extreme duty pc components

[pinhead]

Starting to do work for a marine electronics company that services commercial fishing vessels. these guys put pc's through hell, and the person that was building pc's before me was using some pretty cheap componenets and the failure rate of the pc's is very high. so I'm looking ofr some suggestions for extreme duty components to build pc's. these fishing boats can't leave a dock without a pc, from their nav software to being tracked by the fisheries, they lose money when their pc's are down. thanks for the help

 

[Dman877]

Since home pc's aren't designed to be "put through hell" you might want to look at laptops... if it has to be a desktop I'd say look for a micro-atx case and use a micro board with everything integrated. The less connections you have internally, the less they can mess up.

 

[shekondar]

There are PCs that are designed for these types of environment - they are usually completely sealed (to prevent water/dust/salt air entry), shock mounted, etc. But they are incredibly expensive - it might be cheaper to just buy a few low-end regular PCs and replace them every few months.

 

[imported_Kensai]

You can buy a Panasonic Toughbook. (The real ones.) From the surplus or something. They're pretty rugged. I heard that one of them stopped a shot from an AK-47.

 

[phisrow]

Depending on the sort of hardware muscle required you might well be best going with specialized Industrial PC hardware. PC/104 embedded hardware, for example ( www.pc104.org is the trade group) or various other embedded style systems(google "industrial PC" to get yourself started) could do the job. Something from http://www.hushtechnologies.net/start.html might also be useful, as those are designed to be totally fanless(The low power ones are even sealed, I think). Depending, also, on the nature of the OS and Apps in question, you may be able to get away with solid state memory in place of hard drives. You'll almost certainly be wanting to use good laptop drives at the very least, and solid state will give you much superior shock resistance. You shouldn't, of course, even think about letting read/write flogging occur on a flash drive.
More details about the kind of specs required would be handy, but I would suggest, off the cuff, something like the following:
Start with a hush mini-itx. The internal CDROM consumes one IDE spot, leaving three. Depending on the sort of shock expected you can either use a notebook hard drive(cheaper and easier) or up to three CF cards with adapters(slow; but bloody well indestructable). If you do this and are running windows, you'll either have to turn off the swapfile, or obtain a RAM disk for the swapfile. This gets pricey; but allows full solid state operation.
You could also go the industrial computer route: http://embedded.kontron.com/ among others, looks like they know what they are doing. Drop them an email. http://www.tactronics.com/ might also be worth a look.

 

[Blain]

Thank you for bringing up a new topic! :laugh:
All the "what parts should I get" threads are getting a little stale.

For extreme conditions, I'd vote for RAID 1 Raptors, 36 or 74GB flavors depending on the storage needs. I'd also suspend them to help decrease shock.

For the CPU cooling, I'd go with something that wasn't "thin fin". They tend to get clogged easier than wider spaced heat fins.
A good brand that fits the bill is the Arctic Cooling "Silent" line.

Make sure the case used has plenty of filter area for intake fans. A UPS for back-up power us also a good thing.

Beyond those issues, I'd also try and go with a MB with as many integrated functions as you'll need. For a non-gaming system, onboard video and audio will be fine.

 

[ribbon13]

If you need a hard drive for extreme enviroments I would suggest a solid state drive but they are very expensive. Need an IDE-IDC adapter too, but those are $4. Raptor or SCSIs would be a good choice.

Tyan boards are specced for rather extreme conditions, but are also expensive. As Blain suggest onboard video would be good like this motherboad

Blain, thanks for that link on the HDD sandwich, good stuff!

 

[AMCRambler]

I would also vote for a Panasonic Toughbook like Kensai, but then again as far as ruggedized systems go I've only dealt with the laptop side of it. Not sure of any ruggedized component manufacturers. I think for the most part if you want a ruggedized system, you have to buy a whole machine or design and build one yourself. For instance the Panasonic Toughbooks, I actually tore into a CF-28 to see how it's put together and basically it's a sturdy case made of magnesium I think, with rubber gasket to help seal any of the access panels and device slots. The only other things was the hard drive mounting. They have a specially designed caddy for the hd with lots of rubber mounts in it to aid in shock absorption. Other than that, the components were pretty standard looking. Regular laptop style motherboard, memory, hd, etc.
Since I've only got experience with the Toughbooks I can only give you my experience with those, but they are very sturdy. I work for a power company and we use them for mobile computers in our line trucks. The guys using them are lineman and used to working with heavy tools and cables so when it comes to using a delicate piece of electronics they are none to gentle. We get ones back where the access panels are held closed by duct tape, casing is all scratched up, screens scratched up and yet they still boot and run windows 2000 without a problem. Even though they are extremely durable though, they are expensive. I think they go for upwards of 4grand a pop for the really ruggedized ones that we use. They have different grades though so it's worth a look to see what would fit your application. Also if you're going to be putting them on boats, then you'd probably want to look into a mounted docking station solution. Otherwise it'll be flying all over the place. Hope this helps.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally posted by: Kensai
You can buy a Panasonic Toughbook. (The real ones.) From the surplus or something. They're pretty rugged. I heard that one of them stopped a shot from an AK-47.

