Tag: heat wave

EXAIR’s Cabinet Coolers Save the Day During Heatwaves

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment
Summertime temperatures get hot. Protect your electronics with an EXAIR Cabinet Cooler System.

As you may have seen in our most recent E-NEWS Special Bulletin, or experienced in real life (depending on where you’re located,) most of the eastern United States is seeing a pretty significant heat wave for early summer…or, as we call it at EXAIR, “Cabinet Cooler Season.”  And this year is kicking it off with a bang, for sure.

On Tuesday, when the E-NEWS email went out, I was on the phone, processing an order for a Model 4340 NEMA 12, 2,800 Btu/hr, Thermostat Controlled Cabinet Cooler System, to ship overnight to a user who wanted to protect the new drive they were replacing because theirs overheated.  They were up and running before noon on Wednesday.

On Wednesday, four local customers placed “will call” orders for Cabinet Cooler Systems.  I had the pleasure of talking with one of them, who was installing one for the very first time.  As he was looking over the Installation & Operation Guide before he left our building, he just wanted to make sure that hooking it up was as simple as it sounded…and it is.  We pulled the parts from the box and went over exactly how each step is performed, and he left feeling confident that he’d have it installed pretty quickly.  Just in case, I also got his email address and sent him a link to our NEMA 4 Cabinet Cooler System Installation Video Blog:

I don’t know what the rest of the summer holds in store, but I know this: if you have concerns about protecting sensitive, critical, and/or expensive electrical & electronic enclosures, EXAIR Cabinet Cooler Systems are the solution you’re looking for.  Easy to install.  Maintenance free operation.  Durable, UL Listed, and CE Compliant.  If you’d like to discuss your application and get one for yourself, call me; let’s talk.

***Order an EXAIR Cabinet Cooler System before July 31, 2017, and get a FREE AC Sensor!***

Russ Bowman
Application Engineer
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Calculate Heat Loads from the Sun for Outdoor Control Panels

Published on by johnball20141 Comment

I am always happy to see the sun rise each morning. But, electrical panels that are exposed to the sun are not.  Solar heat adds significant BTU’s to the overall heat load in an electrical panel.

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A customer had a VFD to control a 300HP blower motor for a dust collection system. The VFD was getting an over-temp error and shutting down the system.  He contacted EXAIR to get a Cabinet Cooler to keep the VFD cool.  We went through our normal questions to determine the heat load, i.e. the size of the cabinet, the temperature inside, the temperature outside, the maximum external temperature and the desired temperature.  As we went through the questions, he stated that the cabinet was located outside.  This is not an issue for our Cabinet Coolers as EXAIR has NEMA 4 and 4X (IP66) Cabinet Coolers.  It did stem another question; was it under cover?  He mentioned that it was not.

NEMA 4 Cabinet Cooler
NEMA 4 Cabinet Cooler

Generally in calculating cooling capacities with our Cabinet Coolers, we size the units by adding the ambient heat load and the electrical heat load. With the panel exposed to the sun, this adds another component to the total heat load.  To get an estimation on the amount of solar heat, color becomes a big factor as the darker colors will draw more heat.  Here is a good approximation to follow:

Solar heating by color
Solar heating by color

In this application, the customer had a gray panel, a common color. With an exposed surface area of 16 ft^2 (1.47 M^2), we would have to increase the heat load by 16 ft^2 * 7 Watts/ft^2 = 112 Watts.  This equates to 112 Watts * 3.41 BTU/hr/Watt = 382 BTU/hr of added heat.  (Or 112 Watts * 0.86 Kcal/hr/Watts = 96 Kcal/hr).

If an electrical panel is outside and cannot be shaded from the sun, we can still protect the sensitive components inside.  With the proper sized Cabinet Cooler, your equipment will remain running cool.  If you need help to determine the correct Cabinet Cooler, inside or out, you can either contact an Application Engineers at 800-903-9247 or fill out our Cabinet Cooler Sizing Guide.

John Ball
Application Engineer
Email: mailto:johnball@exair.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_jb

 

“The sun” image courtesy of Lima Andruška, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0

More Cooling At A Kuwaiti Sewage Station

Published on by Lee EvansLeave a comment
Overheating electrical enclosure at Kuwaiti sewage station
Overheating control panels for sewage pumps

Last week I wrote a blog about cooling sewage pumps at a facility in Kuwait.  The pumps in question were overheating and needed a way to cool the pump motors down to ambient temperatures.  And, fortunately, our Super Air Amplifiers proved to be a great fit.

On the other side of the same facility, there were control panels for 3.3kV pumps that were also experiencing an overheat condition.  But, the motors were operating properly, it was the electrical panels that were tripping due to excessive heat.

The overheating of the electrical panels would shut down the pump motors, bringing operations to a screeching halt.  What the end user needed was a way to regulate temperature within the electrical panels that was small, effective, and easy to use.

This application, and its requirements, were a perfect fit for our Cabinet Coolers.  Cabinet Coolers are small, effective, easy to install, require no maintenance, and are incredibly easy to use – once installed and setup, they regulate themselves.

By receiving a completed Cabinet Cooler Sizing Guide, EXAIR engineers are able to calculate heat load for an enclosure and recommend a suitable solution.

If you have an overheating cabinet or electrical panel, call an EXAIR Application Engineer.

Lee Evans
Application Engineer
LeeEvans@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_LE

EXAIR Cabinet Cooler Systems Stabilize Relative Humidity

Published on by Dave WoernerLeave a comment

EXAIR Cabinet Cooler Systems are able to cool your electrical panels using only clean, dry compressed air. Other systems such as cooling fans or heat exchangers use ambient air full of dust and humidity. The temperature of ambient air also fluctuates with the seasons and will be very warm in the summer months, which degrades their ability to cool as the temperature rises. One of the myths about compressed air cooling is that humidity from the compressed air source will enter the cabinet. A water/dirt filter separator will prevent condensate from entering the cabinet and since relative humidity is carried away with the hot air exhaust, relative humidity will stabilize to 45%. This video shows how quickly EXAIR’s Cabinet Cooler Systems will have an effect on relative humidity.

Dave Woerner
Application Engineer
@EXAIR_DW
DaveWoerner@EXAIR.com