DIN this, Done that - how did you DIN your panel?

[BadNewsBrewery]

So I ended up going fully DIN just by chance. Turned out most of what I purchased had DIN mountability, and the one or two things that didn't, I got an adapter plate for. I ran 3 rails horizontally across the back plate, and then played the Jenga game of trying to get things to fit logically and clear all the stuff in the door.

To me, the advantage of the DIN was clear when it came to that layout game. I drilled 9 holes in my backplate TOTAL - 3 screws for each rail. From there, I had almost unlimited flexibility in how things got laid out. If you were to go with the standard mount option, you'd have to drill 2-4 holes in your backplate for each device, which winds up being a TON of holes and drilling and is really just an epic pain in the ass.

Now that everything is laid out, I do have the ability to swap out components if anything should fail, but otherwise there's no real post-completion advantage to the DIN rails - they don't do anything for you once the system is finished and is up and running.

If I had to do it again, I would absoloutely go DIN. I'll try and post photos this weekend.

-Kevin

 

[processhead]

Yeah the DIN rail really simplifies panel fabrication.

It would take a lot more effort to layout all those individual mounting holes and have everything come out straight and square.

The more complex your project, the greater the advantages of rail-mounting components.

 

[ReuFroman]

I think the thing that I find to be the hardest is the depth piece I had to almost do a 3D drawing to figure it out.
PID controllers are deeper than I first thought.

 

[ReuFroman]

The more complex your project, the greater the advantages of rail-mounting components.

This is gold. I think I have a great panel to work with but it is complex.
In the end I think it will be short runs fit around components that are deep.

 

[LandoLincoln]

OK, it's the brackets the parts are mounted on. This seems like a expensive way to go. You have to buy the brackets then you can only mount what fits on the brackets.

The brackets are pretty cheap. I think it was five bucks for a three foot section - way more than I needed for my control panel.

For me, it was hard to find certain components that weren't DIN-mounted. Like the mini circuit breakers. So since I was mounting a DIN rail for my mini circuit breakers, I decided to buy some other DIN-mounted components to save space and to make it look nicer.

Other components I didn't DIN-mount, like my contactors.

 

[MadGus]

+1 on PID depth. Make sure you aren't mounting them over top of the contactors on your backplate/DIN rails.

 

[ReuFroman]

The brackets are pretty cheap. I think it was five bucks for a three foot section - way more than I needed for my control panel. For me, it was hard to find certain components that weren't DIN-mounted. Like the mini circuit breakers. So since I was mounting a DIN rail for my mini circuit breakers, I decided to buy some other DIN-mounted components to save space and to make it look nicer. Other components I didn't DIN-mount, like my contactors.

I found everything that can be din mounted. There are a lot of components that come din mountable and if they don't there are a lot of brackets that you can use. ebrewsupply.com has almost everything.