Best case for High-dust environment

[John I]

Good morning,

 

my company has 13 asphalt plants in the pa, oh, md, and NC area.  These locations are dirty, dusty, nasty locations, and the PCs that they use for ticketing are usually caked in dirt and dust in no time

we are getting ready to do an upgrade on all of these machines, so I am planning on building all of these machines for the purpose.

 

what is the best mini-tower case for an ITX or Matx Mb that has good filtration, preferably easy filters to remove and clean, so that I can train the people on site to clean them out weekly without having to disassemble any part of the case? 

[NoobCase]

Akasa has some industrial offerings for those use cases iirc

[Zagna]

This one?

[NoobCase]

http://www.akasa.com.tw/update.php?tpl=product/product.list.tpl&type=Fanless Chassis&type_sub=Fanless Waterproof

[geo3]

Which ever you get, make sure you set it up for positive pressure and all intakes are filtered.

[John I]

2 hours ago, Zagna said:

This one?

I was looking at that as an option, but while it's pretty bulletproof, the filters would need to be replaced FREQUENTLY in my environment (not sure how many times hitting it with a little air will allow it to last)

 

also, that case is $299/ea  multiply that by 13 sites and there goes my budget

 

I was also hoping for a smaller form factor

 

this would be a great option, but it's overkill

[John I]

1 hour ago, geo3 said:

Which ever you get, make sure you set it up for positive pressure and all intakes are filtered.

I do that on ANY machine I run

 

I'm just having trouble finding a good case that the filters are easily accessible

[John I]

2 hours ago, NoobCase said:

http://www.akasa.com.tw/update.php?tpl=product/product.list.tpl&type=Fanless Chassis&type_sub=Fanless Waterproof

this is an interesting option....but these machines require serial ports for the scales...which doesn't appear to be available in that form factor

[Zagna]

16 minutes ago, John I said:

I was also hoping for a smaller form factor

Rugged Computers

Something like these?

[John I]

1 minute ago, Zagna said:

Rugged Computers

Something like these?

man, I got really excited when I started looking at those ones, as they even had a couple that offered the expansion slot ports

 

then I saw the price...I can't get  my CFO to approve that

I think all I really need is a nice mid-tower case, that has easy to remove dust filters

 

I don't want to have anyone to have to unscrew anything, or access the inside of the PC to clean the filters

 

 

[EsaT]

Fractal Design has cases with front accessible filters for frotn and bottom.

Define Nano S and Mini C are their ITX and mATX cases

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Fractal_Design/Define_Nano_S/3.html

https://us.hardware.info/reviews/7052/3/fractal-design-define-mini-c-review-truly-mini-interior-and-cooling

 

In Mini adding second intake fan would ensure possitive pressure cooling, in ITX size Nano front fan would ahve to be higher speed one than exhaust fan.

[John I]

3 minutes ago, EsaT said:

Fractal Design has cases with front accessible filters for frotn and bottom.

Define Nano S and Mini C are their ITX and mATX cases

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Fractal_Design/Define_Nano_S/3.html

https://us.hardware.info/reviews/7052/3/fractal-design-define-mini-c-review-truly-mini-interior-and-cooling

 

In Mini adding second intake fan would ensure possitive pressure cooling, in ITX size Nano front fan would ahve to be higher speed one than exhaust fan.

I was actually just looking at the meshify C mini as I got your notification....I like the fact that the window is an option, as we want to keep it as low-key as possible

 

[seon123]

Wouldn't a simple fanless NUC be an option?

[John I]

5 minutes ago, seon123 said:

Wouldn't a simple fanless NUC be an option?

only if the NUC has serial port options, as our scales require them

 

YES... I know there are USB to serial adapters, but they can be problematic at times

 

don't you love legacy hardware?

[IAnthonyFX]

what is the budget per case then, so that we can avoid indicating things over your budget and start compromising features from there.

