Industrial PC with touch panel
(by Kirk Linsky)

noax Technologies is a Germany-based developer and manufacturer of industrial touch panel PCs with offices in Europe and the United States. The company, which makes its own proprietary all-in-one motherboards, has many years of experience in the development and production of completely sealed industrial touch panel PCs without external fans. The panels are designed to be resistant to heat, cold, moisture, dust, vibration, shock, acids and detergents.

The C12 Industrial PC is part of the noax Compact Series. It measures 12.6 x 10.0 x 3.4 inches and weighs about 10 pounds. It is a completely sealed system that can be mounted in control panels or switching cabinets. The C12 has a tough plastic enclosure over a cast aluminum chassis, and either a 12.1" SVGA or XGA resolution TFT display with integrated resistive analog touch panel and automatic brightness control. The touch screen allows for simple operation via custom software applications. DC/DC converters are used to allow for diverse power supply conditions.

Heavy-duty connector locks and the absence of failure-prone components protect the C12 industrial computer against extreme mechanical stresses and environmental factors such as vibration, shock, dust or wetness. Sealing is either IP65, either for the entire device or just for the front panel, depending on the connection cover used.

The C12 can be ordered with one of two noax-designed motherboards using either a 1.2GHz Intel Celeron M 723 or a 1.86GHz Core 2 Duo SL9400 processor, has on-board interfaces, dual-band WiFi, Bluetooth, WWAN, GPS, and simple expandability through free standard slots that permit integration of various peripheral devices like transponders, chipcard readers or barcode scanners. Easy integration of various peripherals make the C12 suitable for use in areas such as MES, ERP, time and attendance, process visualization and warehouse management.

A special Micro-Controller is standard in all noax industrial PCs. It performs a variety of monitoring, controlling, and statistical tasks such as temperature control, backlight control, or counting operating hours, and it can be adapted to customer requirements. noax also uses a proprietary touch controller for automatic panel control and readjustment.