Extreme Temperature Car PC

troyounces · #1 09-13-2006, 09:33 AM

Hello everyone,

I am looking into putting in a car pc into my X5. I live in Canada and the weather here fluctuates quite severely; -30C (-22F) in the winter to +35C (95F) in the summer. I dont think that standard pc hardware will withstand these temperatures - at least not for very long. I am wondering what experiences anyone has had with extreme cold weather, or extreme warm weather.

I have found a line of hard drives from Toshiba meant to withstand cold temperatures (-22C - +85C) and extreme vibrations, but I haven't seen anything for any other hardware.

~troyounces~

JCL · #2 09-14-2006, 01:36 AM

No guarantees here, but when we needed rugged notebooks at work, we went with Panasonic Toughbooks.

From their literature:

Low Temperature
The Low Temperature test was performed according to MIL-STD-810F, Method 502.4, Procedures I (Storage) and II (Operation). Panasonic set the low operating temperature at -20°F and non-operating temperature at -60°F

You should distinuish between your operating requirement and your storage requirement.

Panasonic have similar approaches to vibration, high temperatures, dust, etc.

We no longer use the product, as we determined that it was more economical to use Thinkpads and replace the odd one that failed. It was one tough notebook, though. Various models, from rugged-looking to fully toughened. All it costs is money.

Where are you in the GWN? No location shows in your profile.

troyounces · #3 09-14-2006, 11:21 AM

Thanks JCL, that's a good suggestion. I've taken a look at a few itronix laptops -- they look like they'll do the job. I just need to find a way to do an auto power on/power off. Also, there may be some power concerns when leaving the laptop in hibernate mode. My guess is that the laptop would suck power out of the car battery to charge it's own battery. Maybe the solution is just to remove the laptop battery altogether.

I live in Toronto btw.