Industrial PCs used in factory automation — machines like the B&R Automation PC 3100 — sit where the plant floor meets IT. They run SCADA, HMI, motion and vision software next to drives, contactors and servos, often in cabinets that get hot, dusty and electrically noisy. The B&R Automation PC 3100 (APC3100) is a fanless box PC from B&R Industrial Automation, commonly documented with a 24 VDC supply and display outputs such as DisplayPort/DVI for connecting to monitors, panel PCs or HMI terminals. Configurations, processor options and interface loadouts vary by order code, so always confirm the exact variant against B&R's own documentation for your machine.
What "harsh conditions" actually means for an automation PC
The specification sheet rarely tells the whole story. In a control cabinet the real stressors are continuous heat (often 40–55 °C ambient inside the enclosure), airborne dust and metal fines, vibration from presses and conveyors, 24/7 duty cycles, and electrical transients riding on the supply. That is why fanless designs dominate this class: no fan means no filter to clog, no bearing to seize, and no air drawn across the logic board. Wide-input DC power, solid-state storage instead of spinning disks, and a sealed or ruggedized chassis matter more here than a few hundred extra megahertz.
Typical specification profile
An automation-grade box PC in this class generally looks like this:
| Attribute | Typical requirement | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Cooling | Fanless, passive heatsink | Dust tolerance, zero maintenance |
| Power input | 24 VDC (some 12 V or wide-range 9–36 V) | Matches industrial cabinet supplies |
| Storage | SSD / eMMC, no rotating media | Vibration and shock survival |
| Processor | Energy-efficient Intel Celeron, Atom or Core-series | Low heat output, 24/7 operation |
| Display/HMI | DisplayPort, DVI, HDMI, VGA | Local panel or remote monitor |
| Field I/O | RS-232/485 serial, dual Gigabit Ethernet, digital I/O | PLCs, meters |
