PCs For A Workshop Environment?

bryanporter writes "I'm a geek-turned-homeowner, and am in the processing of setting up my workshop for doing odds and ends around the house. I want to install a cheap, decent PC out there for looking up building plans, shopping for tools while I'm on a job, etc. The shop is going to be in a wooden outbuilding with a shingled roof but the building won't be heated or cooled (although I don't plan on using it much in the summer)." Read on for a bit more on what he's looking for -- what would you suggest for computing in a hostile environment on a non-industrial budget? "I plan on doing things like sawing wood for shelves in here so dust will also be prevalent. Can any of you Slashdotters recommend components for building a machine resilient to cold weather and lots of dust? I was a PC upgrade/repair technician in a former life, so building my own machines is not daunting in the slightest (I've built all my own home machines). The ruggedized machines I've found online are all too pricey, and all seem more designed for avoiding shock damage than environmental dust and cold."

Comments

Tip #1

[zx-6e]

Most important feature of the PC - filters for the intake fans. Keeping the dust and grime out will go along way making a PC in the shop or garage last a long time...

Plexiglass

[tuxter]

We used to make plexiglass cases for use in the mining industry. Basically just a bit bigger than the system unit, Grommeted cable holes, and shrouded, filtered fans in the plexiglass case giving positive pressure to combat dust ingress.

Avoid moving parts...

[ref_karl]

Previous posts made the point of sealing up the computer and monitor... all fine and good. Be sure to get a keyboard that's sealed, and an optical mouse, or a touchpad. There are "roll-up" keyboards that have no exposed moving parts. Also, if you can enclose the computer & monitor in a housing that has a "positive pressure", you'll avoid a lot of the trouble dust. Try to find a way to blow clean air into the enclosure so that no dust can get sucked into the cabinet.

Tip #2: PC Off the Floor

[handy_vandal]

Most important feature of the PC - filters for the intake fans ...

Right. And keep your PC off the floor, that's where the dust is. Keep the PC on a desk, in a cupboard, etc. Better yet, keep the PC in a separate closet.

-kgj

Re:Tip #2: PC Off the Floor

[c]

...keep your PC off the floor, that's where the dust is.

Uh, no.

In the typical woodworking shop the kind of sawdust that will kill electronics is produced at high velocity approximately 36 inches off the ground. Chips go down, dust goes up. There's absolutely no place that isn't going to be covered with dust unless you've got an obscenely good dust control setup. Quite frankly, if you've got the cash to build a dust free shop you might as well splurge on a milspec laptop.

If you don't have that kind of cash... no fans, no openings, no expensive moving parts, and nothing that you care about getting scratched up (like screens).

c.

any old PC

[classicvw]

We have off the shelf PC's at work, running in an industrial environment. They run 24/7 and have been running since 2000. I blow the dust out of them about every 3 months and reboot the computer. Once in a while I replace a cooling fan. The cooling fan will let you know by the noise.

Re:My Advice

[John_Booty]

This post is so completely inaccurate, I don't know where to start. I can't believe it was modded "Informative"... oh wait, yes I can. I'll tackle a few points....

"Building a computer resilient to cold weather should not be a problem in the slightest. In fact, many computers would run effectively much much better in a cold climate. A big factor in the overall heat that the CPU gives off has to do with the ambient temperature"

The CPU will work fine in the cold, but you're missing the point. The things that will be most affected by the cold are moving parts... fans, and hard drives in particular. When it's really cold, those hard drives might not spin too well. There's also the moisture issue which is going to have bad short term (possible shorts) and long term (corrosion) effects on everything.

"If you buy slightly new hardware, chances are they are going to give off an immense amount of heat...which is a problem facing microprocessor makers in general, the rising heat problems. Trust me, a Pentium 4 or AMD64 would love a cold climate."

The AMD64s are renowed for their low heat dissipation. They run at an even lower voltage (and often at a lower clockspeed!) than AMD's previous CPU generation, the AthlonXPs. They also have laptop-like ability to throttle their clockspeed when the CPU is idle, reducing heat output even further.

