- Every year, there is a battle of two forces. The immovable object comes upon the unstoppable force in a war of attrition. The rising temperature vs your Electrical Equipment… Who will win?
Karl Lycett – Rittal UK’s Product Manager for Climate Control.
Well, the answer to that one is easy I’m afraid, Temperature will always win out in the long run. PLC’s, Drives and Transformers are built to work under stressful conditions, but they have their limits.
If you take a step back and analyse your install, you can really cut them some slack and reap the benefits for years to come with just some simple changes in many instances.
Why is temperature so bad for equipment? It actually affects it in multiple ways –
Performance
Dependant on the temperature inside your enclosure, this can make a drastic difference to the performance of your equipment. If you check the manual of any PLC or Drive etc.. there should be a chart which shows you the rated output compared to the current operating temperature.
The trend tends to go like this, as the temperature rises, the maximum output of the gear in question reduces, and very quickly it drops off a cliff. This means that even if you install brand new equipment into your enclosure, it could actually never be able to achieve it maximum designed output because of the environment you are putting it into.
This means is you have specific performance goals you require; you would have to over spec your equipment, which results in higher costs and wasted budget!
Lifespan
There is also a strong correlation between the lifespan of an electrical component compared to its living conditions. As you’ve probably guessed, as the temperature rises, the lifetime reduces.
There may be instances where your equipment toughs it out for a few extra years, coughing and struggling in the heat, but what happens on the day it finally snaps? It’s the middle of summer and your production is in full flow to meet demand and suddenly everything grinds to a halt!
Suddenly, the costs are piling up and everyone is scrambling to find the issue before they can even begin to consider fixing it. The production meeting the next day is going to be an awkward one…
So, I’ve painted that happy picture of a time bomb ready to go off at any instant, what can I do to prevent this I hear you ask?
That’s simple, this is where Rittal can help you, we are the world leaders in enclosure climate control products and pride ourselves on being your trusted advisor.
With our RiAssure service, one of our trained staff can visit you and provide a FREE Cooling Review. This review is a short visual inspection of your existing enclosures and cooling equipment; from this we can ascertain the next best step for your equipment and also provide ongoing, best practice, suggestions so that your operations benefit from increased longevity, life and profit.
Don’t put it out of your mind, thinking it will be ok and leaving it until it’s too late. Deal with this head on and you can rest easy during the summer knowing your equipment is happy and working to its full potential and you can put your focus on other important tasks.
For more information on the entire Rittal range visit www.rittal.ie you can also check out our linkedin page or call our customer service team on +353 599 182100 or E-Mail sales@rittal.ie
