Pumps – Motor driven – Including means for facilitating assembly or disassembly of...
Reexamination Certificate
2001-08-09
2003-08-12
Walberg, Teresa (Department: 3742)
Pumps
Motor driven
Including means for facilitating assembly or disassembly of...
C361S695000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06604916
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fan tray, and more particularly to a hot swap fan tray.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The so-called fan tray indicates the assemblage including a tray having a number of fans mounted thereon. Once some fan has a breakdown, the controller starts the redundant fan or accelerates the speed so as to compensate the decreased cooling ability.
As shown in
FIG. 1
, the conventional fan tray
10
includes a plurality of fans
20
and a tray
30
. The tray
30
includes an opening
33
, a bottom plate
35
, four side walls and thus has the shape of an oblong box. The bottom plate
35
further includes a fan guard
37
formed thereon. The fan
20
is vertically mounted on the tray
30
through the opening
33
. Besides, screws
50
attaching the fan
20
to the bottom plate
35
of the tray
30
. During assembling, the conventional fan tray
10
is mounted to a heat-generating device (i.e. a server) in the manner that the opening
33
faces to the server and the fan guard
37
faces outward. Besides, each of the fans is connected to the controller
60
by means of electrical wire, such as the signal or the power line.
However, the conventional fan tray
10
suffers from the problem that it is not easy to mount and remove the fan
20
. Especially, during disassembling, the problem is more serious. For example, the fan tray
10
is used to dissipate the heat from a server. Once some fan has a failure and is desired to replace, it is difficult to remove the broken fan from the tray. The user has to previously remove the entire fan tray
10
from server the server and subsequently replaces the broken fan. The reason is described in detail as follows. Since the broken fan is mounted on the tray
30
by screws and the fan guard
37
faces the user, the fan guard
37
obstructs the user to directly remove the broken fan
20
from the fan tray
10
. The user has to previously remove the entire fan tray
10
and then turn and make the opening
33
face himself. After that, the user is able to remove the broken fan. Under the condition described above, there is not enough time to replace the broken fan.
Further, as shown in
FIG. 1
, each of the fans
20
is equipped with electrical wires
25
(i.e. the power line or the signal line) to connect the controller
60
. However, the electrical wires
25
are exposed and thus disorder the heat-generating device.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a novel fan tray having hot swap fan to solve the above-mentioned problems. Besides, it is preferred that the novel fan tray also prevents the electrical wires from disorder.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a fan tray, and more particularly to a hot swap fan tray. The fan tray includes at least one fan, a tray and a controller. Among these, the tray includes at least one alignment post, at least one resilient fastener and one end of the connector. The fan includes an alignment hole and another end of the connector. After the alignment post slides into the alignment hole, the resilient fastener fastens the fan. Meanwhile, the end of the connector electrical contacts another end of the connector.
In sum, the resilient fastener and the alignment post make the fan align to and connect with the tray easy and quickly. That is, the present invention is capable of hot swap. In addition, the electrical contact from the fan to the controller is formed while the fan is mounted on the tray.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5398161 (1995-03-01), Roy
patent: 5788467 (1998-08-01), Zenitani et al.
patent: 6234817 (2001-05-01), Hwang
patent: 6285548 (2001-09-01), Hamlet et al.
patent: 6322382 (2001-11-01), Viallet
patent: 6392893 (2002-05-01), Carney et al.
patent: 6426952 (2002-07-01), Francis et al.
Chuang Te-Tsai
Huang Wen-Shi
Lu Chow-Wen
Wen Chao-Wu
Birch & Stewart Kolasch & Birch, LLP
Deha Electronics, Inc.
Fastovsky Leonid M
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