Is there a chassis that powers off in case of overheating?

[devchander]

I recently witnessed an incident where a PXI controller went bad due to over-heating of the Chassis

Reason: That Chassis had a cooling fan in the Bottom. 

While mounting that chassis,  feet of the chassis were removed and chassis was placed 'flat' on the rack. This prevented adequate cooling and hence the subsequent failure of Controller.

Is there a feature in any chassis, where the chassis will give an alarm and power itself off, in case of overheating ??

If not, this would be cool feature to incorporate

Regards

Dev

[JamesC]

Hi Dev,

There is not any chassis I know of that will power off in case of overheating. This is because all chassis apart from the PXIe chassis, have a "Hard" power button you have to physically press the power button. I.e when you shut down Windows, you will see the "It is now safe to turn off your computer"

On the PXIe chassis, I believe there are now "Soft" power buttons, as you would see on Dells, when you shut down Windows, the OS/BIOS can turn off the chassis. Also the PXIe Chassis monitors power supply voltages, air intake temperature, and fan speeds, while not being controller temperature as it has a soft power off option, you can create a monitoring program to turn off the system when a certain temperature is reached.

Sorry for not being more help, but I hope this answers your question.

Regards
JamesC
NIUK and Ireland

[devchander]

Hey James,

A good pointer you gave!

I read the user manual of PXIe 1062Q

Guess what??

It does exactly what I was looking for

A extract from user manual:

"If the inhibit switch LED is steady red, the system fans or power supply

fan has failed. The remaining fans will automatically be driven high.

Note

If both system fans or the power supply fan fails the chassis will shut down

automatically, preventing the chassis and modules from damage due to overheating."

Thank you!

Regards

Dev

[Tica]

Hi Dev,

Our chassis are designed with fans located on strategic places to ensure the air flow and cooling of the modules. Make sure you always leave these vents open to allow that flow of air and prevent overheating.

We are always looking for feedback on our products to make sure we can help you be succesful. Please feel free to submit any product suggestions you have by using our Product Suggestion Center (http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/websearch/EDA7C01C684ACB6286256FF0000238D5?OpenDocument). This gets the information to the proper channels so that we can consider those request for future development.

Thanks again for the feedback.

Have a great day!

Tica T
National Instruments
 

[devchander]

Hi Tica,

Thanks for that Link!

As I told, in that particular case I was a mere spectator and it came to my knowledge only after the disaster stuck!

Well, in the end that was a lesson learnt the hard way by the Rack fabricators and system designers

Shall definitely use that link in future, in case I come across any more instances of exemplary idiocy.

Be it by me or others

Regards

Dev

[Tim Fountain]

I just wanted to jump in on this conversation and add to Tica's answer by mentioning PXI Express. The PXIe specification includes a System Management bus (SMbus) which is found on all modern PC's. The bus allows the PXIe controller to talk to the fan controller and temperature monitoring devices, and will allow us in the future to add all sorts of useful features to chassis, such as fan speed/fail monitoring, temperature monitoring/shutdown, power supply health and over/under voltage monitoring. It will be possible to monitor this both locally (such as inside a LabVIEW application) as well as remote monitoring and reporting.

We know from anecdotal discussions that customers can accidentally overtemp systems due to poor air circulation, excessively hot days or other factors. Like any piece of equipment that can dissipate upwards of 600W in the case of an 18 slot chassis, good airflow is imperative to proper operation. Recall we spec all PXI chassis for 0-55C ambient temperatures, meaning internal temperatures on modules will be a lot hotter, whilst still within manufacturers rated temperatures.

- Tim F, Hardware Product Strategist, Instrument Control Group.