This application is based upon and claims the benefit of priority of the prior Japanese Patent Application No. 2010-51897, filed on Mar. 9, 2010, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
The embodiments discussed herein are related to a cabinet racks in which electronic equipment such as communication equipment and a storage device is mounted and relates to a rack mount holder used to mount such electronic equipment.
When installing electronic equipment such as communication equipment and a storage device, cabinet racks that house the equipment stacked flat therein are used.
In such cabinet racks, the 19-inch racks, each of which is made to have a 19-inch width in compliant with the Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA) standard, have become a standard (referred to as the “standard rack” hereinafter). A height standard is set to a mounting unit (1 U) of electronic equipment, that is, 44.45 mm.
A variety of electronic equipment is designed in sizes that are in compliant with the standard in order to be mounted in the standard racks. A single rack houses a combination of variety of types of electronic equipment.
In particular, after a system is upgraded, sometimes additional pieces of electronic equipment are mounted in the racks because of an increase in the amount of data to be handled or expansion of business operations. Additional mounting of electronic equipment in the racks often takes time and efforts since such work is manually performed. In order to deal with a combination of different types of electronic equipment, L-shaped mounting supports are used to mount the electronic equipment.
Each of the rack posts 11 is provided with a vertically extending equipment mount support post 13 therealong. The equipment mount support posts 13 have fixing holes 13h (tapped holes) therein for mounting pieces of electronic equipment 1. The fixing holes are arranged at predetermined intervals in accordance with the mounting unit.
As illustrated in
Each fixing portions it of the piece of electronic equipment 1, the fixing portion 13s of the corresponding equipment mount support post 13, and the fixing portion 12t that extends from the mounting surface 12l of the corresponding mounting support 12 are superposed with each other so as to cause the corresponding tapped holes to oppose each other, and are fastened with a screw 5.
As illustrated in
However, when it is attempted to connect the additional piece of electronic equipment 50 to the existing piece of electronic equipment 41 in such additional mounting, such an attempt may fail in some cases because of an insufficient length of a standard cable.
In addition, maintenance tools are separately provided for each of the pieces of electronic equipment 41 to 45 in order to maintain these pieces of electronic equipment. Such a maintenance tool may indicate status of a corresponding piece of electronic equipment on a display in accordance with a layout of the piece of electronic equipment. In the present example, the additional piece of electronic equipment 50 appears to be mounted immediately above the piece of electronic equipment 41 in the screen display of the maintenance tool for the piece of electronic equipment 41.
However, as described above, the other pieces of electronic equipment 42 to 45 are mounted between the piece of electronic equipment 41 and the additional piece of electronic equipment 50 in the actual rack 10. Thus, layout of the screen differs from the actual layout of the equipment. This makes maintenance management complicated.
Therefore, it is preferable to install the additional piece of electronic equipment 50 close to the existing piece of electronic equipment 41. To achieve such a configuration, operations of the existing pieces of electronic equipment are stopped, and out of the existing electronic equipment, the pieces of electronic equipment 42 to 45 are temporarily moved out of the rack 10 in order to allocate a space for additional mounting. After that, as illustrated in
As described above, there is a step in which existing electronic equipment is temporarily moved out of a rack and connection cables and mounting supports are removed in order to change the order of the pieces of electronic equipment mounted in the rack. This means that additional mounting work takes considerable time. Furthermore, since operations of the existing electronic equipment is stopped when it is moved out of the rack, additional mounting is performed in a period of time in which business operations are not affected. Therefore, there has been a problem in that it is difficult to efficiently perform additional mounting work at a convenient time.
The following is a reference document.
According to an aspect of the embodiment, a cabinet rack for housing a piece of electronic equipment secured to a mounting member, the cabinet rack includes a plurality of vertically extending support posts; a first supporting member secured to one of the support posts, the first supporting member including a guide vertically extending along the one of the support posts, the guide with the one of the support posts forming a guide groove therebetween; a second supporting member including a fixing portion for fixing the mounting member, and a slider portion provided in the guide groove so as to slide along the guide to a mounting position in the cabinet rack; and a third supporting member including a pressing portion provided between the slider portion and the one of the support posts to secure the second supporting member to the first supporting member by pressing the slider portion against the guide.
The object and advantages of the invention will be realized and attained by means of the elements and combinations particularly pointed out in the claims.
It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory and are not restrictive of the invention, as claimed.
Preferred embodiments of the present techniques will be explained with reference to accompanying drawings.
