A DIN rail is a metal rail of a standard type widely used for mounting circuit breakers and industrial control equipment inside equipment racks. These products are typically made from cold rolled carbon steel sheet with a zinc-plated or chromated bright surface finish.
An obvious advantage of using DIN rail to secure electrical components versus individually attaching those components to a subpanel with their own sets of screws is convenience: much less labor is required to mount and unmount a DIN rail-attached component than a component attached with its own set of dedicated screws.
This convenience significantly eases the task of altering a panel’s configuration. With so many different devices manufactured for DIN rail mounting, it is easy to upgrade or alter a panel layout simply by unclipping components, sliding them to new locations on the rail, or replacing them with other types or styles of components.
This next photograph shows some of the diversity available in DIN rail mount ILX Cam Switches.
An industry-standard structure for attaching terminal blocks and small electrical components to flat metal panels is something called a DIN rail.
The DIN rail itself mounts on to any flat surface by means of screws inserted through the slots in its base. In most cases, the flat surface in question is the metal sub-panel of an electrical enclosure to which all electrical components in that enclosure are attached.