We humans have been known to work under some decidedly extreme temperature ranges, but using a touch-input panel PC in temperatures as cold as -20°C (-4°F) or as high as +60°C (140°F)? Really? Well, if you’re called upon to work at such extreme temperatures, there’s an Advantech touch-panel solution that will survive those conditions far longer than will you.
When reading industrial computer specifications like these, it’s easy to chuckle and discount the likelihood of real-world applications that would test those limits, but they may not be as rare as you might think. Take, for example, that low extreme of -20°C (-4°F). Food products stored in commercial walk-in and drive-in freezers are generally maintained at -18°C (0.0°F) and below. Many of these are huge facilities with scores of workers performing extended duty within the freezer units.
For example, The Stellar Group completed a 148,000-square-foot freezer/refrigeration facility for Dot Foods in Mount Sterling, Illinois, in 2012, creating in a busy warehouse environment that presents all of the real-world logistics challenges of any other large-scale warehouse/distribution facility, along with the extreme temperature challenges peculiar to the refrigerated warehousing industry. Human-machine interface systems are as applicable to this real-world application as to those where climates are controlled for the comfort of human workers rather than for extended storage of perishable food products.
Examples are common at the other extreme as well. The World Meteorological Organization accepts as the highest ambient surface temperature that of 56.7°C (134°F) recorded on July 10, 1913, in Death Valley, California, USA. Of course, there’s not a lot of work being done during Death Valley summers, but that’s not the case in other parts of the world where temperatures are almost as dramatic. Witness the conditions endured by troops stationed in Iraq where on August 2, 2011, temperatures at the Ali Air Base reached 52°C (125.6°F) – outside … in the shade! Temperatures inside of non-airconditioned logistics facilities climbed even higher and, despite these extreme conditions, massive real-world logistical challenges continued.
Fortunately, most of us will never be called upon to work under such extreme temperature conditions, but if we are, it’s nice to know that Advantech TPC-651H, TPC-1251H and TPC-1551H touch-panel computers offer a full range of efficient, durable NEMA4- and IP65-compliant human-machine interface solutions to help get the job done.