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Inverters get a blast of cold air where they need it

01 October, 2002

Inverters get a blast of cold air where they need it

Enclosure-maker Rittal has developed an enclosure cooling system which allows cold air to be ducted to the inlets of equipment such as inverters, helping to cool them more efficiently. The modular TopTherm system has been designed to simplify and speed up the installation of enclosure cooling systems, as well as offering advanced options such as communications buses to link cooling units together.

With previous cooling systems, it has been difficult or impossible to target the cold air where it is most needed in an enclosure. The new units have a central inlet and four outlets - one in each corner - from which cold air can be ducted to where it will be most beneficial.

The new units have a modular construction which reduces spares-holding and allows items such as filter mats to be replaced quickly. Jonathan Brindley, Rittal`s thermal management product manager, reckons that this can save panel-builders more than 30 minutes.

Other features of the new cooling system include:

• electronically controlled temperature settings in the range 20-50°C;

• a door switch function with a time lag to reduce component wear;

• an optional diagnosis facility to monitor and report on messages including temperature readings and condensation alarms;

• the ability to tolerate wide fluctuations (±10%) in electricity supplies and to operate on 400V, 50Hz or 460V, 60Hz supplies;

• the creation of high pressure within the system to force out condensates without needing one-way valves; and

• the facility for linking up to ten cooling units in a master-slave network.

Previously, Rittal needed more than 20 different cooling units to cope with all possible cooling requirements. With the new system, all capacities from 300-4,000W are covered by just eight units - three roof-mounting and five wall-mounting. The same cutouts can be used for different capacity cooling systems.




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