A cabinet rack and a rack-mount holder for mounting electronic equipment according to an embodiment will be described with reference to
Referring to
For each rack support post 21, an equipment mount support post 33 is provided. The equipment mount support posts 33 extend in a direction parallel to the vertical direction of the corresponding rack support posts 21, that is, a top-bottom direction of the casing. In detail, a tapped hole of a fixing portion 21t of each rack support post 21 opposes a tapped hole 33h of the fixing portion 33t of the corresponding equipment mount support post 33. A screw 36 is inserted through these tapped holes.
It is preferable that the rack support posts 21 and the equipment mount support posts 33 be formed of a stiff material so as to support the weight of a plurality of pieces of equipment. In the present embodiment, metal such as stainless steel or aluminum is used. The length of each equipment mount support post 33 is substantially equal to the height of the interior of the casing in order to allow a piece of electronic equipment 1 to be movable from the top to the bottom inside the casing.
The piece of electronic equipment 1 is inserted into the rack 20 from the front side and is mounted on mounting surfaces 22l of L-shaped mounting supports 22. Ordinarily, the mounting supports 22 come with electronic equipment thereon.
The guide 33u has an L-shape, one end of which is continuous with the fixing portion 33t. The guide 33u and the corresponding fixing portion 21t form an opening 61 (engaging space) therebetween. A guide groove 33m is formed on a surface of the guide 33u.
A second supporting member 32 includes a metal plate or a component formed of resin, which is made to have a substantial L-shape and a length equal to or slightly smaller than that of a mounting unit (1 U=44.45 mm). The second supporting member 32 in the present embodiment is made to have a length of 44 mm. The second supporting member 32 includes a screw fastening portion 32t having tapped holes, and a slider portion 32s. The slider portion 32s includes a protrusion 32a to be engaged with the guide groove 33m on one side thereof, and an inclined surface 32b on the opposite side.
As illustrated in
A third supporting member 34 includes a metal plate or a component formed of resin, which is made to have a substantial L-shape and a length equal to or slightly smaller than that of the mounting unit and includes a fastening portion 34t and a pressing portion 34s. The third supporting member 34 in the present embodiment is made to have a length of 44 mm. The fastening portion 34t and a corresponding fixing portion 21a of the rack support post 21 oppose each other at a tapped hole 34h and a corresponding tapped hole 21i and are secured to each other with a screw 37.
As described in
In detail, as illustrated in
When the screw 37 is loosened by being rotated in a direction opposite to the fastening direction, the pressing portion 34s slides toward outside the opening 61 along the inclined surface 32b. Thus, engagement of the pressing portion 34s with the slider portion 32s is released, and the second supporting member 32 is released. With the above-described structure, the piece of electronic equipment 1 is secured using a wedge effect where the first to third supporting members included in the rack-mount holder are engaged with each other.
The pressing portion 34s may alternatively be formed of an elastic material such as a plate spring, rubber, or resin. When an elastically deformable material such as rubber or resin is used, the fastening portion 34t may be omitted. In such a case, a pressing portion component formed of such a material is pushed into the opening 61 where the slider portion 32s is disposed by utilizing elastic deformation of the material. By doing this, the second supporting member 32 is secured.
Referring to
The fastening portion 32t of the second supporting member 32 and a fixing portion 22t of the mounting support 22 are positioned in such a manner that tapped holes 32h and tapped holes 22h oppose each other, and are secured to each other with the screw 35a. After that, the piece of electronic equipment 1 is mounted on the mounting surfaces 22l that extend from the mounting supports 22.
Each fixing portion it of the piece of electronic equipment 1, the fastening portion 32t of the corresponding second supporting member 32, and the fixing portion 22t of the corresponding mounting support 22 are positioned so as to cause the corresponding tapped holes 1h, 32h, and 22h to oppose each other, and are fastened with a screw 35b. In so doing, the head of the screw 35a used to fasten the mounting support 22 protrudes from the relief hole 1l.
Therefore, the third supporting member 34x, which is positioned below the piece of electronic equipment 1, and the corresponding second supporting member 32x are used to secure the piece of electronic equipment 1 by the method described above. Here, it is allowed to secure the third supporting member 34y and the corresponding second supporting member 32y to the corresponding rack support post 21 with the screw 37 as illustrated in
Next, an embodiment where an anti-drop mechanism is provided in the first supporting member and the second supporting member 32 will be described.
As illustrated in
As illustrated in
As illustrated in
When the piece of electronic equipment 1 is moved to a lower position in the rack 20, the above-described engagement (locking) of the stopper 64 of the anti-drop member 62 with the slit 66 may preferably be released. Therefore, a shutter 71 is used.
