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Benefits of an industrial PC compared to a standard PCA manufacturing plant’s success relies on its ability to continuously build products without malfunctioning equipment or production grinding to a halt altogether. Industrial PCs form the backbone of a factory’s production line. Consequently they must provide a reliable, robust performance despite harsh industrial conditions. The excessive dust, dirt and vibrations from manufacturing machinery would cause a conventional desktop PC to malfunction or break down altogether. A PC failure would be catastrophic:
Consequently, industrial PCs are needed because of their improved reliability over desktop PCs and their numerous other benefits: Heat resistance – a conventional desktop would overheat and malfunction in hot manufacturing environments. However, industrial PCs use a minimal amount of components to reduce the heat generated, and forced air cooling fans keep the temperature low irrespective of the factory temperature. Shock proof – card clamps and shock mounted drives keep the motherboard and components stable despite the vibrations caused by nearby machinery Hygienic – fully sealed stainless steel encasing protects industrial PC components from dust, dirt and other atmospheric particles. The closed encasing means they can also be washed down and cleanly easily, which is crucial for food or medical production environments. Higher powered – industrial PCs provide a consistent, reliable performance at accelerated speeds due to an assortment of high powered microprocessors, denser disk drives and memory processing extensions. Low power consumption – despite incorporating powerful microprocessors and components, industrial PCs are designed to operate with low power consumption. This in turn minimises the heat generated as well as the running costs. Longer lifecycle – whilst commercial grade PCs need replacing every couple of years, the long life motherboards of industrial PCs comprise of advanced chipsets and configurations which minimise heat exposure, energy consumption and provide a reliable performance for 5-8 years. This also minimises the cost and disruption involved in replacing a PC used to run complex manufacturing processes. Range of off-the-shelf models – industrial PCs are available in a wide range of sizes and shapes to suit a variety of applications. Common models are rack or wall mounted. Intuitive touch screen interfaces – industrial PCs can be integrated with touchscreens to provide an easy to use interface which is also more reliable than a conventional mouse and keyboard.2 Improved productivity –industrial PCs can be designed in partnership with a customer’s engineers to provide a customised solution configured to perform specific tasks as efficiently as possible. The usage of industrial PCs has grown rapidly this decade due to the wide range of configurations, making them more reliable, scalable and flexible than proprietary control systems.3 Whilst more expensive up front than conventional desktop PCs, industrial PCs pay for themselves in the long run due to their robust reliability in harsh conditions and ability to keep manufacturing processes running smoothly and efficiently.
1http://www.armagard.co.uk/press-releases/industrial-pc.html
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Special Computing Solutions to Industry
