Industrial grade SBC - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: CodeBreaker
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: December 21, 2017, 11:58:14 am
content: Hi guys!I'm in need of some assistance. I'm looking for a recommendation for an industrial grade Single Board Computer for around $100 that runs linux. It does not need to be powerful. It only needs to have one lan port and, most importantly, solid storage media (like EMMC for example). All the quotes I've received are for powerful full-featured industrial SCB's that, although they look nice and would serve my purpose, are much more expensive.I can't find anything that fit my mentioned requirements and I'm hoping you guys know of any that do.Thanks!

author: grumpydoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2017, 12:00:04 pm
content: R Pi or do you need something more "industrial"?What is the actual application

author: Ice-Tea
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2017, 12:18:06 pm
content: Define 'industrial grade'? Extended temp? Shock/vibration? Humidity? Rubbust input voltage range? What?

author: CodeBreaker
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: December 21, 2017, 12:42:43 pm
content: Primary application would be to host our software (python/php/mysql) for local managing of existing EV charging stations for investors that do not have their own server. The unit would be mounted inside the station witch means it would be exposed to the temperature changes throughout the year.A few colleagues have reported that they have used Raspberry Pi's (in home environments) and that they have failed, either the SD card of the unit itself (might've just been a bad batch).Currently we are testing cubieboard2 with armbian on NAND and have experienced corruption of the filesystem on rare occasions when disconnecting the power source. We can't have that because most of them will not be connected to the internet so we can't give remote support. Since nand storage does not ensure data integrity if not shutdown properly, I'm looking for a board that has better storage option and is not for development purposes.

author: nali
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2017, 12:59:26 pm
content: We use Olimex which are pretty good. They also do an extended temperature range variant if you need it.Avoid crappy consumer microSD cards! Use a SLC type, a lot more expensive but worth it IMHO.We don't use the NAND, instead we boot from an ATP microSD, then create a RAM disk and run from there. Our equipment is intended to run 24/7 - I rigged one up to a time switch and run it through 500+ power cycles and not one corrupted byte

author: grumpydoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2017, 01:41:40 pm
content: Definitely avoid consumer grade SD cardsI run a PC Engines APU system which has been rock solid but it is probably overkill for your needs (and above your desired price point).

author: Ice-Tea
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2017, 01:48:56 pm
content: If you need extended temp and everything that goes with it, in my opinion that rules out pretty much all 'hobby' stuff.Except for maybe this:https://beagleboard.org/arrowbbbi ?

author: CodeBreaker
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: December 21, 2017, 02:14:22 pm
content: @nali Is there a reason you went for an SD card instead of running of eMMC? Does your application write to the filesystem? If it does, how do you preserve changes if you're running of a RAM disk? Are you running a database? Sorry for all the questions@grumpydoc Thank you for mentioning PC Engines APU's. They might serve for some other projects.@Ice-Tea Thank you for the suggestion!

author: nali
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2017, 06:28:05 pm
content: We use Olimex's SOM board which has a SD slot, and other boards we use or maintain use SD so that's more or less a convention really. I use ATP because they are SLC memory and they claim to have a level of power-down protection which may be the case or may be marketing bunny... early days yet but they do seem to be pretty robust.The SBC does have on-board nand memory, and we do use it as scratchpad storage during for example a software update process so after verification we remount the SD as read/write and do whatever we have to do before remounting back to read only.Our app doesn't really need to write to the filesystem. It's an online information display and the content is fed from a server as is the local configuration info. There are a few small files written but only on a temporary basis AFAIK and don't need to survive a reset. This is on a custom compiled Debian BTW.

author: Richard Crowley
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2017, 06:45:12 pm
content: Did you see this EEVblog video?https://www.eevblog.com/2017/10/01/eevblog-1028-whats-all-this-pc104-stuff-anyhow/https://youtu.be/6ad0KP5EvpU

author: Jeroen3
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2017, 07:28:29 am
content: Quote from: blueskull on December 22, 2017, 04:34:24 amYou will have to do significant effort to shield those units from the other parts of the installation. They will have a much, much lower immunity.Snubber relays, separate power rails, shielded cables.Where you can put a VFD and a PLC into one cabinet, you will get problems when putting a VFD and a RPI into the same cabinet.

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2017, 05:14:27 pm
content: You might conduct your own "shake and bake" tests of different "commercial" boards.The NAND Flash memory is a weak point. As other have pointed out, consumer grade Flash is trash. I am inclined to believe at this point that all of the smallest form factor Flash is problematical for long term storage because it cannot support background scrubbing without a backup power source. For memory which supports scrub on read, relying on external backed up power and manually reading the entire contents on a regular schedule may solve this but I have not tested it. Using SLC helps because of its much longer retention but I would not consider it an absolute solution anymore.

author: Richard Crowley
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2017, 05:49:56 pm
content: There are premium kinds of "high endurance" SD cards made for dashboard cameras, etc.They are (theoretically) designed to handle continuous writing (as you are driving down the road).Note, however that logging a few bytes of data every few minutes is not exactly the same as writing whole blocks every few seconds (i.e. video).Does the software "cache" the data into formatted block size chunks before writing?Ref:https://dashboardcamerareviews.com/which-sd-cards-last-longest-in-dash-cams/

author: radar_macgyver
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2017, 06:02:37 pm
content: I've had decent results withTechnologic Systems. I've used the TS-7250 (old) and the TS-4710. They make variants with eMMC or micro SD slots, and have a reputation for not discontinuing product lines. Many products seem to fit your price point.I worked with a colleague on a project that has both a TS-4710 and a Raspberry Pi. The Pi failed less than a few months after it was installed. The 4710 is still trucking, even though temps outside swung from -20 C (now) to ~40 C in the summer.

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2017, 01:58:42 am
content: Quote from: Richard Crowley on December 22, 2017, 05:49:56 pmThe problem is not endurance but retention which for the smallest process geometry multilevel Flash is down to months now. SSDs with internal backup power can do idle time background scrubbing to avoid retention failures (while they are powered!) but memory cards cannot.

author: frobet
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: April 30, 2019, 08:10:17 am
content: I am having a hard time understanding the comments here. I am currently searching for memory cards for a new dash cam and I need to know which is the best to use. I am also comparing from this page onMicro SD cardsand there are lots of products. It's confusing.

author: Richard Crowley
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2019, 04:04:19 pm
content: "High endurance" does not mean retention. It means the ability to support continuous write cycles without wearing out like "ordinary" flash memory cards. Clearly, that is the major difference between using an SD card in an "ordinary" application vs. in a continuously writing application like a surveillance or dashboard camera.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2019, 08:55:42 pm
content: It can mean whatever it wants, but a high endurance card will be more likely to use SLC or MLC which would likely have better retention. Search for that if its more important then.https://www.rutronik.com/article/detail/News/all-nands-are-not-the-same/Quote from: frobet on April 30, 2019, 08:10:17 amGet the transcend high endurance card.