Ruggedized server HW for wide range of ambient temperatures

fair enough, certification is different story, but HW is pretty solid

I’m with @rlkoshak. Having spent some time working with large scale industrial automation (e.g. CACH - Wikipedia), the nondeterministic nature of openHAB will give you nightmares. If timing and order are important to you (e.g. if you’re planning to fire PLCs through that CAN), you should stock up on pain meds to help deal with the headaches that will accompany the use of openHAB.

I think I was not clear enough in my requirements, I agree with @rlkoshak and @mhilbush, the rPi and openHAB is by no means intended to do the control function of the system. rPi and openHAB is intended to “listen” to the CAN bus info and be used as a data recording device and GUI gateway. The control will be performed by a realtime controller with guaranteed latencies and appropriate diagnostics and fail safe operation. You might say that even for recording the realtime sequential recording of info is also not guaranteed, agreed, but this is not mission critical in this instance. The application is a first proof of concept and is therefore not intended to ever go beyond a demonstration. The emphasis is more on the simplicity of development and ease of modification/adaptation of the GUI and the ability to use different devices (smart phone, Web Browser, Tablet). In that sense HabPanel and the Basic GUI for iPhone and Android phones are perfect candidates in combination with Grafana to easily visualize the data and interact with the system…

Thanks for the clarification. Seems quite reasonable then.

I had a bunch of those things that were never intended to go beyond the demo phase. I think some of them are still running in production. LOL.

Would be cool to see what you come up with (assuming there are no confidentiality and/or IP issues with sharing publicly).

I agree, with that clarification, OH does seem like a reasonable choice. With that said, I’m afraid I don’t have any recommendations for an SBC that would be suitable. As you see with the RPi, that min temperature is going to eliminate a lot of your options. I did find this thread which might give you a rabbit hole to go down.

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=191227

@mhilbush

We are in the quotation phase, so I hope to get the contract. I am pretty sure it will get some press once it is demonstrated. It would be good for the openHAB community to see… :wink:

@rlkoshak, @mhilbush found something that might work:


It runs on “Linux Mint”, so my hope is that openHAB will run using standard Linux installation procedure…
As a plus, this one has an add-on plug in card with CAN :wink:

Not sure where you are located… These guys make some reasonably priced industrial and ruggedized platforms, some of which have wide temp ranges and CAN bus support. But, unfortunately, I think they currently distribute just to the US.

Yes, that or you can use the manual installation procedures for openHABian. Mint is a Debian based distro so openHABian will work just fine.

@mhilbush, great find! I am in the US and it looks like one of their west coast locations is just around the corner :smiley:
They key will be how complex it’ll be to pipe the CAN data in and out of openHAB…

btw this is kind-of RPI but with industrial spec.

Hi

Have you looked at the ODroid C2?

I’m having a lot of success with it.

https://www.odroid.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&path=246_217&product_id=844

I’m happy to upload a CloneZilla image of a 16Gb eMMC card, complete with openHAB2

Although the CAN support might be something you’ll have to add

Thanks @MDAR for the suggestion, I looked at it, but it does not specify if it can run down to -20C. This is a major requirement. I could test it, but I’d rather get hardware that has been designed with that in mind and that has “proof” for doing so…

That’s a big ask for any manufacturer.

I think you’ll need to make your own enclosure and keep the inside to a ‘reasonable’ temperature.

Yes, it is! That’s why I suggested Logic Supply. Although I have to admit I’m a bit surprised by the $646 US price-point on this item with operating temp specs of -25°C - 70°C.

@mhilbush, price is somewhat high, but you get a lot for the money, that will save work downstream: DIN rail mountable, CAN built in, RS232/433/485, power ON option selectable, auto shutdown based on power source voltage (prevent battery drain)!, TVS input protection, shock resistance to 50g…!
That will satisfy all my dreams, the only thing I have not found yet is the power consumption…

I would say -20C is not a huge problem for devices like this. The problem is it will create condens. So you´ll need to get rid of that. An idea could be to build a isolated box to put it inside. Then you´ll probably never reach -20C after all. If it gets too hot, you´ll need to add some ventilation, which may/may not mean, you also need to add a flap to open the box. Perhaps just playing around with ventilation holes could be an easy solution. But when it´s hot, you´ll need ventilation for sure.

I actually was thinking the price was a bit low for the capabilities, especially the environmental specs. Having spent part of my career working with ruggedized handheld devices, I learned to never underestimate the engineering that goes into making a device conform to some of these more extreme specs. Just try putting your smartphone or tablet in the clothes dryer for an hour and let me know how it works out (please don’t actually try this).

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All,
all latest posts on this were about the very special need for a server to work in very low ambient temperatures.
As this is a niche requirement I think this belongs to its own thread and no longer into the thread on “best HW” so I decided to move this.

@mstormi, thanks for doing this; I did not want to derail the general discussion, so having it as its own thread discussion is great for like minded folks!