As a provider of protective enclosures for computers, printers, screens and displays, one of the common questions industrial buyers often ask is why use industrial computer enclosures when a solid-state industrial PC could do the same job.
Of course, industrial computers are designed to work in the rough and tumble world of the shopfloor, but they do come with several restrictions, which is often the reason so many of Armagard’s customers opt to use industrial computer enclosures instead.
Firstly, for reliability purposes, industrial computers do tend to use tried and tested components, and while this makes the solid-state devices more dependable, it does mean that the processors and chips are far older and loss proficient than more modern systems.
Secondly, most shopfloor IT systems have to communicate the office computers and this can cause problems when different hardware, operating systems and software programs try and communicate. As industrial computer enclosures allow the standard office IT to be taken into the shopfloor environment, everybody in the company can use the same hardware and software.
Finally, while industrial computers are designed to work in rugged industrial environments they can, and do fail (as all computers have finite lifespans), which can lead to downtime. With an industrial computer enclosure this is not too much of a problem as the enclosure can be opened and the PC swiftly removed or replaced, with little or no IT experience required in doing so; However, when an industrial computer fails, being solid-state, onsite repair is impossible leading to prolonged downtime as you wait for a replacement or a technician.
At Armagard we have been providing industrial computer enclosures for nearly two decades and many of our earliest sales are still functioning in the industrial environments, and have had several generations of computers installed in the same enclosure.
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