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Choosing a machine Our food plant washes floors and equipment with pressure hoses every shift. How should we choose a Panel PC for that area? Pressure washdown areas are the harshest environment for a Panel PC, so choose based on how cleaning is actually done.
Protection rating: IP65 covers the front… Choosing a machine One machine runs plant-wide SCADA software with a few thousand tags and historical logging. What configuration and redundancy shou… If the central SCADA machine fails, you lose visibility of the whole plant, so redundancy matters as much as the configuration.
Reference configuration for a f… Choosing a machine Our cold store runs at -25 to -30 °C with workers going in and out all day. What should we watch for with computers and touch scre… A cold store challenges a machine in three places: cold start-up, condensation, and operation with gloves.
Temperature range: choose a machine rated to operate… Choosing a machine We need a small machine to collect data from PLCs, power meters and sensors and push it to a server. What configuration is right? Data collection (an IoT gateway) is usually light on CPU but heavy on interfaces and long-term stability, so do not overbuy performance.
CPU and RAM: a few hun… Choosing a machine Our project installs computers in railway carriages and requires EN 50155. What does that standard demand from the machine? EN 50155 is the standard for electronic equipment on railway rolling stock. When a tender calls for it, check the following on the machine.
Power: nominal on-b… Choosing a machine We need to mount computers on forklifts, AGVs and delivery trucks. How is that different from a machine inside an electrical cabin… Vehicles bring three things a cabinet rarely sees: an unstable battery supply, constant vibration, and shutdown driven by the ignition key.
Power: a 12 V or 24… Choosing a machine We want to run AI inference right on the production line (edge AI): should we choose an NVIDIA Jetson-based machine or an x86 mach… The two approaches solve different problems, so decide by the number of video streams and the software you already have.
Jetson-based machines: compact, drawin… Warranty Our machine is six years old, now faulty, and the vendor says it is discontinued. Is replacing the whole system the only option? No, and usually the whole system is not needed.
First, consumable parts are replaceable: SSD, RAM, CMOS battery, fan (if any), power supply and cables. Many fa… Warranty How long is the warranty on an industrial computer, and what happens if one fails? The term depends on the vendor and the product line, so check by model number rather than by brand: 24 months is common for industrial machines, while some line… Troubleshooting Our Panel PC in the workshop registers touches in the wrong place after cleaning, and sometimes triggers by itself. How do we fix … This symptom is almost always water or cleaning fluid left on the glass, not a failed touchscreen.
First: dry it completely with a soft cloth, including the bo… Connectivity We want to read data from a Siemens S7-1200 into an industrial PC for logging and display. Which route should we take? Three common routes; pick by the software you already run:
1. OPC UA. Recent S7-1200 firmware includes an OPC UA server (it must be enabled, and some CPU versi… Installation The computer is mounted on a CNC machine body and vibrates heavily. How should we select and install it so it lasts? Vibration kills drives and connectors before it kills the board, so deal with it in three layers.
Selection: use a fanless machine (a fan is a mechanical part … Troubleshooting The machine ran fine for months and now reboots by itself a few times a day at no fixed time. Where do we start? Work through this order, most common cause first:
1. Power. Measure the voltage at the machine's power terminals while the line runs at full load, ideally with… Power supply The plant loses power suddenly and a few times Windows failed to boot afterwards. Is there anything short of buying a large UPS? A cabinet-wide UPS is one option, but industrial computers usually allow something smaller and cheaper.
A DIN-rail 24 V buffer: a battery or supercapacitor mod… Installation Mounting a 15-inch Panel PC in a cabinet door: what cutout size do we use, and how do we keep the front at IP65? The cutout is always in the mechanical drawing for that exact model — never derived from screen size. Two 15-inch units from different vendors can differ by a f… Choosing a machine For an operator station in the workshop: buy an all-in-one Panel PC, or a box PC with a separate industrial monitor? Choose based on how you will maintain it and on the environment, not on purchase price.
An all-in-one Panel PC is compact, needs one power cable, and reaches f… Connectivity We need four RS-485 ports for PLCs and drives but the machine only has two. What is the reliable way to add them? Three options, ordered by reliability on a plant floor:
1. An internal expansion card (PCIe, mPCIe, or the machine line's own I/O module). Most stable, drivers… Choosing a machine Our line needs 4 GigE cameras at 5 MP for visual inspection, using existing imaging software. What CPU should we choose, and is a … Three things decide the configuration: camera bandwidth, algorithm type, and line cycle time.
Bandwidth: four 5 MP mono cameras at about 20 fps produce close t… Power supply Our cabinet only has 24 VDC. The machine is rated 9–36 VDC — can we wire it directly, or do we need a separate power supply? You can wire it directly; 24 V sits in the middle of the range. But check four things first.
1. Inrush current. At switch-on the machine draws a peak several t… Installation How much clearance does a fanless machine need inside a cabinet, and should it be mounted flat or upright? A fanless machine cools through its housing, so clearance and orientation decide the real operating temperature.
Clearance: keep at least 50 mm free on the fin…