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Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!cornell!batcomputer!tedcrane
From: tedcrane@batcomputer.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
Subject: Re: DEC e-net products
Message-ID: <3102@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>
Date: Mon, 7-Dec-87 14:20:16 EST
Article-I.D.: batcompu.3102
Posted: Mon Dec  7 14:20:16 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 12-Dec-87 11:30:12 EST
References: <707@udiego.UUCP>
Reply-To: tedcrane@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (Ted Crane)
Organization: Tompkins County Computing, Ithaca, NY
Lines: 40
Keywords: Anybody have DELNIs and/or DEMPERs

In article <707@udiego.UUCP> stokes@udiego.UUCP (David M. Stokes) writes:
>We're planning on using DELNIs and DEMPERs
>in various places. What I need is the following 
>information (to see how deep of a hole I'm in):
>
>	1 Physical size: DEC says these devices are rack size,

Yup, you could put them in a rack.  I believe they're the standard 19" width
by about 6" high (or less).  Even if you buy them with the "standard"
white case, you can pull off the case and inside, voila, is a rack mount
chassis.

>	2 Heat. These devices are supposed to have their own cooling
>	  fans but just how bad is the heat build up?. Will palcement
>	  in a rack exaserbate the heat.

I can't speak to this from experience, but none of the units I've seen 
generated enough heat to worry about.  Just leave some space between
chasses.  One DELNI we had was installed in the corner of a shared office,
right next to the steam pipes.  It was not too cool in that corner (pun
intended), but there was no particular problem with the DELNI.

>	3 Any reliability problems? Should I leave plenety of room
>	  for 'future maintenance'?

In general, no problems.  See gotcha's.

>	4 Any gotcha's, i.e. six months down the line am I going
>	  to have to shell out extra bucks for 'maintenance kits',

Well...
we had some problems with putting both heartbeat and non-heartbeat tranceivers
on a DELNI (some from DEC, some from H-P).  We never tracked it down, but 
solved the problem by substututing another DELNI (same rev level).  The new one
worked fine, and the old one worked fine somewhere else....lousy way to fix
a problem, but it worked.

No maintenance kits.  If you like to be safe, keep them on DEC maintenance.
It's unlikely they'll ever fail, but if they do, in comes Dr.DEC and out goes
the whole failing unit.