While impacted by the recent industry slow down, the need for new cabinets and enclosure continues to spawn creative solutions for the latest technology advances. Here are a few of the more recent introductions.
Rack and desktop
The Type 38 desktop cabinet line from Elma (www.elma.com) is designed to IEC 60297 dimensions. With an extrusion-based modular aluminum frame, the case can be configured to an engineer’s exact specifications. Optional angle brackets and shelves can be mounted at 1U height increments to provide additional support — the enclosures are rated to support loads to 60 lbs per rail pair.
Elma’s Type 38 desktop cabinet line
The top and bottom covers are folded-over on the edges, providing an aesthetic rounded appearance while improving EMC. Depths for the enclosures are 320, 420, 520, and 620 mm standard. The panels of the case are hot-galvanized power coated steel. The desktop cabinets also feature optional ergonomic carry handles that are recessed in the enclosure side panels so that they do not protrude. Other options include feet, mounting kits, perforated panels, and more. Custom design and powder-coat colors are available.
Tekam series robust instrument cases from Teko (www.tekoenclosures.com/tekam) have been designed for fast installation of slide-in pcb assemblies. The all-aluminum design provides RFI/EMI protection in typical applications such as handheld test and measurement devices, radio- control equipment, and wall mounted monitoring systems, security devices, and building control equipment. The enclosures come in nine standard sizes, from 2.75 x 2.36 x 1.22 in. to 6.89 x 4.17 x 1.81 in. Two standard colors are offered: off-white or black.
Teko’s Tekam series instrument cases
Each enclosure consists of an extruded case with two die-cast end panels that are assembled with self-tapping screws. The case extrusion includes a series of internal pcb guide rails. Cases can be supplied with flat end panels for handheld or portable use, or end panels with integrated wall mounting ears. Two molded rubber gaskets are also included for sealing the mating faces of the end panels and case extrusion.
Recessed areas on both sides of the case extrusion, and on the front face of the end panels, can be used for mounting membrane keypads or product labels. The end panels can also be used for mounting RF antennas. Additional holes for pushbuttons, connectors, and displays, as well as silk-screen-printed legends and logos, and cases painted in alternative colors are options.
Verotec’s cPCI/VME64x rack/desktop chassis
Verotec (www.verotec.co.uk) has introduced an 2U-high enclosure that can be supplied with either a horizontally mounted four-slot 6U cPCI or a four-slot 6U VME64x backplane. The EMC screened, thermally managed and powered IEEE 1101.10/11 desktop or rack mount 19-in. chassis is available as a 64-bit, PICMG 2.0 R3.0 compliant unit with a right-hand controller slot at the top, rear plug connectors in P3, P4 and P5 and selectable coded I/O in both a standard and CT/H.110 versions, or as a PICMG 2.16 packet switching unit. The VME64x backplane is ANSI/VITA 1.1-1997 compliant, with active on-board termination, electronic auto bus grant, and center P0/J0 connectors.
The feature-rich chassis offers a choice of embedded 250-W ac or dc ATX power supplies or two 3U 8HP 200-W pluggable, hot swappable acor dc units to give redundancy for high availability applications. Thermal management is provided by a filtered, front entry hot-swappable three-fan cooling unit that directs air horizontally across both the front and rear boards; the high performance fans let power-hungry CPU boards to operate at full power. For EMC, effective attenuation is provided by conductive gaskets on panel seals, bare or tinned beryllium copper gaskets on the card cage apertures, and 3.5-mm round, 5-mm triangular pitch hole pattern for airflow vents. A removable top cover provides easy access for test and development of boards and systems.
Floor-standing cabinets
The HP 10000 G2 Series 1,200-mm- deep rack from Hewlett Packard (www.hp.com/go/infrastructure) addresses heat-flow and cable management for longer next-gen servers, storage, and switching products. The 19-in.-rack cabinet is available in 42U and 47U heights with a patented eight-layer rolled steel frame for improved loading capacity: up to 2,500 lbs dynamically and 3,000 lbs static. The rack can also be customized for a consistent IT image and easier rack identification.
Hewlett Packard’s HP 10000 G2 Series cabinet
Units have fully welded (not bolted) frames with 100 in. of additional perforations for better airflow. They offer full cable access with front and rear door handles/locks for added security and side panels for ease of manageability and mounting. Zero-U mounting areas maximize space for servers and storage and rack stabilizer, baying, and grounding kits are available.
Customers can receive the rack fully loaded and ready for deployment when shipped on an optional shock pallet, and can also have their equipment preinstalled within the rack with cables already dressed neatly within the rack.
Optima EPS (www.optimaeps.com) has announced a new rack with several features geared towards the broadcast and server application environments. The IT cabinet features an extrusion-based modular design, advanced cable management, and convex perforated doors. The cabinet’s modular design lets the manufacturer easily customize the unit to a customer’s specific requirements.
Geared for cable-intensive applications, the cabinet has several cable managers, brackets, D-rings, Velcro straps, bundle retainers, and more. Other options include cable spacers, fiber optic cable manager, and a brush cable manager which allow cables through but contain airflow for thermal management. The convex shape of the front and rear doors provides extra space for cabling. The unit also has top front and top rear cable access panels.
Other features include integrated ground points and independent removable sides, panels, and doors. Multiple EIA-310 standard mounting rail options are available, including to IEC 60297-2. There are also options for incorporating thermal management and power conditioning. A wide range of accessories, powder paint colors, and custom options are available.
The Schroff-brand MIDAS cabinets from Pentair Technical Products (www.schroff.us/Midas) have been redesigned to deliver high value and functionality. MIDAS cabinets feature a fully-welded, heavy-gauge steel frame able to hold a variety of equipment, along with cable management, active cooling, and other accessories. Pre-configured models are available in six standard sizes and engineered solutions are also available.
Schroff-brand MIDAS cabinets from Pentair Technical Products
Models range in size from 23RU to 48RU (1,200 to 2,100 mm) high, 600 to 700 mm wide and 800 to 1,000 mm deep. The 700-mm-wide communication cabinets accommodate either 19- or 23-in. equipment and cables, and can be easily changed in the field, while the 600-mm-wide server configurations offer square-hole rack angles for 19-in. rack-mount equipment. Cabinets without windows are UL 1863 rated to a loading capacity of 1,000 lbs., with a 4X factor, and all MIDAS cabinets are RoHS compliant.
Fan kit provisions are included with all MIDAS cabinets, and a full range of accessories are available, including vertical and horizontal cable managers, shelves, PDUs, thermal management accessories, castors, and levelers. Door options include window, perforated, and split-perforated, and modification services are available to suit specific application requirements.
The R6 electronics enclosure developed by Equipto Electronics (www.equiptoelec.com) far exceeds TEMPEST requirement NSA 94-106, among the most stringent for EMI/RFI in the intelligence and computer-security community, as tested by an independent laboratory. The R6 includes front and rear opening doors, a fiber waveguide in the top, and a proprietary, honeycomb filter in the bottom.
TEMPEST R6 electronics enclosure by Equipto Electronics
Other features include custom sizing, line filters/waveguides as needed, field replaceable door gasketing, honeycomb air filter in choice of depths, adjustable mounting rails, custom cooling, a choice of front, rear, or combination front/rear doors or panels, and more.
Richard Comerford
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