Control box fan/power advice

[shaunosxmaslights]

I have made my first attempt at wiring up my control box and hoping someone might be able to offer some advice on the following points:

* What sized screws would I need in order to mount the side fan to the ventilator (pictured)?
* Would I need to lower the top (sucker) fan by using a resistor to avoid simply circulating the air from the intake given that both fans have the same CFM?
* Is it ok to be using stranded wire to the screw terminals (both on the PSU and Power8 distro board) or do I need to replace it with ferrules?

Any other tips or tricks are welcome.

 

[orchidman33]

I myself used M4x10 bolt and nuts to bolt my fans into place, but this is dependant on the thickness of the enclosuer plus the thickness of the fan. By the look you may be requiring a bolt 30-35mm length (not knowing the thickness of the fan).
Question - why use a fan supplied from the power supply ?,when there is 230V supply.Save your power supply for the lights.

It is not BEST practice to use a forced inlet fan + a forced outlet fan at the same time. In the electrical industry, they used force air in (which is low down at one end or side and the outlet at the opposite side/ end (unforced,( just a grill. I personally use just a grill for the inlet and forced outlet.

Putting a ferrule on the end of the cabling appart from looking neater, gives a far more possitive connection, as ALL strands that make up the wire are gripped under the terminal equally and no fine strands sticking to short to something else.

 

[AussiePhil]

* What sized screws would I need in order to mount the side fan to the ventilator (pictured)?

As Orchidman said you can use M4 bolts, actual screws don't work that well in my opinion... the holes can also be thread with an M5 tap and this works really well.

* Would I need to lower the top (sucker) fan by using a resistor to avoid simply circulating the air from the intake given that both fans have the same CFM?

As you have them set up if the goal it to allow/provide for cooling the PSU you are wasting you time, the air flow path is directly from one fan to the other with some incidental cooling going on.
a few things come to mind,
Is the box outside in the weather - as you have multiple water ingress points now
I'd use the fan at the bottom of the photo to blow air up and over the PSU with passive venting going out of the box
you really only need a single fan
Look at how the air will flow.

* Is it ok to be using stranded wire to the screw terminals (both on the PSU and Power8 distro board) or do I need to replace it with ferrules?

Answered above.

Cheers
Phil

 

[shaunosxmaslights]

Yeah, I realised I had stuffed up with the airflow shortly after making the cuts.

Is the box outside in the weather - as you have multiple water ingress points now
I'd use the fan at the bottom of the photo to blow air up and over the PSU with passive venting going out of the box
you really only need a single fan

It probably didn't help that the images were auto-rotated by 90 degrees on upload. But yes I do see that the top fan (pictured bottom-left) is now a big water ingress point . Fortunately for this installation, the control box will be mounted on a garage wall so the only things I'm trying to keep out are, dust, dirt and eight legged visitors.

Definitely going to run with the single inlet fan and static outflow and I've ordered a ferrule crimping set to improve those connections. Thanks Gents!

Also, on the Power8 distro board I noted a max amp capacity of 30Amps for each input. Would that mean I am limited to using a 30Amp PSU on each input to avoid damaging the board?

 

[AussiePhil]

Also, on the Power8 distro board I noted a max amp capacity of 30Amps for each input. Would that mean I am limited to using a 30Amp PSU on each input to avoid damaging the board?

Technically no, it's not the PSU rating that matters rather the output current being drawn for each circuit with 30A being max recommended total for the input.

You could feed 3 30A P8 boards from a single 100A PSU as long as the total draw via any one board was <30A