How are the Meanwell's actually mounted in a electrical box?

[Greg.Ca]

I'm starting to actually slowly but surely acquire the 6-8 power supplies that I will actually need for my 24 strand 5 volt megatree project. While I have already decided on how many and what model power supply that I will use, I have now do figure out on 'how' to mount the 5V Meanwells in my electrical box.

The case of the Meanwells have several threaded female 'threads' that appear to be a 4mm thread directly into the case. A regular 4mm screw appears to work where somehow these 'screws' could allow the power supply case to be mounted but HOW???

How could I quickly replace the power supply if needed?

My plan is to mount a power strip, a Ethernet switch, two P12R's, and 6 meanwells all in a 'Hoffman box' that would be in the center of the tree. This Hoffman box would have a latched door that would allow all of the components to be mounted to a 'plate' or 'backplane' inside of the box. ALL of these components need to be quickly replaced if a failure happens.

Please tell me how these 5V Meanwells should be mounted to a 'backplane'. The 'back' of the backplane will NOT be easily accessable during the Christmas season and therefore makes mounting and dismounting of the power supply very difficult. If I had easy accessibility with the back of the backplane, then mounting and dismounting of the power supplies would be a no-brainer. Right now I'm sctrathing my head and there is already little hair left.

Any ideas on how to mount these Meanwells to a plate in my Hoffman box so that I can easily replace them if need be? They also need to breathe should high currents cause some overheating.

Is there a piece of mounting hardware that allows for easy mounting, dismounting, and replacement?

--Greg--








Ideas?? --Greg--

 

[anon]

My 240W PSU's are mounted on a backing plate on their sides (makes the most of the space) using the 4 M4s inserts provided, the screw goes into the back of the backing plate, out the front and into the PSU.


The backing plate can easily be screwed in and out of the box (with some wiring disconnected and the plate and equipment coming out whole) to service anything if need be. If you have masses of wiring to disconnect, then look into connectors (phoenix connectors etc) than will allow things to be easily unplugged, rather than bare wires being unscrewed from terminals.


In the grand scheme of things, if a quality meanwell PSU blows up, you probably have greater problems to deal with. The 10 mins spent to get it out the box should be insignificant to the MTBF of the unit.


To allow airflow, look at what some have done on here for convection cooling, an inlet at the bottom and outlet at the top will allow reasonable airflow. However, if your suggesting 8 PSUs of say 200W each running at full tilt, I'm not too sure what could cool that apart from some active cooling/fans. Then again you'll be in the cool of your winter and not our 100F evenings in Oz.

 

[Greg.Ca]

My 240W PSU's are mounted on a backing plate on their sides (makes the most of the space) using the 4 M4s inserts provided, the screw goes into the back of the backing plate, out the front and into the PSU.


The backing plate can easily be screwed in and out of the box (with some wiring disconnected and the plate and equipment coming out whole) to service anything if need be. If you have masses of wiring to disconnect, then look into connectors (phoenix connectors etc) than will allow things to be easily unplugged, rather than bare wires being unscrewed from terminals.


In the grand scheme of things, if a quality meanwell PSU blows up, you probably have greater problems to deal with. The 10 mins spent to get it out the box should be insignificant to the MTBF of the unit.


To allow airflow, look at what some have done on here for convection cooling, an inlet at the bottom and outlet at the top will allow reasonable airflow. However, if your suggesting 8 PSUs of say 200W each running at full tilt, I'm not too sure what could cool that apart from some active cooling/fans. Then again you'll be in the cool of your winter and not our 100F evenings in Oz.

Can you explain in further detail what this 'backing plate' is? You also mentioned the four M4 'inserts ' provided. Nothing was provided with my power supplies and I'm having a tough time envisioning what this backing plate is or what these inserts are.

Under worse case scenario, all strips would have all whites turned on and that would be a tremendous amount of current. I am planning in my software NOT to have all whites turned on with all strips. However, in the case of a worse case scenario, things 'could' go awry and I need the power supplies to temporarily handle worse case scenario. I always design for worse case scenario and amusingly enough, once in a while, worse case scenario DOES happen. My choice and quantity of power supplies will ALWAYS be able to handle worse case scenario as I will NOT always be immediately available to monitor my display.

I live in the suburbs of Denver Colorado and in the month of December, we 'could' have temperatures while the display comes on in excess of 20 degrees Celcius (very unlikely) however, most likely, it gets very cold while the display is on and additional cooling will probably be unnecessary but like I said before, I design for worse case scenario. This will be tested in July. --Greg---

 

[harrison0550]

I strapped each one of mine in place. I was a little concerned they whould just slide right out of the straps but I put them as tight as I could and screwed the straps down to further tighten them. Didnt have a single one slide down........

And here is how a couple others have done it...................... I think one is Williams and one is ShellNZs

 

[anon]

My 240W PSU's are mounted on a backing plate on their sides (makes the most of the space) using the 4 M4s inserts provided, the screw goes into the back of the backing plate, out the front and into the PSU.