As illustrated in
In the present embodiment, since the shutter 71 is provided in each second supporting member 32, there is no particular structure for the shutter 71. This facilitates management of the shutter 71. Alternatively, the shutter 71 may be not permanently provided in each second supporting member 32 in order to reduce the cost. For example, the shutters 71 for four positions (for one mounting space) are provided. The four shutters 71 may be respectively inserted into the four gaps between the slider portions 32s and the pressing portions 34s of a certain mounting space only when releasing of the stoppers 64 of that mounting space is desirable for a user.
When the shutter 71 is pushed into the opening 61 and reaches a back portion of the opening 61, a slit 71s of the shutter 71 moves to a position where the slit 71s opposes the window 73 of the corresponding second supporting member 32 and the slit 66 of the corresponding equipment mount support post 33. In so doing, the stopper 64 is ejected owing to the elastic force of the coil spring 65. Thus, the anti-drop mechanism enters the locked state.
When the shutter 71 is pulled out of the opening 61 in the direction denoted by C, the slit 71s of the shutter 71 moves to a position where the slit 71s does not oppose the window 73 and the slit 66, and the stopper 64 is pushed back into the hole 63. Therefore, the anti-drop mechanism enters the unlocked state. This allows the mounting supports 22 to which the piece of electronic equipment 1 are mounted to slide in the top-bottom direction.
As illustrated in
In the description below, the present embodiment will be described for a case where one additional piece of equipment with a mounting height of 1 U (equal to one mounting space) is mounted.
As illustrated in
The piece of electronic equipment 44 is moved to a mounting space one space higher than the current mounting space in the rack. The above-described anti-drop member 62 is provided in each second supporting member 32. Owing to the leading end shape of the stopper 64 of the anti-drop member 62, a piece of electronic equipment is upwardly movable but is not downwardly movable in the rack 20. Therefore, the stopper 64 is utilized to loosely secure the piece of electronic equipment 44.
After the piece of electronic equipment 44 is loosely secured, the screws 37 are fastened at the third supporting members 34 at four positions in order to secure the corresponding second supporting members 32. Thus, the piece of electronic equipment 44 is secured in a mounting space that is one space higher than the original mounting space. Likewise, each of the pieces of electronic equipment 42 and 43 is upwardly moved in the rack by one mounting space.
As illustrated in
The fixing portions 32t of the second supporting members 32 and the corresponding fixing portions 22t of the mounting supports 22 are aligned with each other and secured by the screws 35a. After that, an additional piece of electronic equipment 50 is mounted on the mounting surfaces 22l that extend from the mounting supports 22.
After that, as illustrated in
This allows additional mounting work to be efficiently performed without stopping operations of the existing pieces of electronic equipment 42 to 44 or without removing these pieces of equipment from the rack 20. In addition, the existing pieces of electronic equipment are easily and safely moved in the rack 20. This allows the user to mount additional pieces of equipment at positions convenient for operations performed by the user.
The second supporting members 32 and the third supporting members 34 of the rack-mount holder are usable for pieces of electronic equipment of different heights when each of the second supporting members 32 and the third supporting members 34 are formed to be of a size that is at least greater than a screw fixing area where the tapped holes or hole for securing are provided and is smaller than or equal to the mounting unit (1 U=44.45 mm).
In particular, when the second supporting member 32 is formed so as to have a height of 44.45 mm−αmm (α≦2), positioning in stacking standard-size pieces of electronic equipment is facilitated. The third supporting member 34 may be formed so as to have a height greater than or equal to 44.45 mm since the larger the pressing portion 34s that presses and secures the second supporting member 32 is, the stronger the pressing force becomes.
In addition, as described above, the present embodiment includes the anti-drop mechanism. This allows the electrical equipment to be moved without being dropped while it is moved in the rack 20, and allows the electrical equipment to be positioned in a desired position in the rack 20. Therefore, additional mounting of the electronic equipment is safely and efficiently performed.
A cabinet rack and a rack-mount holder that are disclosed herein allow additional mounting of electronic equipment to be safely and efficiently performed.
All examples and conditional language recited herein are intended for pedagogical purposes to aid the reader in understanding the invention and the concepts contributed by the inventor to furthering the art, and are to be construed as being without limitation to such specifically recited examples and conditions, nor does the organization of such examples in the specification relate to a showing of the superiority and inferiority of the invention. Although the embodiments of the present invention have been described in detail, it should be understood that the various changes, substitutions, and alterations could be made hereto without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.
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