EDGE & IoT
An edge gateway is a small computer in a hot cabinet that must keep running while the network, dust and power misbehave. Ports are the easy part.
What the box actually does on site
At a site with forty sensors the gateway does three jobs: it polls serial devices, it buffers data when the uplink drops, and it publishes northbound over a second network. That is why two LAN ports matter, one facing the machines and one facing the building network, and it is also why the serial side is usually the part that gets under-specified.
The I/O that decides the model
| Requirement |
What to specify |
Why |
| Serial polling |
2 x RS232 plus RS485 |
Meters and PLCs rarely share one protocol |
| Segment separation |
2 x Gigabit LAN |
Machine VLAN stays off the office network |
| Local storage |
64 GB SSD or larger |
Buffers days of readings during an outage |
| Field devices |
6 x USB |
Scanners, cameras and modems without a hub |
| Display at the cabinet |
HD plus VGA |
A setup monitor that stays racked |
Heat, dust and the cabinet
A fanless industrial computer with a metal case is the right shape for a closed cabinet, because it moves heat through the housing instead of pulling dusty air through a filter. The two numbers to check are the working temperature range and the mounting position: a box bolted to the back plate of a cabinet sits in still air, and a box on the floor of a plant room sits in the warmest layer.
Power and the second network
◆ A 12V adapter with a screw-lock or phoenix terminal, so a cleaner with a vacuum does not unplug the site.
◆ A UPS on the cabinet, sized to cover an orderly shutdown rather than an hour of running.
◆ Label both LAN ports at the cabinet; a swapped uplink is the most common commissioning fault.
◆ If the site has no wired uplink, add a 4G router rather than changing the gateway.
What to test before buying forty
Take one unit, load the polling application, pull the uplink for an hour, and watch what the buffer does. Then run it for a week at the ambient temperature the cabinet actually reaches in August, not the temperature of the room. As an industrial mini pc manufacturer, we would rather ship one unit for that test than forty for a rollout that has to be revisited.
Check the range
The models discussed here are listed in our collections, from industrial panel PCs and kiosk hardware to retail pos hardware, with port maps and panel sizes on each product page.
◆ embedded box PCs
◆ fanless panel PCs
◆ industrial panel PCs
If you need a drawing or a port list for a specific model, send the requirement and we will reply with the document rather than a brochure.
