Power, cooling, and safety for IT systems

Key constraints

• Heat: servers and PoE can add a meaningful continuous load.
• Airflow: must remain within spec in 100F ambient.
• Electrical noise and grounding: protect nav and comms from interference.
• Fire and water: enclosures and location matter.

Design goals

• Hard isolation: a failure in IT cannot drop essential DC buses.
• Load shedding: nonessential IT turns off cleanly under low battery.
• Serviceability: swap modules quickly (Pi, switch, PSU) with labeled cabling.