Written by Gary Nelson, Senior Product Manager- Device Connections.
With temperatures rising and thunderclouds forming our weather systems create challenging environments for externally based electronic devices so how do you ensure they still function?
We all hear of global warming in the media almost daily and, whether you believe the hype or not, none of us can deny that our UK weather has a tendency to change dramatically very quickly. As people, we can change the layers of clothing we wear to compensate for temperature changes and it’s a worldwide commonly used myth that all British people carry an umbrella everywhere, so the constant rainfall doesn’t stop us going about our daily lives. All this is fine for us, albeit the umbrella reference really is a myth, however externally mounted electronic devices have no choice but to continue to function whatever the weather.
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The requirements of the internet of things and Industry 4.0 means more and more technology needs to be incorporated within less space and the ability to bring multiple connection technologies onto the DIN rail is becoming increasingly more challenging. A typical device now needs to be able to communicate with units sitting directly along the same DIN rail as well as cloud bases or other devices located elsewhere within the facility whilst being as compact as possible to save space within the control cabinet.
For thousands of years we have relied on carbon fuels to power our world and for a long time, it made a lot of sense. Carbon fuels such as coal and oil were easy to get to and therefore a cheap source of fuel and energy dense. As demand increased they became harder to find and then, of course, the environmental impact became widely known, but by then we were so very dependent on them. 
When designing electronic devices the choice of available enclosures can be overwhelming and consist of numerous decisions you have to make, resulting in a long list of component parts you have to order. With the new 
The other week I went to visit the Abraham Darby Academy Raspberry Pi Robot Club which is not far from our UK headquarters in Telford. The club has been set up by their ICT Fellow Kevin Brace to build projects using the Raspberry Pi single board computer, and Phoenix Contact is proud to sponsor the club by donating some 