Industrial PCs, Box PCs and Rack PCs

Over the past years the market share of PC based automated systems in production and assembly units as constantly risen. These flexible and powerful devices for collecting data, managing data and storing. They are also used for various jobs in scaling and testing or visualizing. Extreme surroundings exposure to dust, temperatures or dampness puts these systems under specific requirements.

Industrial PCs are specially designed for continuous use in industrial surroundings. They are far superior to any kind of office PC in view of reliability, safety and flexibility. Industrial PC are fitted with a housing minimizing the possible effect of dust also capable of handling difficult electromagnetic influences. Specially designed fittings of the disc and hard-disc drives absorb possible mechanical problems due to shaking movements in the machinery attached. Most Power Supplies in these PCs are also able to bypass varying mains supplies. A number of manufacturers have specialized in producing a variety of different models and types.

Industrial-PCs are available in a number of varieties. Best known are Systems called SIMATIC IPCs ® made by Siemens. You classify between Embedded IPCs, such as Box- or Panel-PCs and the more common Rack-PCs. Box-PCs are designed fort he use  in switchgear cabinets or directly fitted to the machine. Panel-PCs are part of the Human-Machine-Interface and combine Industrial-PC Systems with a possibility of putting in information with the help of either Keyboards or Touch Screens.