Environmental temperature control and its effects in electronic control systems.

Mexican heavy industry areas are located around areas with climates that range from temperate (like Queretaro State, Puebla city or around Cuernavaca city) to areas of extreme heat (and cold in winter) like Silao, Leon at Guanajuato state or practically all the northern U.S. border area, from Durango to Tamaulipas states, where temperatures may rise up 45°C at cities like Monterrey, Cd. Juarez, Piedras Negras or Chihuahua. It is not necessary to state the effects that high temperatures like these may cause on people, but referring to industrial processes, the effects of a poor environmental management may create chaos on our production systems.

The hot sources within the production areas inside factories may be very varied: hot processes (melting furnaces, injection machines, thermal processes), other machines’ control panels and ambient temperature (including the heat generated by the human workforce) of buildings with metal sheet walls without genera air conditioning systems. In the case of industrial buildings with corrugated sheet metal walls, the installation of air conditioning systems is often impractical due to the large spatial volumes of the buildings (for example, in the foundry industry), and it is not only problem of injecting air at low temperatures, but also that the cost of thermally insulating the factory building may be very high.

How to solve these problems without generating large expenses? We will divide the problem into 2 parts, one will control the heat generated by the machines’ electronic control panels and processes, and the other will be the re-direction and extraction of the hot environmental air, including that generated by hot processes.

APISTE control panel coolers.

Flat fact: any electric circuit generates heat. No matter how efficient the manufacture of its components, the simple electrical flow through conductors generates residual heat. In the case of certain components such as medium voltage transformers or PLC's (for their integrated circuits) the average working temperature must range between 35 to 40 ° c, beyond that (even for short periods) the components start to work under risk of failure, resulting in:

• Unexpected blackouts
• Erratic performance and loss of efficiency
• Damage to equipment components
• Accelerated aging of machinery
• And in extreme cases, continuous rise in temperature until possible fire by electric shorts and material meltdown.

In temperate climates, the simple flow of ambient air into the panel tends to be sufficient to maintain the interior of the control panels at an adequate temperature, and this may seem sufficient for the maintenance personnel (although this does not take into account that the accumulation of dust will eventually increase the temperature of the components), but in hot climates, the flow of hot air (above 30 ° c) will initiate a temperature rise that will not be easy to stop. The ideal solution is found in the heat prevention APISTE equipment, specifically, the ENC series of control panel cooling systems.

The ENC series works through a filter-less condenser and control boards and exchange fans with IP68 level protection against water, dust and oil, and heat resistant up to 55 ° C, all controlled by a PBC card with self-diagnostic function, and adding to this, no CFC management since they work on CO2, which makes them environment friendly units with easy maintenance and long life, since they have a stainless steel body option for saline and rugged environments. With a capacity of up to 2800 watts there is no electronic system that cannot be cooled by APISTE’s control panel cooler units.

WINDRACER fans from SHOWA DENKI

Referring to the environmental heat generated by production processes, certain processes may increase the temperature of an industrial building considerably, and anyone who was ever stand next to an aluminum injection furnace or heat treatment furnace understands it. If we add this to high temperatures that are generated daily by the effect of solar radiation in corrugated sheet structure plants, even the air circulation systems can be overwhelmed by the heat generation from the processes; and installing air conditioning is not necessarily an option, as it is expensive and requires a high investment in infrastructure (for thermal isolation).

Nevertheless, there is a simple solution to mitigate the cumulative effects of heat generated by manufacturing processes: directed air extraction; we present the WINDRACER directed flow fan, by SHOWA DENKI.

The WINDRACER directed flow fan, unlike other axial fan fans, is designed to maximize the linear reach of the ejected flow, while in other fans the dispersion of the flow occurs a couple of meters, the WINDRACER has a dispersion of 3 meters in diameter within 10 linear meters with an average flow velocity of 1.5 m / s. In conjunction with other WINDRACER extractors and wall extractor fans, flow chains can be created that efficiently extract hot air from the ship caused by production processes, thus reducing the risk of unexpected temperature rises.

Keeping processes temperature under control without big investments.

Whether in the control panels of your machines, or in the extraction of hot ambient air from your plant, the APISTE and SHOWA DENKI solutions presented here will help, either separately or together, to reduce the possibility of downtime or damages in the electronics of your equipment, and added to this, they will improve the environmental quality for your workforce. Contact your YAMAZEN sales agent to request a technical visit to quote the appropriate solution.