Quote:
Originally Posted by hotspur
Glad to hear its 'at take off'
At the sawmill I work at a few days a month,they have various pieces of electronic equipment,such as moisture meters and digital measuring devices connected to the saw benches.These items are not in the open-but very close-basic open sheds that have rain blow in, moisture drop off roof,lots and I mean lots of dust.They look no different to a hand controller on a go-to mount-not a lap top but similar-I am amazed how these electronic devices work perfectly fine all the time.I think these similar items all must be able to handle a little bit of 'out in the field use'.Someone mentions lap tops been left out in the open at star parties.Many of these owners are computer engineers,and it appears they feel safe using them in such conditions.I think I tend to 'baby' my gear a bit too much.
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Hi J,
good to hear its working well.
Chris, the reason those instruments work is due to the way theyre designed. they're designed with these environments in mind, so lots of differences in manufacturing processes to normal electronic devices.
HP and others make rugged laptops that are designed for extreme conditions and they can take amazing extremes.
i'm a computer engineer and i guess how much you push it depends on ones experience with different types of failures.
in our data centres, they use a non conducting fire suppresant thats a liquid like water. but ive seen demonstrations where they take an operating electronic board, with power applied and dunk it in the liquid and it still operates fine.
was weird to see that.
i was in snake valley camp and didnt think of the dew in the night.
had my laptop off and on and noticed hard disk errors erratically. it was because the disk platters were below their operating temp. thats the last thing you want in the field.
so I just left it on. the heat kept it operable, but its always better to be careful.
the simple box that most keep their laptops in for light shields actually help a lot with the lappys ambient env.