Specification of Minimum PC Requirements (Jan 2019)

 
The operator display is an Intel Windows desktop computer. This type of computer was chosen so that the machine system can reside within an office network environment and share production requirements and data with office systems.

A touch screen panel PC or entry level desktop Wintel system with: Microsoft Windows 7,8 or 10 64 bit operating system Any Intel processor i3 or above (not Atom) with speed 2GHz or above 4Gb system memory or more 100Gb HDD or more (not solid state SSD) Highly rated power supply Computer box size able to fit inside designated podium or cabinet Reasons for not using: Intel atom processor - previous trials have showed the Atom processor too slow for real time control. SSD - Not all, but many solid state devices have failed within 3 years. Magnetic hard drives often last 10+ years. Insmart controllers continously record data and perhaps this frequent use of storage consumes the SSD life span.

Replacement Schedule
Most electronic components have a mean time between failure rating of around 10,000 hours.

When equipment is left on 8 hours per day, 5 days per week for 50 weeks per year the average failure rate for an electronic device will be around 5 years.

Keep a Replacement System on standby
There is no problem keeping a piece of equipment until it fails but Insmart recommends from around the 5 year mark you purchase and hold a standby replacement system.

The standby replacement computer can be held as a replacement unit for multiple machines.

Maintain a Current Backup
It is recommended a USB flash drive with regularly updated machine backups is kept in a safe location.

Simply insert a flash drive into the controller computer and select the backup option from the pull down command menu.