Industrial PCs

Scan 3XS Industrial PCs are specially engineered for maximum durability and reliability. Using industrial-grade PC components they provide additional features not found in standard consumer or commercial PCs such as 24/7 operation, a wider operational temperature range and hardware watchdog.

Our industrial computers are available in a wide range of form factors and performance levels and are fully customisable to your requirements, including target applications such as industrial automation, kiosks, retail, finance, building automation, medical equipment, video surveillance and live events.

Features
Extended operating temperature	Yes
Zero maintenance fanless design	Yes
Rackmount or tower form factor	Yes
Hardware Watchdog	Yes
Intel vPro Remote Management	Yes
Energy-efficient Intel CPUs	Yes
Operating systems for all applications	Yes
Lifecycle Management and Revision Control	Yes
Built to your requirements	Yes

Industrial PC Motherboards

The most important component in an industrial PC is the motherboard as this ensures stable and reliable communication between all the different components inside the system. We recommend Fujitsu motherboards in our industrial PCs as they have designed to cope with a wide variety of environments including low and high temperatures, shocks and vibrations and electronic interference.

Industrial Motherboard Design

Fujitsu industrial PC motherboards typically have 20% fewer components than mainstream motherboards so there are fewer solder joints while the level of automation in production is 6 to 10 percent higher resulting in higher reliability. In addition, most industrial motherboards use a 6-layer PCB which results in less interference than a mainstream motherboard, which typically use a 4-layer PCB.

Extended Operating Temperature

3XS industrial PCs are designed to work reliably and continuously in high temperature environments and so Fujitsu motherboards are rated to operate under continuous full load up to 60⁰C in accordance with DIN EN 60068-2. This is achieved through a combination of more efficient long-life capacitors, quartzes with an extended temperature range and switch regulators instead of linear regulators. In comparison, mainstream motherboards are typically only rated for a maximum long term operating temperature of 40°C.

Shock and Vibration Resistance

Not every threat to an industrial computer comes from the ambient temperature; some environments are also subject to mechanical shock and vibrations. Fujitsu motherboards are tested and have passed the DIN EN 60068-2-27 (shock) and DIN EN 60068-2-54 (vibration) tests.

The ‘Shaker’, which is used to test the shock and vibration resistance of industrial PC motherboards

Lifecycle Management and Revision Control

Fujitsu industrial PC motherboards are produced for up to 5 years with strict revision control in case any change in the BOM (Bill of Materials) is required.

Data Security

After decommissioning an industrial PC you may need to securely remove all data from its drives. 3XS industrial PCs can securely erase the data from the drives without the need for costly third-party software. Accessed via the motherboard BIOS and protected by an admin password, Erase Disk offers four different algorithms for erasing data from an HDD; zero pattern (1 pass), German BSI/VSITR (7 passes), DoD 5220.22-M ECE (7 passes) or Guttmann (35 passes), taking between 10 seconds and 10 minutes per gigabyte of data depending on the selected algorithm. For SSDs, Erase Disk can perform an Enhanced Secure Erase via the ATA firmware.

Whatever type of drives(s) are being wiped, Erase Disk can record the deletion process onto an external USB stick for audit purposes.

Hardware Watchdog

Some Scan 3XS industrial PCs have a hardware Watchdog feature for improved system reliability. The Watchdog is built into the hardware so is not reliant on the operating system in case of software failure and can be easily configured via the motherboard BIOS. There are three possible levels of Watchdog support, depending on the motherboard selected on the configurator.

BIOS POST Watchdog	BIOS Boot Watchdog	OS Watchdog
As soon as the system monitor controller is enabled the BIOS POST Watchdogs counts down from 120 seconds. If the system has not POSTed during that time the Watchdog will restart the system until it POSTs.	After a successful POST the BIOS Boot Watchdog counts down from a maximum of 255 minutes (user definable in 1 minute steps) before restarting the system in case of boot failure.	After the OS has started loading the OS Watchdog counts down from a maximum of 255 minutes (user definable in 1 minute steps) before resetting the system in case of OS failure. The OS Watchdog is triggered constantly at the end of the countdown so must be disabled by an application such as SystemGuard.

Hardware Monitoring

SystemGuard is a Windows application that is used to monitor the health of the system, logging fan speeds and component temperature.

As industrial PCs are likely to be run for extended period and fans will eventually wear out SystemGuard can also measure the health of the case fans. This is achieved by temporarily revving the fans up to maximum speed and comparing the speed to the first measurement taken when SystemGuard is first configured. If the current fan speed is less than 80% of this value then a user alert is generated. You can configure the fan speed check procedure to automatically run at daily intervals all the way up to once a year.

Alerts, Logging and Notifications

SystemGuard has two ways of notifying you of a system error. The most basic notification is a visual change, with the SystemGuard logo in the Windows taskbar changing from green to red. In addition, the system can be setup to log events and alerts to the file ‘event.log’, which is viewable from within SystemGuard.

Intel vPro Remote Management

Intel vPro is available on select Scan 3XS Industrial PCs and provides business-grade remote management. This includes Intel Active Management Technology which enables out-of-band system access, even if the operating system has failed or the power is off. This allows you to remote KVM (Keyboard Video Mouse) to diagnose and repair faults without requiring physical access to the system.

State of the Art Manufacturing

The Fujitsu motherboards used in 3XS Industrial PCs are made in Germany in a state-of-the-art facility which is highly automated to reduce the possibility of human error during production such as polarity reversal. Soldering is carried out in a nitrogen-rich atmosphere allows the use of low-residue solder and flux agents, resulting in much more reliable solder joints.