[John I]

9 minutes ago, IAnthonyFX said:

what is the budget per case then, so that we can avoid indicating things over your budget and start compromising features from there.

for the case, I would think anything under $200 would be acceptable

 

I am looking to stay below $1500 per machine... have been looking at doing a ryzen 5 CPU, 16gb ddr4 and 500gb NVME hdd

I'm still in the planning stages of this, and looking into the case first, as that seems to be our biggest issue with the system

 

it will need to have dual displays due to our ticketing and dispatch system which runs on each of the machines, so either an APU, or a basic discrete GPU (graphics power is not a concern, just the ability to display dual monitors)

 

the serial cards are easy, so any MB with 2 or more PCI-E slots will be just fine

 

the cheaper I can put this together, the better, but I want to be sure these are somewhat "future proof" and have a nice lifespan

[IAnthonyFX]

7 minutes ago, John I said:

for the case, I would think anything under $200 would be acceptable

 

I am looking to stay below $1500 per machine... have been looking at doing a ryzen 5 CPU, 16gb ddr4 and 500gb NVME hdd

I'm still in the planning stages of this, and looking into the case first, as that seems to be our biggest issue with the system

 

it will need to have dual displays due to our ticketing and dispatch system which runs on each of the machines, so either an APU, or a basic discrete GPU (graphics power is not a concern, just the ability to display dual monitors)

 

the serial cards are easy, so any MB with 2 or more PCI-E slots will be just fine

 

the cheaper I can put this together, the better, but I want to be sure these are somewhat "future proof" and have a nice lifespan

how about this one, it isn't dust proof, but it was less openings for dust to go in areas where these is no filters (as it is meant to be silent) And where there are filters it is easily cleanable https://pcpartpicker.com/product/BxrcCJ/be-quiet-case-bg002

[Stefan Payne]

5 hours ago, John I said:

Good morning,

 

my company has 13 asphalt plants in the pa, oh, md, and NC area.  These locations are dirty, dusty, nasty locations, and the PCs that they use for ticketing are usually caked in dirt and dust in no time

we are getting ready to do an upgrade on all of these machines, so I am planning on building all of these machines for the purpose.

There is an expensive Silverstone Case with HEPA Filtering.

Linus has a Video on it. Check it out.

Seems like its the right one for you.

[John I]

4 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

There is an expensive Silverstone Case with HEPA Filtering.

Linus has a Video on it. Check it out.

Seems like its the right one for you.

that case was mentioned above, it would be nice, but the price and maintenance of constantly replacing the hepa filter makes it a bad option

[John I]

43 minutes ago, IAnthonyFX said:

how about this one, it isn't dust proof, but it was less openings for dust to go in areas where these is no filters (as it is meant to be silent) And where there are filters it is easily cleanable https://pcpartpicker.com/product/BxrcCJ/be-quiet-case-bg002

this one looks pretty good, definitely a finalist... thank you!

 

[IAnthonyFX]

Just now, John I said:

this one looks pretty good, definitely a finalist... thank you!

 

you are welcome, my consultation fee is 20 bucks (i am quite cheap)

[EsaT]

2 hours ago, John I said:

I was actually just looking at the meshify C mini as I got your notification....I like the fact that the window is an option, as we want to keep it as low-key as possible

Meshify C Mini seems to have not the most easiest front filter removing.

It's shown in video after 2:40

https://www.kitguru.net/components/leo-waldock/fractal-design-meshify-c-mini-review-meshify-c-gets-smaller/

And that top would make third filter to need cleaning, while those PCs certainly aren't going to need high cooling capacity.

 

 

1 hour ago, John I said:

this one looks pretty good, definitely a finalist... thank you!

Some full tower is entirely unnecessary big for this use.

And not sure if any of those BeQuiets have bottom filter accessible from front.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/10837/the-be-quiet-silent-base-600-atx-case-review/2

Because if accessing filter needs either moving the case or getting to rear of the case cleaning of that filter likely won't happen for long...

 

Nanoxia has that problem in its cases, some of which would other wise have well controlled airflow similar to Fractal Designs.

[PianoPlayer88Key]

My FD Define R5 has easily-removable front and bottom (from the front) filters.  I'd presume the R6 would be similar.