Industrial Air Conditioners

Panel Air Conditioner

Cool, clean, dry control panels, so your drives keep running right beside the heat and dust they control.

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A slim silver panel air conditioner beside the circuit boards of a control system

Product overview

Keep your panels cool without letting plant air in

Our panel air conditioner mounts on your electrical enclosure and holds the air inside it at a set temperature, typically 30–35 °C, however hot the room around it becomes. It takes away the heat released by drives, power supplies, PLCs, transformers and switchgear, and rejects it to the room air outside the enclosure.

Enclosure air and room air never mix. Heat crosses between them only through the refrigerant, so dust, oil mist, metal fines, lint and corrosive vapours stay out, and your enclosure keeps its IP54 or IP55 rating under IEC 60529.

The cold coil also dries the enclosure air, draining the water outside the panel. The unit needs no cooling water, compressed air or ducting: it draws power from the panel supply and mounts through a cut-out in an existing wall, door or roof.

A slim silver panel air conditioner beside the circuit boards of a control system
  • 35 °CEnclosure held, with the room at 45 °C
  • IP54 or IP55Enclosure rating kept, to IEC 60529
  • Roughly halfCapacitor life lost for each 10 K rise
  • Power onlyNo cooling water, compressed air or ducting

Benefits

The problems it solves

Electronic devices are rated for the temperature of the air inside the enclosure, not the room. Here is what hot, dirty plant air does to a panel, and how the unit stops it.

  • Drives tripping and derating

    The problem

    Many variable-speed drives are rated for 40 °C without derating and lose output current above that, or trip on overtemperature.

    How it solves it

    Your drives and controllers stay within their rated temperature and run at rated current, not a derated value.

  • Components ageing fast

    The problem

    The life of aluminium electrolytic capacitors roughly halves for each 10 K rise, and fans, relay coils and insulation age the same way.

    How it solves it

    Holding the enclosure air at a controlled temperature slows the ageing of capacitors, fans, relay coils and insulation.

  • Panels hotter than the room

    The problem

    When the room is at or above the permitted internal temperature, the enclosure walls add heat rather than remove it.

    How it solves it

    The unit pumps heat from the colder panel to the warmer room, holding your enclosure at 35 °C in a 45 °C room.

  • Dust, lint and oil mist

    The problem

    Conductive dust bridges circuit tracks, lint mats over heat sinks within days, and oil films degrade insulation.

    How it solves it

    No outside air enters the panel, so your circuit boards, heat sinks and contacts stay clean.

  • Condensation and corrosion

    The problem

    In humid climates and wash-down areas, moisture condenses on surfaces that cool at night or when equipment stops.

    How it solves it

    Water condenses on the evaporator and drains out, so surfaces inside the panel stay dry as they cool.

  • Thermal cycling

    The problem

    Swings in temperature expand and contract solder joints, terminals and busbar connections.

    How it solves it

    A stable internal temperature limits this cycling across day and night and across seasons.

Where it’s used

Wherever your panels sit beside the process

Enclosures can sit directly beside the process they control, in hot and dirty areas.

  • Molten metal pouring from a ladle in a foundry

    Steel and aluminium plants

    Drive and automation panels near rolling mills, furnaces and casting lines, in ambient air above 45 °C and conductive metal dust.

  • A worker pouring concrete over steel reinforcement

    Cement, mining and minerals

    Panels for kilns, crushers, mills and conveyors that must exclude abrasive and conductive dust.

  • Robots welding a car body on an assembly line

    Automotive plants

    Robot controllers, welding controllers and conveyor drives in body and paint shops.

  • A row of yarn winding machines in a textile mill

    Textile mills

    Panels where airborne lint would block ventilation openings and settle on circuit boards.

  • Blue plastic bottle caps in a moulded tray

    Plastics and rubber

    Panels beside injection moulding machines, extruders and vulcanising presses that receive radiant heat from the process.

  • Wine bottles moving along a bottling line

    Food and beverage

    Panels in bakeries, fryers and bottling halls that face heat, flour dust and wash-down humidity.

Also CNC machine tools, pulp and paper, power generation and distribution, water and wastewater, oil, gas and chemicals, material handling and ports, outdoor telecom and battery cabinets, and drive panels for compressors, dryers and nitrogen generators in hot compressor rooms.

How it works

Two sealed air circuits, one refrigerant

A closed refrigeration circuit carries the heat from the air inside your panel to the room air outside it, while the two never mix.

How a panel air conditioner works: the internal fan draws warm air from the top of the sealed enclosure across the evaporator, where boiling refrigerant takes up its heat and moisture, and returns cold air near the bottom to rise past the drives. The compressor pumps the heat through a sealed partition to the condenser, whose fan rejects it into the room air, and the expansion device returns the refrigerant to the evaporator. Enclosure air and room air never mix. PLC Drive Drive Sealed enclosure 35 °C Sealed partition Heat out Room air in 45 °C Condenser CompressorExpansiondeviceCondensate out EvaporatorInternal fan 1,000 W heat in 0 °C to 15 °C 400 W input 1,400 W out 12345Warm enclosure or room airCold air, back to the panelCondensateHot refrigerantCold refrigerantHeat

  1. 1. Take up the panel's heatThe internal fan draws warm air from the top of the enclosure across the evaporator, where the refrigerant boils at typically between 0 °C and 15 °C. The cold, drier air returns near the bottom and rises past your components, and the water it gave up drains outside the enclosure.

  2. 2. CompressThe hermetic compressor raises the refrigerant vapour's pressure by a factor of roughly three to five, lifting its temperature well above that of the room air. The work of compression is added to the refrigerant as heat.

  3. 3. Reject the heat to the roomThe external fan draws room air across the condenser, where the refrigerant condenses typically 10–20 K above the room air temperature. A unit removing 1,000 W with a 400 W electrical input rejects 1,400 W into the room.

  4. 4. ExpandThe liquid passes through a capillary tube or thermostatic expansion valve. The sudden pressure drop lowers its boiling point below the enclosure air temperature, and the mixture returns to the evaporator.

  5. 5. Keep the circuits apartA sealed partition and gaskets that match your enclosure's protection rating separate the two air paths. The refrigerant pipes pass through in sealed joints, and no air moves between the circuits.

Example: a room at 45 °C with the enclosure held at 35 °C.

Get the full details

Our brochure covers it in detail, and our questionnaire tells us what we need to recommend the right one for your plant.

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