A PC for machine vision

Factories can be hostile environments for computers. Sure, most factories are far cleaner than they were twenty years ago, but many still have airborne dust, plus temperature extremes and vibration. Regular desktop PC’s may be cheap but they tend not to last in such conditions.

That’s why I was interested to read about a new fanless computer from Nuvo. The really cool thing about this is not the massive cooling fins, though they are pretty cool, but the Power-over-Ethernet ports.

The sexy little box costs $2,369, and according to Logic Supply, Windows 7 is included, (I’d check that before ordering,) so it’s about twice the price of a well-spec’d desktop, but I imagine you’d get a lot more life from it.

The obvious weakness is the lack of PCI slots, so it’s not going to take a regular framegrabber. But you can run PoE cameras, so that seems to be the way to go.