my mates dad has one...hes a BT engineer, so hes out all day fixing all sorts of communications stuff. its been sliding round the back of his van (drives like a nutter) the case is completely wrecked, dents scratches, gouges the lot....works perfect

 

[Zepper]

If they don't need too much processing power, you might consider a socket 370 mobo with Via/Cyrix C3 processor - some models of that CPU can run fanless. As others have said, NO regular PC components are designed to work in that type of environment. But keeping the add-on cards to a minimum and perhaps coating all connections with the type of silicone spray they use to waterproof automotive electrics would help it to stand up longer. If cooling fans are needed, seal the cases as much as possible (you want all air entering and exiting to be controlled by fans) and bring the intake air in through a well-filtered duct with a moisture trap. Dabs of hot glue can keep connectors in place - just do that before spraying the silicone...
. I wouldn't know where to begin to look for such things, you will just have to be creative. Use notebook hard drives instead of desktop type as they are more rugged. Notebook drive adapters can be gotten at such places as http://www.compgeeks.com . I suppose there are web stores that specialize in ruggedizing PCs - just need to look for them - and don't expect to get away cheap .

.bh.

 

[ribbon13]

HP Rugged

If you need more than 40gb the TravelStar E7K60 is the best.

 

[pinhead]

Here is a link to a company building boxes for marine applications: http://www.bigbaytech.com/index.htm

The software needs are pretty basic for the software they run, 2000 or XP, 512 mb ram, nothing special, just a windows app that ties into the nav equipment through a rs232 port, but some of these boats will need 3+ rs232 ports for various antennas etc.

excellent ideas, I knew someone on here would have suggestions on where to look for ideas to build a better box for these guys.

 

[Metron]

If you're betting your life and income on a reliable computer built to withstand the environment, I wouldn't go cheap.

Try something like this...

 

[sharkeeper]

Please don't use off the shelf components in a marine application!

They have the money! Don't hold back on quoting for a real solution. Can you afford to let them down?

 

[pinhead]

One of the biggest problems I'm seeing with some of the systems I have looked up that some previous replies have suggested are the screen sizes are too small. the one of the purposes of these pc's is a nav chart program that really needs to be on a 15" + screen, the other issue is the legacy serial ports the marine electronics industry is still using for interfacing, some of these guys need 3 or 4 serial ports.....

 

[sharkeeper]

You can get a PCI serial card that can provide 12+ serial ports. They are not cheap, however!

20" LCD screens are available (touchscreens) with 1280x1024 resolution for better visibility.

What kind of nav software you running? We run Maptech Chart Navigator and have some issues when changing charts but that is another discussion!

 

[piesang]

How about these

Link

 

[sharkeeper]

I don't know how well that CPU will handle loading of charts. The mechanical and environmental specs look good as long as you mount it as instructed!

 

[pinhead]

most of them are running ecc globe, some serious stuff, bathymetric charts, maptech has nothing like this, but for $5000 you'd think they would be vector charts, but they're raster, and cards are fine... but the case has to have room for them doesn't it? and some of these almost sealed cases I've seen suggested don't have much expansion room do they?

 

[sharkeeper]

You need expansion for PCI card?

You could probably use a USB to serial port expander but I have not used these.

It's funny how everything in the industrial world is serial. I just installed a pair of machines where the owner required 32 serial ports per machine and the interface boards were $1700 each.

They are going fiber for the next run. (ABOUT TIME!) hehe

 

[imported_Kensai]

Haha! 32 serial ports!!

 

[pinhead]

yep, hopefully marine electronics will catch up with technology some day and go usb, but until then this is what I have to deal with... so far the usb to serial adapters have been iffy, sometimes they work and sometimes they don't so it isn't something to rely on at this point in time... which is way too bad....