"the only thing that the cold will aversely affect is the initial bootup of the machine. Like a car, a computer requires the most energy in the first moments of startup. If you are booting up a computer in a cold environment (a cold cold boot hehe), you may have some problems"

No, you're totally wrong. A computer does have an initial spike in power draw during bootup (because it's spinning up the drives and fans) but this is less than the power it draws under full load (100% CPU and video usage - ie, gaming).

And the car battery analogy is totally inappropriate. A car battery can have problems cranking out power in the cold because the chemical reactions in the battery that produce electricity happen more slowly in the cold. That's absolutely not what happens in a computer, where the power supply is simply transforming power from AC to DC. Get it? It's not producing power; it's taking it from the outlet in the wall, transforming it, and sending it to the motherboard and other peripherals. The effect of cold temperatures on the PSU is minimal, if anything.

There's nothing wrong with not knowing something. The problem is not knowing that you don't know something. I don't know Python or Perl, but that's okay... I don't try and hand out advice on those topics.

"Although the computer will run fantastic (i wish my room was freezing cold!) in a cold climate"

Let me guess: you're an "avid" overclocker. That tells me a lot. I'm surprised you don't have your system specs listed in your sig.

I have worked at a steel mill

[antifoidulus]

where they deployed PCs everywhere. They also had tons of grease and all other sorts of contaminants being flung about. They just used generic Compaq computers with cheapy 15" flatscreens. We just stored them in a cheaply made wooden shelf with a plastic shield to protect the monitor and a keyboard shelf. I imagine since you are good with tools, you could construct one of these yourself.
They tried using special keyboard mouse combo devices(basically just a trackball and a few buttons added on to the right side of the keyboard), but these ended up breaking quite frequently and seem to be harder to find. I would recommend just using cheap keyboards and mice, and keep plenty around. They are probably the most likely thing to break.

Re:use dust filters

[ScrewMaster]

Actually, the typical computer enclosure is a negative pressure environment with the fans creating a relative vacuum inside the case. Putting nylons (or any other kind of filter) on the fan does nothing except collect whatever dirt and debris made it past the motherboard and other components in the system. Industrial enclosures are usually positive pressure designs, with the fans blowing inward (so that filtering the fan keeps contaminants out) and furthermore because the case is under pressure it keeps dust from coming in any small holes. If you're going to filter a regular computer case, you will need to seal the case completely except for an intake vent, which would have the filter.

true that!

[pickled doughboy]

i used to work IT in a very filthy factory that has ~50 HP Pavillion PC on the shop floor. They held up very well, I believe, for one major reason, they rn P75's with passive cooling. Just before i left they were starting to upgrade to PII 400 machines with fans on the heatsinks. Some of the P75's had been in service for multiple years with out a hardware failure. There were a couple of PII's that failed due to overheating within 6 months, all of which had fans so cloged that they could turn anymore...

Build a computer almost nil of moving parts.

[Linuxathome]

Points of failure for PCs in dusty environments are the hard drives and fans. I'm looking to build a similar unit like you're describing that is completely void of moving parts (aside from the fan in the power supply, but power supplies are cheap to replace). What parts am I looking for? Mini-itx, VIA EPIA motherboard with a built-in VIA C3 processor that runs without the need of a processor fan (heat-sink still needed, obviously). CompactFlash to IDE adapter that allows me to install a compactflash card as the media storage device. Due to budget issues, I'm restricted to maybe 1GB or 2GB of disk space, but that's plenty for me to install linux with X and fluxbox or enlightenment. I'll also be running VNC or NX client in order to remotely control a desktop on a server safely sitting on my desk in the home office---essentially making the computer a thin client. Since I'm reusing my monitor (if it goes bad, I won't care), keyboard, and mouse, the total cost could feasibly fall under $600.

Re:Many Things

[nathanh]

First of all: Do not run cat-5 between buildings. Unless you have the ability to figure out and prevent ground loops, you are asking for trouble.

What the hell are you talking about? You can't get a ground loop with Ethernet over cat-5. There's no ground wire! The pairs are differential and isolated.

If Ethernet over cat-5 caused ground loops then 1000s of office buildings throughout the world would be having problems. Any sizable office will have multiple independent power circuits.