Electricity: electrical systems and devices – Housing or mounting assemblies with diverse electrical... – Wire distribution
Reexamination Certificate
2000-07-21
2003-03-25
Paladini, Albert W. (Department: 2822)
Electricity: electrical systems and devices
Housing or mounting assemblies with diverse electrical...
Wire distribution
C361S828000, C439S953000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06538904
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates in general to the field of electronic component enclosures, and, more particularly, to an object for mounting a electronic system component within a housing rack assembly.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Many systems have been proposed for racking and storing electronic equipment such as computer equipment, audio-visual equipment, musical equipment and the like. Specifically, numerous systems have been developed for computer equipment consisting of multiple components that require electrical supply cable connections and signal or data cable interconnections for each component. Therefore, in order to neatly, safely and efficiently store numerous pieces of equipment, a rack system is generally utilized. Electronic equipment such as computer components are often arranged in “drawers” or units having particular dimensions and fasteners which permit mounting within a vertical rack or load-bearing frame. Rack-mountable components are widely used because they are easily installed or removed. A rack system also permits a flexible system configuration.
In many computer environments, including large-scale operations such as data centers, server-farms, web-hosting facilities and call centers, as well as small-scale computer environments, space is an important concern. For a computer environment to operate efficiently, electronic components are often neatly racked allowing for access to the components for installation and removal. Furthermore, a rack system provides access to the components for connecting the electrical supply cables and the data cables. As various types of electronic equipment have become more complex, more densely packaged and more compact in size, vertical frames known in the prior art have proved deficient or disadvantageous in several ways.
It is common in electronic equipment construction to mount electronic equipment in drawers or slide units which slide into a suitable equipment rack in spaced parallel relationship. The “drawers” often comprise modular instrument housings which slide into suitable slots in the rack, or support structure. Most of the electronic equipment in the rack must be interconnected. The interconnection of the electronic components can cause problems when changes must be made to the overall system mounted on the rack or to any of the individual electronic components mounted to the rack.
In electronic equipment applications, numerous types of electronic equipment are often placed in a rack system. Different equipment manufacturers or distributors of electronic equipment often do not employ a consistent programming format and protocol. That is, there is little uniformity in the location and distribution of display panels, input/output connections and wiring interfaces of similar electronic equipment produced by different manufacturers. Even when identical programming formats and protocols are used, details of the placement of display panels, input/output connections and wiring interfaces differ from manufacturer to manufacturer. Therefore, many electronic assemblies that have identical electrical characteristics are not interchangeable without some sort of programming or reconfiguration.
There are also often mechanical differences between electronic equipment supports or drawers designed to slide into an equipment rack. These differences prevent easy interchangeability. The differences include rather simple items such as connector quantity, location, size and pin allocation. These seemingly trivial problems force conventional rack wiring and rack component placement to undergo extensive re-work when a system has to be reconfigured. Expensive, complex, and time consuming reconstruction, often beyond the capability of field personnel, must be performed. Thus, rack wiring and rack component placement has been a major impediment to all previous attempts to provide easy racking of systems.
As electronic components become more densely packed, more heat is generated and ventilation becomes critically important to ensure that the components will function properly. Prior art frames designed for use with less densely packed components are often not able to accommodate larger ventilation grilles or fans due to interfering structural members. Many conventional frames include structural members which, because of location or orientation, place severe restrictions on the design of exterior panels, doors, grilles and the like.
Thus, it is well known in the art to provide a rack system for storing and operating electronic components in an organized and accessible manner. However, numerous inventions have been proposed which limit the access to each of the racked electronic components. For example, in order to access any of the wiring interfaces for the interconnection of the electronic equipment to other components in the rack, one must turn the housing rack system around to access the rear of the housing rack system and the racked electronic components. This proves to be very difficult in many situations where space is limited in addition to situations where extensive cabling is required to operate a multitude of electronic components. Therefore, it is often desirable to mount several pieces of electronic components with the rear of the unit facing forward. In order to mount electronic equipment in this manner, a new bracket would be required that is specifically designed for mounting the electronic components with the rear-facing-forward. Thus, it is desirable to provide a rack system which employs a modular equipment rack bracket which allows for any type of electronic equipment to be mounted in either a front-facing-forward configuration or a rear-facing-forward configuration without requiring the user to utilize more than one equipment rack bracket.
Rinderer U.S. Pat. No. 5,284,254 discloses a rack for electrical equipment including a base having a bottom wall, and a back wall extending up from the bottom wall at the back of the rack. The bottom wall has a plurality of fastener openings therein through which fasteners may be driven into a surface supporting the rack for securing the rack to the surface. A pair of legs extend up from the bottom wall of the base at opposite sides of the base adjacent the back wall of the base. A cover may be removably fastened to the base of the rack in a position where the cover extends forward from the back wall of the base between the legs of the rack and is spaced above the bottom wall of the base to form, in combination with the back and bottom walls of the base, an enclosure for electrical wiring and the like. Removal of the cover from the base provides ready access to the electrical wiring and the like and also the fastener openings in the bottom wall of the base for facilitating securement of the rack to the surface. However, Rinderer fails to disclose a rack bracket and method for installing an electronic component in either front-facing-forward configuration or a rear-facing-forward configuration. Furthermore, Rinderer fails to disclose a frame member for supporting a plurality of electrical cabling for either a front-facing-forward or a rear-facing-forward electronic component for reducing the weight strain of the cabling on the electronic component's cabling interfaces.
Mills U.S. Pat. No. 5,791,498 discloses a rack mount mechanism that includes first and second recessed slides fixed in a stationary position and first and second mounting brackets slideably mounted on the first and second recessed slides, respectively. The first and second mounting bracket arms each have front and back ends extending, for example, perpendicularly inward from the base of the mounting brackets. A frame is included which is attachable to the computer enclosure and has front and back rails. Each rail has an edge extending, for example, perpendicularly outward from the base of the rail and each edge has a plurality of apertures. An angled bar-nut is coupled to each of the rails by threading the angled portion of each angled bar-nut through an aperture in the edge of the rail and including
Birbeck Karen
Deen Gary
Dix Jack
Grasty William J.
Hatley Jeffrey A.
Dinh Tuan
Home Director, Inc.
Paladini Albert W.
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