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.
Not too long ago, I was contacted by one of our customers regarding the Cabinet Cooler Systems and the quality of the compressed air used to power them.
The specific questions were:
What happens if the compressed air gets dirty with oil or other particles if sufficient filtration is not available at the facility where Cabinet Cooler is being used?
Where does the oil particle go, into the cabinet or out through the hot exhaust or both?
If it goes into the Cabinet Cooler, should one expect a spray or will it simply form small droplets?
Is there a way to filter the cold air outlet?
Dirty, oil laden air would exhaust throughout the Cabinet cooler (both hot and cold flows) as well as into the inside of the attached cabinet if the air were contaminated and there was not any filter located up-stream of the Cabinet Cooler System. This is precisely why we always recommend the use of filter/separator and oil coalescing filters to clean up the compressed air before it goes into the Cabinet Cooler. In fact, we include a five micron, auto-drain, filter/separator with all our stock systems. If oil is a known contaminant in a customer’s system, we will also recommend use of an oil coalescing type filter which we can provide as well. Without a coalescing filter, you can expect any oil in the compressed air supply to be atomized into a vapor which then has possibility of settling on components inside the cabinet.
Filtering the compressed air while it is still in its compressed state and before it goes into the Cabinet Cooler is the only way to make sure that the air is properly cleaned before processing through the Cabinet Cooler System. Filtering the air after it has gone through the Cabinet Cooler System is not possible. Many filtration systems rely on the high velocity of the compressed air for their filtering capability. If it is no longer in its compressed state (a condition that exists at the cold outlet of the Cabinet Cooler), then the right conditions for proper treatment do not exist. Also, by the time the air exits the Cabinet Cooler, your primary need for it is going to be for cooling anyway. Attempting to add filtration to the cold air output will interfere with the cooling function, which negates the purpose for having the Cabinet Cooler.
As compressed air and the systems that produce it become more widely understood, filtering, drying and removing oil from the compressed air stream are tasks that are done on the production side of things.
The best way to proceed is to have the necessary filtration on the compressed air supply, at the point of use, even if the facility has filtered, clean, dry air. It would still be good to employ it just in case any up-stream equipment that is normally used to clean up the air, went down for some reason. I call it the belt and suspenders method. The redundancy is worth the investment.
Summer has not officially arrived in the Northern Hemisphere, according to the calendar, but temperatures have started to push 90 degrees Fahrenheit here in Cincinnati. As the temperatures increase, your electronics may start to feel the heat. High temperatures can cause circuits breakers to trip, controllers to shutdown, and connectors to be very sensitive. We have seen electronics lose machine control, report bad readings, or if the heat is not managed promptly, damage circuitry. EXAIR Cabinet Coolers Systems are a simple, quickly installed and effective solution to heat related problems. Beside being installed in minutes and shipping from stock, they have additional benefits over fans, air conditioners and heat exchangers.
During the heat of the summer, fans, air conditioners, and heat exchangers may fail when you need them most. For instance, a fan and a heat exchanger work because the temperature differential between the ambient temperature and the inside of a cabinet is large. As the temperature rises, the ambient temperature goes up and a fan or heat exchanger lose their ability to remove heat from the cabinet. In a climate controlled environment this works great, in a hot plant floor without air conditioning, it is a recipe for failure.
So if fans aren’t a good solution you may turn to air conditioners in the summer because they can still produce very cold air at much higher ambient temperatures. You will need hours to install them, cross your fingers that they arrive undamaged, hope the condenser and other moving parts don’t fail and provide a drain for the condensate. If you are in a dusty environment, the filters will clog more often in the summer and require more maintenance. As the temperature rises the air conditioning systems run more often which means they pull in more air and particulate that will clog the filters and lead to reliability problems in the compressor. This compressor is subjected to more of a work load in the summer and more airflow restriction, if the filters are not changed often. This may lead to more air condition filters during the summer months.
EXAIR compressed air operated Cabinet Coolers System are a great solution for cooling enclosures. They operated via vortex cooling which requires no moving parts or filters from the outside air. They drop your compressed air temperature 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Mounting requires a compressed air supply, a standard electrical knockout, and the locknut that comes with the Cabinet Cooler System. The cooling is produced immediately with no lag time. A Electronic temperature controller is a available to maintain a temperature of your choosing.
Cabinet Cooler with ETC
Cabinet Cooler Systems are maintenance free with a clean dry supply of compressed air. Recently, we tested a cabinet cooler that was over twenty years old that still tested to our production standard. The customer was delighted to hear that is was working so well they wanted it returned. Cabinet Cooler Systems are available for NEMA 12, NEMA 4 and NEMA 4X enclosures. Kits include compressed air filtration to keep water, dirt and oil out of your enclosure. If you see an open panel door this summer, look into a Cabinet Cooler Systems. We can help you beat the heat.
Cabinet Coolers will help you avoid this situation.
EXAIR’s Cabinet Coolers are in stock and ready to ship to you same day if ordered by 3:00 pm EDT. You can have it tomorrow if you like.
Large steel slabs are cast, sized and cut to length in order to ready them for various types of secondary processing such as rolling, forging, machining, etc. The measurement and cutting functions of the steel slab process are controlled by various lasers focused on different features of the slab to provide for non-contact measurement due to the extreme high temperature conditions that are present.
The electronics that are used as part of the laser measuring equipment can withstand temperatures up to about 60°C (140°F). The areas in a steel slab casting line where the laser electronics are located will usually exceed this temperature quite easily.
One of our customers was utilizing a protective box for his equipment that had a Peltier type cooling system integrated within. The cooling system would work for only a short while as the cooler would become clogged with dust and debris from the operation. This condition would lead to overheating and failure of the measuring equipment.
The customer came to EXAIR for a solution. He wanted to keep his existing enclosure and simply add an EXAIR Cabinet Cooler System to the box to replace the function of the original cooling module. The Cabinet Cooler System would be able to deliver significant cooling power for the application and provide a positive pressure on the enclosure to keep dust and debris from getting inside. Best of all, the Cabinet Cooler System is not affected by debris accumulation on the outside of the cabinet.
The end result is a cooling system that has high reliability and low maintenance concerns due to zero moving parts, low purchase price and which is not affected by dirt, dust and debris from the ambient environment. This is a common problem for both Peltier coolers and Freon based cooling systems as they rely on the principle of ambient airflow over a heat exchange surface which is exposed to the ambient environment. EXAIR Cabinet Cooler Systems are using filtered compressed air utility from the facility compressed air supply, which by comparison is many times cleaner and thus contributes to low maintenance aspect of our product.
If you are looking for a simple, low cost, ‘bolt on’ cooling solution for your high temperature application, give EXAIR a chance. We may very well have the solution you are looking for.
