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Four fanless box PCs from Hectronic – A comparison

By Daniel Aspeskär, Area Manager at Hectronic AB

The fanless box PC is in many cases an alternative well worth considering. The box PC contains a CPU board with additional I/O, often in a compact format and always ready to use. Reliability, cost-efficiency and time saving during application development adds to the list of advantages.

Reliability as in a ready-made tested and certified hardware. Cost-effective because volumes increase when the solution is a COTS product. Time saving due to the fact that the fanless box PC is delivered directly upon order. Thus application development may begin immediately.

Hectronic are introducing a group of four fanless box PCs. They are added to the standard product offer and are available for order right now.

These four fanless box PCs have fixed I/O interfaces, but there are still possibilities for adaptation to unique application requirements. The typical fanless box PC is available in versions based on a couple of different processors in varying performance categories. The I/O interface sometimes targets specific vertical market segments or it’s, as for these four, made up of a more common set of I/O ports to be generally useful. Towards the end of this article a fanless box PC adaptable above the average will be presented, but let’s begin with a few that has other distinguishing characteristics.

eBOX530-820-FL – Compact and low power

The first one, eBOX530-820-FL, is the smallest of the four. Measuring 132mm x 95.4mm x 47.5mm it fits, just about, in the palm of your hand. The compact size and optional fasteners enables not only wall mount, but also DIN-rail mount for instance in process industry computer cabinets and racks. Moreover the eBOX530-820-FL is suitable for applications such as parking meters, ticketing machines and other applications to which size and power consumption is crucial.

Four USB 2.0, two COM and one Gigabit Ethernet port is a sufficient I/O featureset for many applications that benefit from ultra compact size. Fewer interfaces reduce requirements for processor computing performance. The eBOX530-820-FL is based on Intel® Atom™, 1.1GHz or 1.6GHz, and the US15W chipset keeping power consumption at around 5W and the heat generation at low levels accordingly.

The eBOX530-820-FL has a hard disk drive and a Compact Flash card slot accessible from the front. What developers sometimes want is to use standard operating systems for development initially and switch to an embedded OS version at a later stage, which is possible with these two storage options.

eBOX620-823-FL – Industrial temperature range

The second fanless box PC, eBOX620-823-FL, has the above features and more. Operation in an Industrial temperature range (from -20°C to +70°C) is added to the list of features. It means a larger number of location options mounting the box PC. The eBOX620-823-FL is designed for operation in cramped and poorly ventilated spaces, for instance in the trunk of a taxi, on a boat or as part of the information, infotainment or ticketing system of a vehicle for public transportation, enduring cold winter mornings as well as intense summer heat.

The typical general purpose fanless box PC comes with some possibilities for adaptation to specific application requirements. In the case of the eBOX620-823-FL this possibility is realized from an Express Mini card slot. Together with an SMA type connector opening for an antenna, onboard a vehicle, it comes natural to suggest to use the Express Mini card slot for a GSM/GPRS, 3G/Edge or GPS module. Or why not use the possibility to include additional ports to the standard I/O interface of the eBOX620-823-FL.

eBOX630-830-FL – Computing performance and I/O richness

Thus far in the presentation a couple of compact and low power alternatives with limited I/O interfaces have been described. The next example, eBOX630-830-FL, is the next level up in terms of computing performance and I/O interface richness. A rich I/O interface, in this case, is four serial ports, two Gigabit Ethernet and four USB 2.0 ports.

Processor choices are, in performance level order, Intel® Celeron® M, Core™ Solo, Core™ Duo and Core™2 Duo. The processor speeds range from 1.06GHz to 2.33GHz and the chipset is Intel® 945GME+ICH7M. Screw-type AC/DC 60W power adapter, and increased vibration endurance implies for instance heavy-duty industrial applications.

eBOX639-840-FL – Highly adaptable with PCI and PCI Express

A fanless box PC enables adaptations to a limited extent. Components and modules can be connected to serial, USB, Ehernet or some other common type communication port. The eBOX639-840-FL have one PCI and one PCI Express slot for application specific hardware such as graphical or field bus cards, or some other hardware of your choice to customize the functionality and interface. The eBOX639-840-FL was developed bearing in mind the requirements from applications in industrial automation, digital signage, the gaming industry, industrial control and onboard vehicles.

In some cases the fanless box PC is not really an option, the reason being that the application has special requirements or that the system needs to be owned by the developing company. Large production volume is another cause for choosing another solution than the standard fanless box PC, for instance a full custom solution which is the more cost effective choice in large volumes. Hectronic offers standard products as well as development, production and life-cycle management of full custom systems.

With the presentation of these four new fanless box PC products we hope to have highlighted the particular advantages from choosing a standard system, the well-tried, compact and existing hardware to jump start development directly upon delivery. Don’t hesitate to contact us for more information or if you would like to order the one of the four that fits the requirements in your development project. There are of course also numerous other fanless box PCs and other types of standard systems to choose from in Hectronics standard product range presented on www.hectronic.se.

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