ABB | MICRO-CONTROLLER ENCLOSURE DESIGN

Award winning micro controller drive

Design For Manufacture
User Centred Design
   Thermal Modelling

Sector: Industrial Design

The Design Challenge

ABB came to us with an award winning micro controller drive. With development nearing completion, ABB needed help creating a more stylish case, which would snap together to reduce fastenings

and assembly time.

This new case also needed to mount more easily in confined spaces whilst improving the thermodynamic performance to deal with the heat loss of their powerful motor control technology.

Our Design Solutions

With improved assembly and thermodynamics both key requirements in the brief, we used extensive sketching to explore heat sink designs and ways to assemble and mount the Microflex.

This resulted in an innovative case design that largely clipped together, for an almost completely screw free finish, and which mounted to the wall via a concealed base plate, saving on manufacturing, assembly and installation costs.

The Delivery

By designing the heat sink to use a semi-external heat dissipation method, we created a product that mounts side by side with other drives or other ‘hot’ products, but still dissipate enough heat at low power to allow the smart cooling fan to be shut down to save energy and for silent running.