air inlets and outlets are at the front of the cooling system, no minimum distances will be needed from the sides of the enclosure or from the rear, and conventional baying arrangements can be applied.

The vertical version of Rittal’s all-in-one cooled enclosure system

The cooling systems can be inserted by the manufacturer on a plug-and-play basis, so that control and switchgear manufacturers only have to make the electrical connections, thus saving them time.




Magazine
  • To view a digital copy of the latest issue of Drives & Controls, click here.

    To visit the digital library of past issues, click here

    To subscribe to the magazine, click here

     

Poll

"Do you think that robots create or destroy jobs?"

Newsletter
Newsletter

Events

Most Read Articles