The backing plate can easily be screwed in and out of the box (with some wiring disconnected and the plate and equipment coming out whole) to service anything if need be. If you have masses of wiring to disconnect, then look into connectors (phoenix connectors etc) than will allow things to be easily unplugged, rather than bare wires being unscrewed from terminals.


In the grand scheme of things, if a quality meanwell PSU blows up, you probably have greater problems to deal with. The 10 mins spent to get it out the box should be insignificant to the MTBF of the unit.


To allow airflow, look at what some have done on here for convection cooling, an inlet at the bottom and outlet at the top will allow reasonable airflow. However, if your suggesting 8 PSUs of say 200W each running at full tilt, I'm not too sure what could cool that apart from some active cooling/fans. Then again you'll be in the cool of your winter and not our 100F evenings in Oz.

Can you explain in further detail what this 'backing plate' is? You also mentioned the four M4 'inserts ' provided. Nothing was provided with my power supplies and I'm having a tough time envisioning what this backing plate is or what these inserts are.

Under worse case scenario, all strips would have all whites turned on and that would be a tremendous amount of current. I am planning in my software NOT to have all whites turned on with all strips. However, in the case of a worse case scenario, things 'could' go awry and I need the power supplies to temporarily handle worse case scenario. I always design for worse case scenario and amusingly enough, once in a while, worse case scenario DOES happen. My choice and quantity of power supplies will ALWAYS be able to handle worse case scenario as I will NOT always be immediately available to monitor my display.

I live in the suburbs of Denver Colorado and in the month of December, we 'could' have temperatures while the display comes on in excess of 20 degrees Celcius (very unlikely) however, most likely, it gets very cold while the display is on and additional cooling will probably be unnecessary but like I said before, I design for worse case scenario. This will be tested in July. --Greg---

The M4 inserts are the 'nutserts' or similar that are on the case to allow the PSU to be mounted, see the spec sheet link.


http://www.meanwell.com/search/SP-240/SP-240-spec.pdf


The spec sheet shows 4 on each edge, and 4 on the bottom (non fan side) of the PSU.


My equipment is mounted here:

My red backing plate, mounting plate, backplane....call it what you will, has holes drilled through it to match the hole positions on the edge of the PSU. The PSU is placed against the backing plate, and the M4 screws go through the back of the plate into the PSU and screw/hold the PSU against the plate.


In each corner of the plate are holes drilled matching the hole positions of my box. The plate is then screwed in each corner of the box. If I ever need to replace a PSU, I have to undo these screws and take the whole lot out, then unscrew the PSU from the plate.


You can also see in my box a power distribution block. Each output is fused so that that output shorts out, it will blow the fuse and not overload the entire PSU and take out everything connected to that PSU. The Meanwell PSUs are of reasonable quality with power overload and thermal cut outs so you would have to be trying hard to make one blow up.

If you absolutely must be able to service the PSU without taking out the entire contents, you could strap it in as shown in the previous post, or get some say 2mm Aluminium plate, that is slightly bigger than the PSU size. Drill holes to match the PSU whole positions and mount the PSU to the aluminium plate. Drill holes in the plate and mount the plate and PSU to your mounting plate.

 

[Bill Ellick]

Hey Anon,
That setup looks good. I like your power distribution blocks. Did you make them yourself or are they available from a source?
I have just begun to look at pixel workings and am getting sources and parts together for making my power and controller enclosures and those look like they would save me some building time.
Thanks
Bill

 

[anon]

Hey,


The distribution blocks came from David_AVD on this forum, see https://www.audiovisualdevices.com.au/products.php?catid=16&grpid=1695 (see the 6-way fused breakout).


I spent a fair amount of time looking for similar items but found nothing that could fit within the same footprint or cost. You still need to deal with the other rail (negative in my design), for which I've just daisy chained some heavy cable across a segment of terminal block.

 

[Bill Ellick]

Hey Thanks for the link!
I thought that I had seen them somewhere but could not for the life of me remember that it was on David's site.
Yea I am using terminal strips for the negative lines as well but I like the idea of the fused positive sides and was thinking of making my own distribution block with fuses but his makes it easy to do without all the machining I would have to do to make my own. And I am sure that I will run out of time even though it is March!!

 

[Christmas on Clarafield]

Anon, do you have any more photos or "behind the scenes" of your controller boxes and set up?

 

[Greg.Ca]

OK, After a month I am actually going to answer my own question. After doing lots of research on how to mount meanwell power supplies, it turns out that there is a easy way to mount the meanwell power supplies on din rail. Click below and you will see that there already is a assortment of meanwell power supply brackets. I just ordered an assortment and after they arrive, I will post a quick video on how easy the meanwells are to mount quickly. --Greg--

https://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/StoreCatalogDrillDownView?langId=-1&storeId=10001&catalogId=10001&search_type=jamecoall&freeText=meanwell+mounting+brackets