How Do Rugged Laptops Work?
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2018-05-06
·
1,130 words · ~5 min read
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we've all been there you're up late working on a report
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playing some overwatch or just catching up on those netflix shows
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you're too embarrassed to tell anyone you watch you reach for your drink without looking
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and bam a torrent of mountain dew spills into
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your laptop and try as you might you never get it working quite right
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again the solution well i could say it's to be more careful next
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time but you guys know what you clicked on let's talk about the ruggedized
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devices out there that can survive way more than a bottle of soda
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companies like gtac panasonic and dell
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offer laptops that look less like what you're using to watch
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Techquickie in class right now and more like something the president might use
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to order a military strike but just how tough are they and what
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specifically allows them to survive in extreme conditions
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to start let's talk about how they resist two of the most common
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environmental hazards water and dust
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since water droplets and dust particles are very tiny fully ruggedized laptops
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employ strategies that go beyond screwing on an enclosure to keep them
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out the electronics inside can be sealed via
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techniques like injection molding which can not only protect against rain or
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water splashes but also allow prolonged use in very humid environments
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think about a soldier deployed in a tropical setting
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and sometimes engineers even fill enclosures with non-conductive silicone
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to ensure that nothing can touch your sensitive components a technique called
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potting potting is also an effective way to
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protect the electronics inside from our next hazards falls and vibrations
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you can think of it like wrapping a fragile item in bubble wrap before you
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ship it some ruggedized laptops don't
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fully pot their electronics though instead coating them in a thin layer of
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waterproof material and installing aluminum stiffeners which can also help
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to absorb a shock before it reaches a pcb or other sensitive component
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but what about heat doesn't all this sealing and reinforcing prevent heat
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from exiting the chassis great point
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it turns out that not only are some of these sealants chosen for their
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thermally conductive properties so the sealant itself can carry heat to a
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cooling surface but manufacturers can also place cooling
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fans strategically so that water can't
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hit the motherboard through outside vents usually this means placing a fan outside
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of the sealed inner electronics chamber or running heat pipes through the
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chamber wall and sealing up the cracks of course the simple fact that modern
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mobile processors run much cooler than they did a decade or two ago helps too
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our next hazard is less obvious heat is
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bad for electronics but what about cold
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devices working in extremely frigid conditions can end up with water
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condensing on their sensitive components causing them to short out
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for that reason some ultra rugged laptops even integrate small heaters so
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that let's say researchers studying penguins
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in the antarctic won't have their computer freeze
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at an inopportune moment okay so then penguin scientists sure but
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who else needs this kind of stuff well part of the reason that ruggedized
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computers exist at all is that they're designed to a military spec for use by
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armed forces and defense contractors
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some are even tested in acidic environments and against gunfire
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vibrations to ensure that they can withstand the harsh conditions of the
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battlefield the hardiest laptops are even built to
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an ip spec of 69k which you can learn
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more about up here meaning that not only are they fully dust proof they can also
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survive high temperatures and even high
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pressure spray downs if they need to be washed
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so pick some combination of these protections plus a toughened glass
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display which you can actually learn more about here or a touch screen that can be used with
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gloves on add powerful backlights and a high contrast panel technology so you
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can see what's happening on the screen even in bright sunlight and you got
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yourself a laptop that can go pretty much anywhere you can
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sounds great rugged laptops for all
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okay hold on a second ruggedized laptops do have some common
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issues a big achilles heel is io
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although ports can be protected with tight ceiling covers or plugs they are
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still a potential point of ingress for outside contaminants especially when you
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open them up to use them and while some manufacturers have somewhat mitigated
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this problem by keeping the i o electronics in a separate chamber from
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the main housing kind of like our fan example earlier this still means that
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your ports can be damaged in harsh conditions even if the rest of the
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system stays usable and unsurprisingly all this ruggedness can
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come at quite a cost especially for
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fully rugged military-grade models which can go for over ten
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thousand dollars each and that's without
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the latest core i7 and sli graphics
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cards but with all of that said if you're
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finding yourself constantly playing league of legends around your messy
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