In an industrial or manufacturing environment it is not uncommon to operate a computer with neither a keyboard or a mouse, using only a Hope Industrial touch screen to control the PC. For these situations we’ve discussed virtual keyboards to simplify data entry, and ways that a touch screen can better emulate a mouse.
While most of our customers know us as an industrial monitor and touch screen company, we are also a proud manufacturer of a full line of industrial keyboards. All of our rugged keyboards carry our standard 4-year warranty and are rated to NEMA 4/4X standards.
The NUC (Next Unit of Computing) from Intel is a small single board computer kit made by Intel and intended for use in any location where a small, cool, and energy efficient yet somewhat powerful computer is required. Intel intends for the device to be used in most any application ranging from digital signage to industrial/commercial kiosks to home entertainment. We’ve had a number of customers ask about suitability of the NUC for use with our industrial touch screen and workstation products, so we thought we’d get our hands on one and take a look.
HDMI is one of the most common video connectors in the market. This standardized connector offers tremendous versatility, supporting digital video, audio, and even network traffic on a single connector. The availability of multiple connector sizes for different sized devices has quickly made HDMI a standard feature in many consumer and business devices from phones and tablets, to laptops, to thin clients.
As discussed in other posts, we have always used Elo Accutouch resistive touch sensors and controllers in our touch screen models. Aside from the usual benefits of resistive touch sensors, the Elo Accutouch system offers high quality, extremely diverse driver support, and long term compatibility (DOS drivers from 20+ years ago still work with our current RS232 models).
Hope Industrial Displays are built to handle abuse of many forms. Our displays are used in a wide variety of extremely tough environments where they see everything from daily steam cleanings to chemical exposure to the occasional run-in with a forklift.
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In most cases, industrial HMI software is designed to run in a full-screen mode, where all the user sees (and can therefore click on using a touch screen) is the HMI application itself. This prevents the user from interacting with the operating system directly and accidentally closing the HMI application, rebooting Windows, or worse.
In our last post we introduced our Raspberry Pi proof-of-concept project and outlined the physical components and setup required for using the Raspberry Pi as an industrial touch screen PC in a harsh environment. Please see our previous post for important information to consider before integrating a Raspberry Pi with our industrial touch screens.
The Raspberry Pi is a small single-board computer originally created by the Raspberry Pi Foundation as an affordable tool for teaching computer science. Due to its low cost, ease of use, and broad community support, the Raspberry Pi is now being used in a variety of diverse settings with users installing them in everything from home automation systems to autonomous aircraft.