Industrial computers vs commercial and enterprise
Industrial computers offer a number of key advantages over commercial or enterprise computing platforms. Aside from having a more diverse range of mounting options, such as DIN-rail, rack and panel mount, Industrial computers are designed for use in harsh environments. Shock, vibration, impact, temperature, humidity and even chemical resistance are all considered in the design process.
A wide-temperature specification tells us that a product can operate in extremely hot or cold environments, with many wide-temperature industrial computers able to function as low as -40°C and up to +85°C. To further protect against environmental extremes, conformal coating can be applied to PCBs forming a barrier between critical components and moisture or contaminates.
Industrial Computers also allow for much more flexible expansion and I/O options to cater for the needs of both legacy and emerging industrial control trends. Because these trends differ between industries, there is a whole subset of industrial computers designed for specific applications, railway, automation, oil & gas and marine to name only a few.
All industrial computers should have a stabilised bill of materials ensuring each industrial computer system is assembled to an exacting spec. This ensures repeatability and consistency across all deployed instances of a defined industrial computer system.
Where commercial or enterprise computers generally have a limited lifecycle, industrial computers have long-term availability, often extending for up to 15 years. Furthermore, with Impulse’s strict revision and obsolescence control, any product changes or end-of-life notifications are taken care of well in advance. This process ensures a reliable and repeatable computer system which engineers can depend on for years without having to go through a costly redesign.