Best Air Filter for my Power Supply?

alive15

Member
Join Date
Oct 2015
Location
Montgomery, AL
Posts
690
Good afternoon to all,

I have a UV Power supply which I send out for repair almost every year due to oil and crud getting into the power supply. The oil gets in and turns into this thick black smudge and gets all over the boards inside. The air is pretty dirty around the power supply, you can see how dirty the filter gets in only a few days (see picture).

I plan to place my power supplies inside a panel, but I will need an AC unit to keep everything cool. This dirty air will eventually find a way in.

I'm looking for a better way to filter the air than these blue covers. Does anyone recommend any product to accomplish this? I thought about putting those small bags you see inside vitamin pills that absorb moisture and a bunch of those inside my panel, but no idea if this would work or if this is even allowed. I need the ability to place whatever air filter I get on either side of my AC unit to prevent dirty air from entering into the power supply.

Thanks,
 
You may not need an AC unit if you put it in an enclosure with a standard filter/fan and vent. But still, you would have to change the filter every now and then. Now easy/cheap way around that.
 
Right, we just have the blue filter on the actual power supply right now. I would probably want AC on it, cause it needs like one-foot of open space behind it for air flow and the long cables.

These repairs are like $2k+ per unit, and we repair like 2 or 3 almost every year.

It does not help that our UV power supplies are directly under the conveyor where the parts are riding. There isn't really anything dripping from the parts, but overtime, the area just gets really dirty. A lot of black smudges and crud just build up, and I believe this, along with the air, gets inside the power supply and destroys it.

I would probably need something very heavy duty and that can last a long time. We are running 24/7.
 
Can you supply clean air (2-3 psi) to it then seal the panel up so it doesn't leak very much? The pressure inside the panel would tend to keep contaminates out.
 
@PapaSmiff, I'll e-mail the UV guys and see if I can plug this directly into the power supply. That would save me from buying a whole new panel. I don't know how well it would work, there are about 20-30 small holes on the back where we place the blue cover. You think if I put an air line through one of those holes with 2-3 psi, would that keep it out, or should I place the air line elsewhere in the power supply?

Thanks,
 
Well, the hole where the air line goes in would have to be sealed and you would need to minimize the holes where the air could leak out. I also can't emphasize enough that the air you use must be clean; a coalescing filter would be best.

The idea would be to put a slight positive pressure inside the panel so if anything tries to "crawl in" (so to speak) it would tend to be blown back out. Can the holes on the back be blocked with, say, silicone sealant or a plastic sheet?
 
AC will help tremendously, since it more or less isolates the inside air from the outside air.

Call IceQube:
https://www.iceqube.com/

I have a half dozen of their AC units running outdoors on the top deck of a ship, keeping electrical panels cool. They're running just fine after two+ years in a very tough environment; salt air and direct sunlight is unkind to just about everything. If you're in a corrosive atmosphere, get them built with 316 stainless, and order them with the corrosion-resistant package.

I also have one of IceQube's AC units on a CNC router control cabinet (mild steel construction, as it's indoors), and even with the mountains of MDF dust from routing, the inside of the control cabinet is almost pristine after almost 15 years.

Put your power supplies in a NEMA4 cabinet; the gasketed door with keep the **** out.

You will absolutely have to do a preventative maintenance on the AC filter every so often, but that just means blowing out / washing the external filter.


-rpoet
 
AC will help tremendously, since it more or less isolates the inside air from the outside air.

Call IceQube:
https://www.iceqube.com/

I have a half dozen of their AC units running outdoors on the top deck of a ship, keeping electrical panels cool. They're running just fine after two+ years in a very tough environment; salt air and direct sunlight is unkind to just about everything. If you're in a corrosive atmosphere, get them built with 316 stainless, and order them with the corrosion-resistant package.

I also have one of IceQube's AC units on a CNC router control cabinet (mild steel construction, as it's indoors), and even with the mountains of MDF dust from routing, the inside of the control cabinet is almost pristine after almost 15 years.

Put your power supplies in a NEMA4 cabinet; the gasketed door with keep the **** out.

You will absolutely have to do a preventative maintenance on the AC filter every so often, but that just means blowing out / washing the external filter.


-rpoet


Thanks for the info; yes, I need something very durable and long lasting. What's the product name and part # for the unit you used outside in the mountains that kept your panel clean for 15+ years?
 
Thanks for the info; yes, I need something very durable and long lasting. What's the product name and part # for the unit you used outside in the mountains that kept your panel clean for 15+ years?

From my purchasing records, the units I have outdoors on a ship are:
IQ1300MMR

"R) Right side Air Flow( TOP) Top Cold Air Diverter (236) 230V/60HZ( S316) 316 Stainless Steel NEMA 4X/3R( CP2) Total Corrosive"

I don't have the part number handy for the unit on the CNC router, but I do know it's a mild steel housing, and not 316 Stainless.

Needed BTU will depend on what you're trying to keep cool, if you have high ambient temp issues, any solar gain, and what your enclosure is made from.

Call IceQube. They're very helpful with sizing.

Have the nameplate wattage and (if possible) watt loss of all the major components in the cabinet handy; they'll need that for sizing.




-rpoet
 
Any possibility of moving the power supply(s) to someplace cleaner?

Right, I will eventually move into its own electrical cabinet with an AC unit. Right now, they sit underneath the conveyor itself.

Also, we replace that blue filter about once a week.

My plan includes drilling a small hole in the electrical cabinet and supplying 3 psi of clean air. The issue involves finding a device that cleans the air before sucking it into the panel, otherwise the cabinet will eventually get dirty as well, and then cause the same problem inside the power supply.

I'll look through the various vendors given, I appreciate all the info thus far. I will look at GaryS's solution, because I do not want the dirty outside air to get into the panel.
 

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