Cross ventilation technique for cooling redundant power supplies

A power supply system for a continuously running system comprising:

• a plurality of power supplies, each of said power supplies having at least one fan, said power supplies being adapted such that said continuously running system can function with at least one of said power supplies disconnected;
• a connection system adapted such that a power supply may be removed while said continuously running system is operational;
• a monitoring system adapted to detect the speed of each of said fans of said power supplies;
• a control system capable of determining a failure by comparing said speed of each fan to a predetermined speed and further capable of alerting an operator of said failure;
• and
• a ventilation system adapted for airflow from a first of said power supplies to at least a second of said power supplies when at least one of said fans of said first of said power supplies has failed, said ventilation system sufficient to cool said first of said power supplies for a period of time sufficient for an operator to replace said first of said power while said continuously running system is operational.

A power supply system for a continuously running system comprising:

• a plurality of power supplies, said power supplies having at least one fan, said fan being oriented to exhaust out of an exhaust side of said power supply, said power supplies having an inlet side being disposed on the side opposite of said exhaust side, said power supplies having at least one cross ventilation side being disposed between said exhaust side and said inlet side, said power supplies adapted such that said continuously running system may function with at least one of said power supplies removed;
• a chassis being adapted to hold said power supplies such that said cross ventilation side of a first power supply is in communication with said cross ventilation side of a second power supply and further adapted such that airflow may occur from said first power supply to said second power supply in the event of a fan failure of said first power supply;
• a control system adapted to monitor the speed of said fans and compare said speed of said fans to a predetermined speed to determine a fan failure, said control system further adapted to alert an operator to replace the power supply with a failed fan;
• and
• a connection system for said power supplies adapted to allow an operator to replace said power supply with said failed fan while said continuously running system is functioning.