Outdoor/Rugged NVR Recommendation?

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Brian Rhodes
Feb 28, 2014
IPVMU Certified

A member recently asked for a recommendation:

We are looking for a very good NVR that is rated for external use.

We have a NEMA 4R enclosure that will house the NVR, but the NVR needs to be rated for wide temperatures.

The unit will need to operate in the temp range of -40 to +80 C.

Suggestions?

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Ari Erenthal
Feb 28, 2014
Chesapeake & Midlantic

How wide of a tempurature range? Is it going to go below freezing? Because I can think of a few options for very warm applications but very cold applications is more difficult.

DS
Dan Stone
Mar 03, 2014

The unit will need to operate in the temp range of -40 to +80 C.

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Ari Erenthal
Mar 03, 2014
Chesapeake & Midlantic

Good luck.

You are looking for what the US military (and the people who build stuff for them) calls "rugged conduction cooled components". Not only only that, but you want something on the most demanding end of that bell curve.

Rugged conduction cooled means active and extreme measures are taken to bleed off heat, as described here (linking does not equal endorsement, I've never heard of these guys but the white paper seems good), either because air cooling with passive measures like heat dissipation via design or active measures like fan cooling is insufficient, because air cooling introduces a new complication like dust, or in extremely small form factors where you simply don't have enough room for the amount of air you'd need to realistically cool the components.

Computer gamers do a similiar thing. High end gaming machines can get extremely hot, and you can literally cook your desktop playing computer games. Running tubing through your machine and pumping cooled water will allow you to shoot all the virtual Nazis you want without worrying about your fans, and is a lot quieter besides.

Generally speaking, it's easier to warm the computer than to cool it, at least at the level you're describing. A heating element in or on the PC is a trivial matter compared to the difficulty involved in bleeding heat.

If you're looking for a PC that can handle -40°C up to +80°C, the only guys I can think of who make a COTS unit is probably going to be GE. Assuming you have a government level budget for the project, of course.

I hope this helps.

RW
Rukmini Wilson
Mar 03, 2014

Sir, following in the style of Ari's non-endorsing endorsement, this "COTS" unit from ADLink plausibly fits the bill, while maintaining a pleasing German aesthetic at the same time.  


HPERC-IBR-MC
High Performance Extreme Rugged™ Coldplate Mount System with Intel® Core™ i7 Processor

Operating temperature: -40°C to +85°C

Features
SWaP efficient sealed SFF System
VITA 75.22 coldplate mounting
Soldered DDR3L-1333 8GB - Up to 16GB RAM
Quad Gigabit Ethernet
Ultra-Fast Solid-State-RAID
Available GPGPU on 16-lane 3rd Generation PCI Express
Triple DisplayPort/HDMI/DVI
Simple user expansion and configuration

MI
Matt Ion
Mar 04, 2014

How about installing your favorite VMS on a Panasonic ToughBook? Something like this would be slick.

TG
Tedor Gligorich
Mar 04, 2014

Usually when I see some topic to make comment I don't because I won't shoot myself in the foot! But technically being American Serb I am also fluently bi-temperate, I speak F and C, often in the same sentence. And now here without anything remaining in my sleeves, i.e. no reference books or calculators, I am confidently predict that on the hot side 80C is about 175F and on the cold its a famous trick question since 40C is 40F. Although tough it might be tough luck because it cant work over 140F or under -20F according to the link you sent. Your own Frosty Snowman they say was a victim of just such misconversion. ;)

AK
Alex K
Mar 04, 2014

Why not to use NEMA Enclosure with fan & heater ?

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Brian Rhodes
Mar 04, 2014
IPVMU Certified

The temp range is between -40 to 80 C, there's a fair bit more to consider here than adding a heater!

MI
Matt Ion
Mar 04, 2014

Not if you run Avigilon on it, then it will handle all the temperature extremes through a patented heat exchanger plug-in!

AK
Alex K
Mar 04, 2014

You do not see Fan and mini itx

was added later

working fine in Alberta for about a year

between - 35 to +35 C

DM
Duncan Miller
Mar 04, 2014

I didn't see this -40 to 80 C tempature requipment. lol. Can I ask where on earth would you get that kind of tempature swing?

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Brian Rhodes
Mar 04, 2014
IPVMU Certified

Member Dan Stone responded with the range in his reply (up above). It is not clear he is the OP, so I updated the initial question with this detail. Maybe he will share details on the application, although I can think of several industrial environments with a larger delta.

I worked on an application in an aging oven (where steel is hardened) that was a giant room that could be anywhere from ambient to 120C! Talk about a swing! Maybe the application is similar.

