Cabinet Venting

talldude42

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Join Date
May 2015
Location
MI
Posts
57
Is there a general rule of thumb for venting controller cabinets? i.e cabinet fan on top to exhaust with vent on bottom, fan on bottom to push fresh air in with vent on top, 1 exhaust fan + 1 Inlet fan?

Appreciate the advice.
 
I usually put the fan low on one side of the enclosure and a vent on the other side near the top. That creates a diagonal air flow to flush the heat.
 
Fans are OK in a perfect environment. Iv not had good luck with folks keeping filters changed, then overheating happens. I use pretty much every cabinet build now, the water cooled AC units from Rittal, awesome!
 
You want to keep positive pressure in the cabinet. The fan should draw air in, preferably at the bottom as was mentioned with a vent towards the top. If you use the fan to push air out, you create negative pressure in the cabinet which can cause dust to get drawn in through any nonfiltered openings that aren't fully sealed (such as cable entries).
 
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Always let a cabinet vent whenever it feels the need or else it will get cranky and take it's frustration out on you.
 
Rule of thumb? Usually an intake fan at the bottom and a vent at the top (on opposite sides). If you're building a panel for a specific site, its environment will dictate fan/vent locations ie dirt, dust,mist etc...If you think an inlet and outlet fan is required - panel cooling is critical - I would install an air conditioner of some type. The usual practice is to have one interlocked with both a thermostat (running only when it needs to) and with the panel door(s)...so that if someboby leaves the door open/ajar, its not trying to cool the entire building....don't laugh, I've seen it!
 
I agree the fan at the bottom and exhaust on opposite side at the tom
if it s harsh environment then I install a solid state panel air conditioner
been using them for years the only moving parts are the little easily replace box fans
no filters no coolant
 
Thanks for all the inputs! It sounds like I had the right idea. I planned for one fan lower cabinet to push are in, open vent top of cabinet same side as intake fan, and exhaust fan top of cabinet opposite side. Both intake vents will be covered with a filter material. Not sure an AC Unit would be necessary but I saw another post about heat dissipation so I will try and run some figures. Heat generated would be coming from 6 sold state relays mounted to heat sinks pulling 30A intermittently through out the shift, dc power supply and plc power supply.
 
Be careful how you account for the heat with those solid-state relays. If 30A is the current passing through them the energy is not dissipated at the relay itself, but at the load they are controlling. If the load is outside your panel it isn't an issue for the panel temperature rise. The heat dissipated at the relay itself is only the heat generated by losses in the triacs. This is probably just a couple percent of the load current. The SSR data sheet should identify that.
 

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