Jeff Olvert, Vice President of Sales & Marketing

Jeff Olvert has been promoted to vice president of sales and marketing to replace David Voorhes, the current vice president of sales and marketing, who is retiring in October. We would like to congratulate Jeff as well as wish Dave all the best!

Read the Press Release

Chiller Service

We recently received a great email from one of our recirculating chiller customers at the Masssachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT) regarding our chiller service. Dr. James Irby, head of operations at the Alcator C-Mod Project at the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center wrote, “I just wanted to write and thank Mike and Harry for the fantastic way they handled getting repairs done to two of our chillers. They were a pleasure to deal with, and the turn-around time was better than I could ever have hoped. These units are a critical part of two of our major diagnostic systems. We now have four of these units, and I’m certainly glad they came from Lytron!”

Sample of Thermal Equations in New Tool

Lytron released a new and improved version of its Units Converter and Equation Solver Tool today. The complimentary tool, which was first released in 2006, is designed to help thermal engineers save time in solving complex thermal equations. With the recent additions of mass, velocity, and Q/ITD units, the tool now has 19 unit conversion options. On the equation solver side of the tool there are eight thermal equation options. Users of the tool can now also select their coolant, which will populate the equation with the fluid’s density and specific heat.

Units Converter & Equation Solver Tool

International Space Station Image Courtesy of NASA

Although most of us aren’t working in conditions quite as critical as those encountered on the International Space Station (ISS), the majority of us are very concerned with the uptime of our systems. On Saturday a liquid cooling system on the International Space Station malfunctioned, forcing the crew to power down some of the station’s vital systems. The downtime situation aboard the ISS serves as an excellent reminder about the importance of designing in redundancies on critical systems, as well as the importance of having spare parts readily available.

The malfunction on the ISS was the result of a pump module failure in one of the station’s two large liquid cooling loops. The second, or backup, cooling system is keeping the ISS up and running; however the station still has some of its operations shut down as the backup alone cannot handle 100% of the operations. The crew plans to replace the pump module this week with one of two backup pump modules that is located on the station. Although the backup pump module must be retrieved via a spacewalk, at least it didn’t have to be sent up from Earth!

The space station’s liquid cooling systems remove waste heat from electronics using cold plates and heat exchangers. There are two separate cooling loops within each cooling system. The process side cooling loops inside of the space station use water as the coolant while the external cooling loops use liquid ammonia to prevent freezing.

In a Space.com article about the malfunction, Denise Chow writes, “…while the intricacy of all the space station’s parts can sometimes lead to technical problems, the interaction of these complex systems is also what has kept the station operating successfully for over a decade.” According to Boeing, it was the first malfunction of the cooling system.

Cooling systems used for many applications, including data center cooling, medical equipment cooling, or manufacturing process cooling, are often considered “mission critical” equipment. To address this, Lytron can design and manufacture cooling systems with redundancies as well as other features to help ensure uptime. For example, Lytron’s LCS50 liquid cooling system for data centers has redundant pumps, optional redundant modulating valves, and isolation valves for hot swapping of all major components. Lytron also offers spare parts for its cooling systems.  

Sources:

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/international-space-station-complexities-100802.html

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/science/space/02shuttle.html

Acoustic Testing Meter

I was browsing through ElectronicsCooling magazine recently and noticed an advertisement for a new publication: Environmental Test & Design (ETD). According to ETD’s website, ETD is written for professionals involved in the design, testing, compliance, manufacturing, and recycling of military, aerospace, medical, IT, and industrial electronics. The publication aims to provide its readers with a better understanding of electronics certification, testing, and design. This includes the impact of shock, vibration, temperature, acoustics, etc. on electronic products and how they are designed to withstand these impacts.

Subscribe to Environmental Test & Design (ETD)

Learn more about Electronics Cooling

Lytron is Hiring

Lytron is growing and, as a result, is looking for talented people to join its team. Current job openings include engineering and buyer/planner positions in Woburn, Massachusetts, just north of Boston. For more information on job openings, please visit Lytron’s careers page. 

Recirculating Chiller Cools Form, Fill, Seal Machines

Many manufacturers rely on Lytron’s recirculating chillers to keep their production lines cool. Sage Products, a disposable healthcare products manufacturer, uses Lytron recirculating chillers to cool each of its form, fill, and seal machines. The form, fill, and seal machine shown in the background of the photo uses five spider robots to load five different products into one form-fill-seal blister pack. Congratulations to Kevin at Sage Products for winning the “Coolest Photo” contest!