Electricity: electrical systems and devices – Housing or mounting assemblies with diverse electrical... – For electronic systems and devices
Patent
1996-09-12
1998-10-06
Picard, Leo P.
Electricity: electrical systems and devices
Housing or mounting assemblies with diverse electrical...
For electronic systems and devices
361725, 361727, 361735, 361732, 361685, 4399281, H05K 500
Patent
active
058186964
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is directed toward an apparatus and method for mounting electronic assemblies or electronic modules onto a common rear wall.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART
Rear walls using printed circuit technology are normal for the connection of plug-in assemblies. These rear walls are preferably used for electronic printed circuit board assemblies, a relatively large number of which are plugged in parallel to one another.
In contrast, flat cable connectors are normal for peripheral units such as magnetic disk memories, the units being mounted on their longitudinal sides and contact being made with them, at their rear, via the flat cable connectors.
It is necessary to fit and wire up a large number of small disk drives, in particular with the cost-effective availability of physically small magnetic disk drives using 31/2" or 21/2" technology, in conjunction with disk bus systems such as SCSI and RAID technology.
The object of the invention is to specify a mounting rack in which modules of various heights can be arranged such that they can be plugged in any desired sequence, which can be determined in advance, without having to adapt the mounting rack itself. At the same time, good sealing with respect to interference radiation is desirable.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The above object is achieved in that a mounting panel which is similar to a full-height, very narrow module is used for assemblies, which are called modules in the following text, and which are less than full height, but in particular are only half, a third or a quarter of the full height (partial-height modules), which mounting panel uses the guide rails in the mounting rack for full-height modules and, for its part, has on its surface guide rails for the modules to be supported. The modules are arranged one above the other on the mounting panel and are thus generally designed with a front panel of the same width.
It is thus possible to determine in advance, as required the sequence of spaces for partial-height modules and full-height modules. This is of particular importance in the case of high-performance multi-user computers having large bulk storage volumes which are expediently and cost-efficiently constructed from hard-disk drives using 31/2" or 21/2" format, which are produced in large quantities for personal computers. The mounting rack can, in this case, on the one hand accommodate the central processor and the main memory as full-height printed circuit board assemblies. The controllers for the hard disks are likewise designed as generally full-height, printed circuit board assemblies. Two, three, four, six or eight spaces for hard-disk drives are arranged as partial-height modules immediately along-side said controllers on one or two mounting panels, and are connected to the respective control unit via the rear wall, without cables. It should be noted in this case that the SCSI bus, which is frequently used in this context, allows a maximum of seven disk drives and a plurality of control units are therefore unavoidable for large disk capacities; however these control units should be arranged as close as possible to the drives. The guide rails make it easy to fit the drives subsequently, or, particularly in the case of RAID systems, replaceably while operation is continuing. A further advantage of this arrangement is the compact construction and the absence of the connection via cables, which has been necessary until now and is susceptible to faults, when using magnetic disk drives.
Good interference radiation screening with simple means is likewise achievable, since the metallic mounting panel is used as a screen and, as a result of the compact construction, there are only a few gaps, which can be closed well by slit springs.
If the mounting panel is broadened slightly by a front panel, then it is at the same time used as a ventilation channel, which is expedient if the modules themselves permit hardly any vertical air movement. To this end, the mounting panel is provided with an interrupted bead w
REFERENCES:
patent: 3631325 (1971-12-01), Wenz
patent: 4382271 (1983-05-01), Villemont et al.
patent: 4821145 (1989-04-01), Corfits et al.
patent: 4840570 (1989-06-01), Mann, Jr. et al.
patent: 4967311 (1990-10-01), Ferchau et al.
patent: 5062801 (1991-11-01), Roos
Chervinsky Boris L.
Picard Leo P.
Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme Aktiengesellschaft
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