Don’t Take Your System Out of Service Because of a Dead Fan or Blower

Of all the ways to cool a large amount of electronics, forced airflow is still the economical route.  The traditional approach is to attach fans to the inside rear panel of a 1U chassis.  Overtime, dust builds on fans, grills, heatsink fins and intake perforations.  Rack mounted “out-of-sight & out-of-mind” servers and switches typically don’t receive routine maintenance.  A 10% to 15% dust buildup on the fan drops airflow throughput by 10% to 15%.  The downside is increased power consumption, higher internal heat and faster fan failure.

You don’t often see hot swap fans in a 1U chassis because of vertical height constraints.  We have a 1U chassis approach with numerous replaceable (hot swap) fan and blower options allowing maintenance without having to schedule equipment out of service.

Fan Options (All Types)

A 40mm axial fan will fit in a 1U chassis by sacrificing the rear panel return flange that supports the top panel.  The air throughput performance (vs. watts, noise, fan width) drops rapidly when going from a 40mm fan down to 38mm, 35mm, etc.  It’s not about the diameter, its all about outer diameter circumference and RPM.  We have preserved the ability to fit 40mm fans in all of your 1U chassis modular enclosures.