00:00If you've ever had a regular desktop PC die on a factory floor because of dust,
00:04heat, or vibration, you already know the pain and the downtime that comes with it.
00:09That's exactly why I went digging for the best fanless industrial PCs you can actually buy right
00:14now without blowing your maintenance budget. No moving parts, no clogged fans, no surprise
00:19shutdowns at 2am. Here are my top 5 picks for factory automation, and honestly, some of these
00:25prices genuinely surprised me. Starting off with the budget champion, this fanless industrial PC that
00:32comes in a bunch of CPU options, from the N5105 all the way up to an i5-5200U. What makes
00:39it stand
00:39out is the connectivity, you get 2 gigabit Ethernet ports and 2 COM RS232 ports, which is exactly what
00:45you need when you're talking to older PLCs and serial sensors that aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
00:50It runs Windows or Ubuntu, has HDMI and VGA for legacy monitors, and starts at just $81.89.
00:59Nearly 4800 sold with a perfect 5-star rating. If you need a reliable machine for a simple HMI
01:06station or data logging node, this is almost impossible to beat. Next up, if you actually
01:12need real horsepower, this one's running a 13th-gen Intel Core i5-1335U with DDR5 memory and an M.2
01:19SSD.
01:20That's modern laptop-class performance in a sealed, fanless box. You still get your 2 COM ports and
01:26dual LAN, plus 8 USB ports, Wi-Fi, and this is the good part, a SIM slot with 4G LTE
01:32built-in.
01:33So you can drop this in a remote pump station or a warehouse with no wired network and still pull
01:38telemetry off it. It's $261.79, which for a 13th-gen i5 industrial box is genuinely reasonable.
01:47Over 4,300 sold, 5 stars. Third pick is the Intel N150 IoT model,
01:54and this one's all about display and I-O flexibility. Two HDMI outputs plus a display
02:00port means you can drive three screens off one little box, perfect for a control room or a
02:04line-side dashboard setup. On top of that you've got two RS-232 serial ports, dual Ethernet,
02:10six USB ports, Wi-Fi, and a 4G modem. The N150 is Intel's newer efficiency chip,
02:17so it sips power while staying completely silent. It's $230.99 with a 4.7 rating and over 4,000
02:25units
02:25sold. Great middle-ground machine if you want modern silicon and lots of ports.
02:31Fourth on the list is the N100 quad-core embedded industrial computer,
02:35and this is the heavy-duty option. The headline feature here is native RS-485 alongside dual LAN,
02:41and if you're working with Modbus RTU networks, VFDs, or long-run sensor buses, RS-485 isn't a nice
02:48to have, it's essential. This is built as a proper embedded box, the kind of thing you bolt into a
02:53cabinet and forget about for five years. It is the priciest at $610.12, but it's rated 5 stars with
03:01over 4,000 sold, and if it replaces a machine that keeps failing, it pays for itself fast.
03:07And rounding out the list, my personal favorite for pure value, this dual NIC unit with six COM ports.
03:13Six. For RS-232 and RS-485 support, so you can hang an entire serial network off one computer
03:21instead of buying USB adapters that fall off randomly. It runs the i5-4200U or the 2955U,
03:28handles Windows 10, 11, or Ubuntu, and it's only $101.
03:33Five-star rating, 4,000 sold. If you're consolidating a bunch of old serial devices
03:39onto one controller, this is the smartest hundred bucks you'll spend all year.
03:44All five links are down in the description, and prices do move around on these,
03:48so it's worth checking before they change. If this helped you out,
03:52hit that like button and subscribe, I post hardware roundups like this every week.
03:57Thanks for watching, and I'll catch you in the next one.
Comments