Industrial Monitors

When you need to look good in tough conditions, industrial monitors get the nod. Like their pedestrian desktop cousins, industrial monitors come in LCD, flat-screen, and CRT variations. But the industrial's NEMA 4 or NEMA 4X enclosures ward off the dust, water, and external icing.

Extreme environments call for rugged hardware. NEMA defines Type 4 as "enclosures constructed for either indoor or outdoor use to provide a degree of protection to personnel against incidental contact with the enclosed equipment; to provide a degree of protection against falling dirt, rain, sleet, snow, windblown dust, splashing water, and hose-directed water; and that will be undamaged by the external formation of ice on the enclosure." Type 4X takes it up a notch by specifying "American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) Type 304 stainless steel, polymerics, or materials with equivalent corrosion resistance."

Industrial monitors are available from Allen-Bradley (Rockwell), Ann Arbor Technologies, Daisy Data, Dolch, Hope, Ikey, Kontron, Omni Vision, Planar, and a number of other manufacturers. They're available in panel-mount and rack-mount variations, a good many with touch-screen options.

When it comes to heavy-duty industrial monitors, it's rough to find one tougher than Dolch's SafTTouch 4X. As its name implies, The SafTTouch 4X is "a completely sealed NEMA 4X rated display, with a multi-gasketed bezel and a touch screen operation immune to cuts, scratches, gouges and wear of the touch surface." This bad boy is engineered "for continuous reliable performance in extreme NEMA 4X/IP 66 hose-down environments."

Hose-down ... now that's tough!

NOTES: (1) Internal icing and condensation are other factors to consider when purchasing an industrial monitor. You'll have to go above and beyond the NEMA specs to handle these conditions. (2) The National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) does not do any testing or certification on industrial monitors. That's left up to the manufacturer.