Recently I’ve worked with a customer who needed to troubleshoot some of his Nema 12 Cabinet Coolers installed in their plant. They’ve been installed for about 6 years now without issue, but over the summer they noticed a few times where the temperatures inside the enclosures was getting a bit higher than they were comfortable with. Since this hadn’t been an issue since prior to installation, they gave us a call to see what could be the problem.
They had (6) total Cabinet Coolers, (2) of the 4340s and (4) 4325s all being fed from the same compressor. The first thing we wanted to determine was whether or not a sufficient volume of air was being supplied to them. Since this was a new problem and we had several years of operation without any trouble, there had to be something that has changed. With a pressure gauge installed directly at the inlet, he observed that the pressure coming into the Cabinet Cooler was only 70 PSIG. Cabinet Coolers are rated at pressures of 100 PSIG but can operate in the range of 80-100 PSIG, so we knew then that not enough air was reaching them.
When troubleshooting any Intelligent Compressed Air Product, we need to know the pressure DIRECTLY at the air inlet to the product. Oftentimes a customer will know the pressure they’re getting out of the compressor, but this isn’t generally the pressure you’ll see at the point of use. Pressure drops can occur due to undersized lines, restrictive fittings (such as quick disconnects), or improper maintenance.
He shared with me some photos of the setup and said that they hadn’t changed anything since the original installation. These units were operating off of their own dedicated compressor, so we weren’t getting a pressure drop due to any additional applications also using the same air supply.
With no moving parts to wear out the Cabinet Coolers are a maintenance-free product, so long as they’re supplied with clean and dry compressed air. In order to ensure that the air supply stays clean and dry, an Auto-Drain Filter should be installed just upstream of the Cabinet Cooler. Inside of any of EXAIR’s Auto-Drain Filters is a 5-micron filter element. If this becomes clogged over time, it can result in a pressure drop just after the filter. This turned out to be the culprit in this case as he placed an order for some replacement filter elements, changed them out, and was back up and running! The pressure at the Cabinet Coolers increased to 90 PSIG and started operating as they had before.
EXAIR prides ourselves in delivering a quality product that’s Built to Last. If you have a product that doesn’t seem to be operating at peak performance, give us a call. An Application Engineer is ready to take your call and help make sure you’re getting the most out of our products.
Tyler Daniel
Application Engineer
E-mail: TylerDaniel@exair.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_TD