RE: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Re: home vs. industrial PC..

After looking at the insides of PC's and servers for over twenty years I'll
give you the short for of observations:

1) What is important: Motherboard has to be capable, but not overly fancy
(you are not playing games and extra enhancements can get in the way as
extra drivers are loaded)

2) Chassis should be sturdy, have good cooling (real important) and enough
expansion capability for reasonable system expansion. It should be able to
withstand a reasonable amount of abuse or vibration for the location you are
putting it in.

3) Good CPU cooling. Most cost effective CPU speed is one or two clicks
down from highest available. Good dirt filters on fan.

4) More ram than you think you need.

5) If you don't build PC's for a living, buy a reputable name brand
(HP/Compaq, IBM, Dell) and let them have the R&D and support headaches. It
is not worth it to save money by buying a "white box" store built computer
unless you want to become very close to your computers ;) Name brands may
cost a little more and be a little more conservative in design, but they
will work right out of the box and will have a tech support guy available if
you need one. You should be building routers, not PC's.

6) You will get a better chassis design (better cooling) with a
microcomputer sold by the manufacturer as a file server than with one
designated as a personal computer. Down side is they are larger, cost more
and may not be supported by their manufacturer officially for client level
operating system software. I would recommend considering the low end of
their file server lines if you can justify the budget (they still will cost
less than your industrial equipment).

7) If you use a PC, rather than a file server, add an additional fan to
compensate for dirty filters. CLEAN THE FILTERS REGULARLY! Keep inside of
PC clean.

Unless you are subjecting the PC to constant vibration, a ruggedized
enclosure is probably not warranted. Unless you are enclosing it in a
cabinet, your biggest enemy is dirt and dust, which will clog filters and
cause overheating. If you place PC inside of a cabinet, make sure you keep
a flow of filtered air moving through the cabinet to get rid of the heat.


Regards,
Jeff

Jeffrey Goldberg, President

Washington Computer Services
140 58th Street - Suite 8F
Brooklyn, N.Y. 11220

Tel: (718) 491-6100
Fax: (718) 765-1973
email: jeff@...

If you can describe what you want your network to do,
We can design it, install it, and get it working
Always with an eye to exceeding your expectations


-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Mawson [mailto:andrew@...]
Sent: Sunday, March 30, 2003 6:12 AM
To: CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Re: home vs. industrial PC..

--- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com, "Jens Swales"
<jipeess2000@y...> wrote:

>
> hi group
>
> a company asked me if i was interrested to build 8-10 copies of my
> homebuilt router for them, after have seen it. now, this machine is
> made of hq parts only and the heart of it, an industrial panel-pc

is

> v-e-r-y expensive (it runs flashcut with the black-box). my problem
> is that the specs for this pc is a little to low, or on the border
> line to run flashcut v2.0. the fastest cpu available for this
> particular board is a 1.2 gig celeron. so, in order to take the

full

> advance of fc, i now have 2 options:
>
> 1. wait for a new upgrade/release of the industrial-pc (the

complete

> unit costs around 2300$ today)
>
> 2. use an ordinary home/office pc with higher perfomance and 1/4 of
> the price, and parts available in any radio-shack.
>
> whats the advantages with an industrial pc one may ask? honestly, i
> dont know. i was just told by some engineer that its a must-do.
> i do know however, that they have a thicker circuit-board and more
> layers of surface protection/treatment, so they can stand

vibrations

> better and someone claimed that the powersupply is more reliable.
>
> still, ive seen a lot of "home"-pc´s on the shop floor covered with
> s**t running year after year flawless.
>
> so, my question to all of you is, can i sell my machines with a

built-

> in standard pc, and still consider it a serious machine (the

monitor

> and keyboard is industriual, though)
>
>
> js

Jens,

I think the main differences with an Industrial PC versus an office
one are more attention paid to cooling, vibration proofing and
ability to add expansion boards in an accessable way. I suspect that
if you source a reputable PC and mount it sensibly you shouldn't have
too many problems. A couple of years back I standardised on Compaq EN
SFF (small foot print) pcs, and am currently running 6 in various
applications. One is in the base of a milling machine running
TurboCNC and seems quite happy (!) though I have fitted an external
fan to slightly overpressure the housing to try and keep dust out.
Another is in the process of being installed in the base of a lathe
and I will adopt the same approach. Another runs 24/7 shut in a
cupboard, but with low and high level vents for airflow.

If the price factor is really 4:1, then you can afford to keep a
spare on the shelf and still save money.

Years ago I worked with computers that were placed next to a blast
furnace - lovely environment. To keep them going, the boards were all
sprayed in a conformal coating so conductive iron debris from the
atmosphere didn't short things out, but that is probably going too
far in your application <g>

On cheaper clones it is probably worth replacing the cpu cooling fan
with a long life version (ball bearings) and consider fitting a
cabinet fan. So long as you take a professional approach to
considering the reliability issues then I don't see why you shouldn't
incorporate such a PC in your product.

Andrew Mawson
Bronley, Kent, UK