Switchgear cabinet or rack

• US 20120031964A1
• Filed: 02/17/2010
• Published: 02/09/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 02/19/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rittal GmbH & Company KG (Friedhelm Loh, PhD)
• Original Assignee: Rittal GmbH & Company KG (Friedhelm Loh, PhD)
• Inventors: Thielmann, Bodo, Schmidt, Volker, Hain, Marcus
• Granted Patent: US 8,651,379 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 235/375
• CPC Class Codes: H05K 7/1421 Drawers for printed circuit boards
• CPC Class Codes: H05K 7/1488 Cabinets therefor, e.g. chassis or racks or mechanical interfaces between blades and support structures

Abstract

The invention relates to a switchgear cabinet or rack comprising a mounting unit, the front of which has vertical mounting profiles that laterally delimit an installation space for installed user-side units, said profiles having fixing sections for attaching mounting sections of the installed units, and comprising components of a detection device for determining the presence of an installed unit in an installation position of the installation space. he components of the detection device have a vertical detector strip that is attached to a mounting profile and contains detector elements associated with the installed positions and arranged on or in said strip and code carriers that are provided on the installed units, the information from said carriers being transmitted for evaluation via the detector elements to a monitoring and control unit, either wirelessly or by wire. Clearly-represented user information is achieved for the switchgear cabinet using light elements mounted on or in the detector strip, said elements being associated with the installation positions and achieved by the fact that the light elements can be controlled in accordance with the information in the code carriers.

Claims

1-14. -14. (canceled)

15. A switchgear cabinet or rack comprising a mounting unit, the front which has vertical mounting profiles that laterally delimit an installation space for installed user-side units, said profiles having fixing sections for attaching mounting sections of the installed units, and comprising components of a detection device for determining the presence of an installed unit in an installation position of the installation space, wherein the components of the detection device have a vertical detector strip that is attached to a mounting profile and contains detector elements associated with the installed positions and arranged on or in said strip and code carriers that are provided on the installed units, the information from said carriers being transmitted for evaluation via the detector elements to a monitoring and control unit, either wirelessly or by wire, wherein illuminating elements are mounted on or in the detector strip, said elements being associated with the installation positions, and the illuminating elements being controllable in accordance with the information in the code carriers.

16. The switchgear cabinet or rack of claim 15, wherein said illuminating elements are light emitting diodes and the monitoring and controlling unit is also configured to drive said light emitting diodes.

17. The switchgear cabinet or rack of claim 15, wherein said illuminating elements and said detector elements at least partly share data lines and/or supply lines which are arranged in said detector strip.

18. The switchgear cabinet or rack of claim 15, wherein said illuminating elements are respectively controllable for emitting light of different color and/or temporal illuminating frequency.

19. The switchgear cabinet or rack of claim 15, wherein said detector strip comprises a housing body having a hollow profile.

20. The switchgear cabinet or rack of claim 19, wherein said hollow profile comprises a square, rectangular, round, C-shaped or U-shaped cross section and is provided on its front in a mounted state with a transparent cover part at least in sections in front of said illuminating elements.

21. The switchgear cabinet or rack of claim 20, wherein said hollow profile having U-shaped cross section comprises a flat base leg with perpendicularly oriented lateral legs which are as long as, longer than or shorter than said base leg.

22. The switchgear cabinet or rack of claim 21, wherein said lateral legs are provided with retaining grooves on their inner side in the region of their exposed longitudinal edges which oppose each other with their opening faces and which forwardly and rearwardly engage behind the inserted cover part along the longitudinal edges thereof.

23. The switchgear cabinet or rack of claim 15, wherein said detector strip is configured as antenna strip and said detector elements are configured as antenna elements and said code carriers are configured as transponder elements.

24. The switchgear cabinet or rack of claim 15, wherein said detector strip is configured as antenna strip and said detector elements are configured as antenna elements and said code carriers are configured as RFID tags.

25. The switchgear cabinet or rack of claim 15, wherein said fixing sections are flat and lie on a front face mounting plane, said antenna strip lies with its front face on the mounting plane or is set back in relation thereto by a maximum of 10 mm and the relevant code carrier is arranged in front of the front of said detector strip and is attached on a support section of a retaining element overlapping said detector strip, which element is attached to the neighboring mounting section of the associated installed unit via a connecting section.

26. The switchgear cabinet or rack of claim 15, wherein said illuminating elements are arranged in longitudinal direction of said detector strip in regular grid spacing within grid of a unit of height HE an integer multiple thereof or in regular partial spacing thereof, are individually controllable and are, in an illuminating state, accurately visible through said transparent cover part, and antenna elements, which are spaced in longitudinal direction of said antenna strip, are arranged in the interior of said antenna strip within grid of a unit of height HE or an integer multiple thereof or in regular partial spacing thereof.

27. The switchgear cabinet or rack of claim 25, wherein said mounting profile comprises a cavity which is at least partly adapted to the cross section of said detector strip, having an abutment section which is set back in relation to the mounting plane at least by the cross section depth of the antenna strip and an inner boundary wall delimiting said cavity on its face facing the installation space, said abutment section and said inner boundary wall are arranged perpendicularly with respect to another in cross section of said cavity, wherein said abutment section is aligned parallel to the mounting plane and said boundary wall merges perpendicularly into said fixing section via an intermediate section or immediately.

28. The switchgear cabinet or rack of claim 27, wherein a row of retaining holes is arranged in said bearing section having retaining holes arranged with regular grid spacing and said retaining holes are square or rectangular with longitudinal sides running in longitudinal direction of said mounting profile and said detector strip being provided with retaining hooks on its rear facing to said bearing section which are harmonized to the spacing of the retaining holes or a multiple thereof and comprise vertical hook sections which possess a smaller length than the clear opening width of the retaining holes in a vertical direction and which are spaced from the rear outer face of the detector strip so that they engage behind a wall section of the bearing section surrounding said retaining holes.

29. The switchgear cabinet or rack of claim 25, wherein said retaining element is flat and is arranged with its connecting section on the rear of said mounting section which is also flat and is pressed therewith against the front of the fixing section and said support section extends in its height over a fraction of the connecting section.