DS
Dan Stone
Mar 04, 2014

These units run inside a NEMA 4 enclosure that are in location where the internal temperature inside the enclosure matches the range provided. The units can be located in the desert or in an area where external temperatures are -30C on a regular and extended basis.

DM
Duncan Miller
Mar 04, 2014

Check out Stealth computers. They have weather proof and wide teampature PC's.

DM
Duncan Miller
Mar 04, 2014

Here is a project I worked on. We had a small strip heater installed for the colder weather and the PC is just a standard fanless atom.

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Ari Erenthal
Mar 04, 2014
Chesapeake & Midlantic

Well, what do you do about heat? Warming the PC is relatively simple. Cooling the PC is much harder, a fan wouldn't do it at 80C (176F).

AK
Alex K
Mar 04, 2014

for cooling use Thermoelectric Modules (peltier elements) as Adlink does

Avatar
Brian Rhodes
Mar 04, 2014
IPVMU Certified

This recommendation borders on worthless. This is like saying "to freeze popsicles, use a copper heat exchanger that circulates freon".

Just throwing out a method of cooling is not a solution. There are many more needed details here, from how the air is moved to transfer the delta, to temperature regulation, to electric rectification.

If you have specific solutions, that's great and welcomed. Otherwise, it's just a waste of time to throw out random components designed to be included in an engineered system.

DM
Duncan Miller
Mar 04, 2014

There are many products manufactured by Hammond for the cooling of enclosure. Every project requires a custom solution that depends on typical ambient temperature, how many watts of equipment need cooling or heating and the size of enclosure the equipment is going into.

DM
Duncan Miller
Mar 04, 2014

Active cooling it is not required on this installation since the equipment doesn't generate that much heat. Everything was calculated based of wattage of equipment and size of enclosure. The PC only requires passive cooling as its is a low wattage atom and displaces very little heat. If it was to be installed in the Southern USA well that would be a different story but its being installed in northern Canada.

AK
Alex K
Mar 04, 2014

Also u can get coolers based on Peltier effect and install them inside Nema boxes

Dotworkz use them

AK
Alex K
Mar 04, 2014

Woow !

just talk to Adlink

Their HPERC-IBR-MC High Performance Extreme Rugged™ Coldplate Mount System with Intel® Core™ i7 Processor

start from about $ 8000 +

I am in wrong business :)

RW
Rukmini Wilson
Mar 04, 2014

Thanks for the price, scroll up 21 hours for the picture. ;)

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Ethan Ace
Mar 04, 2014

Guys, if you put one of those ADLink PCs in an enclosure, all it's going to do is transfer heat from the PC case TO THE ENCLOSURE. It's like saying "My server room doesn't need to be cooled, my server has a fan!" The entire enclosure needs to be heated and cooled. I'm assuming there will need to be switches and transformers, and whatever ancillary equipment, as well.

RW
Rukmini Wilson
Mar 04, 2014

...all it's going to do is transfer heat from the PC case TO THE ENCLOSURE.

Yes, I believe that's the general idea.

Ethan, as I read OP requirement, it is for an NVR that can operate between two extreme temperatures. This Adlink unit operates within those ranges, how that range is maintained by the external enclosure is a seperate (and not asked question). See Duncan above. Please understand this is a sealed unit which dissipates self-heat via conduction thru a cold plate.

Moreover I think you are failing to appreciate the thermal magnitudes which are specified. When the enclosure is at 176F, the self-heat is just another heat vector to be managed. Bottom line its up to the enclosre to maintain (if it needs to) the temperature ranges, not the nvr's. Nor is the self-heat of the unit going to a factor when the enclosure is already at 176F!

RW
Rukmini Wilson
Mar 04, 2014

It needn't.

Any attempts to reduce the local entropy of a thread can only do so by increasing the overall entropy of the forum.

Avatar
Ari Erenthal
Mar 04, 2014
Chesapeake & Midlantic
RW
Rukmini Wilson
Mar 04, 2014

Brian, please ignore my snarky and oblique retort, and instead explain how the capitulation of entropy undermines my response to Ethan.

AK
Alex K
Mar 04, 2014

How many cameras will be connected to this NVR? 1... 4... 8?

DS
Dan Stone
Mar 04, 2014

4

JS
Jack Sink
Mar 10, 2014
IPVMU Certified

I can't thank the contributors enough, especially Brian, as I now feel intellectually equipped to argue that latent effects of Entropy on world peace and stability can be measured. Thanks, Brian!

"Entropy (usual symbol S) is a measure of the specific ways in which a thermodynamic system may be arranged, often taken to be a measure of disorder, or a measure of progressing toward thermodynamic equilibrium". Who knew?

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