Gadgetory

thanks for watching tech quickie click the subscribe button and enable notifications with the bell icon so you won't miss any future videos we've all been there you're up late working on a report playing some overwatch or just catching up on those Netflix shows you're too embarrassed to tell anyone you watch you reach for your drink without looking and bam a torrent of mountain dew spills into your laptop and try as you might you never get it working quite right again the solution well I could say it's to be more careful next time but you guys know what you clicked on let's talk about the ruggedized devices out there that can survive way more than a bottle of soda companies like GTECH Panasonic and Dell offer laptops that look less like what you're using to watch tech quickie and class right now and more like something the president might use to order a military strike but just how tough are they and what specifically allows them to survive in extreme conditions to start let's talk about how they resist two of the most common environmental hazards water and dust since water droplets and dust particles are very tiny fully ruggedized laptops employ strategies that go beyond screwing on an enclosure to keep them out the electronics inside can be sealed via techniques like injection molding which can not only protect against rain or water splashes but also allow prolonged use in very humid environments think about our soldier deployed in a tropical setting and sometimes engineers even fill enclosures with non conductive silicone to ensure that nothing can touch your sensitive components a technique called potting potting is also an effective way to protect the electronics inside from our next hazards falls and vibrations you can think of it like wrapping a fragile item in bubble wrap before you ship it some ruggedized laptops don't fully pot their electronics though instead coating them in a thin layer of waterproof material and installing aluminum stiffeners which can also help to absorb a shock before it reaches a PCB or other sensitive component but what about heat doesn't all this sealing and reinforcing prevent heat from exiting the chassis great point it turns out that not only are some of these sealants chosen for their thermally conductive properties so the sealant itself can carry heat to a cooling surface but manufacturers can also place cooling fans strategically so that water can't hit the motherboard through outside vents usually this means placing a fan outside of the sealed inner electronics chamber or running heat pipes through the chamber wall and sealing up the cracks of course the simple fact that modern mobile processors run much cooler than they did a decade or two ago helps to our next hazard is less obvious he is bad for electronics but what about cold device is working in extremely frigid conditions can end up with water condensing on their sensitive components causing them to short out for that reason some ultra rugged laptops even integrate small heaters so that let's say researchers studying Penguins in the Antarctic won't have their computer freeze at an inopportune moment okay so then penguin scientists sure but who else needs this kind of stuff well part of the reason that ruggedized computers exist at all is that they're designed to a military spec for use by armed forces and defense contractors some are even tested in acidic environments and against gun fire vibrations to ensure that they can withstand the harsh conditions of a battlefield the hardiest laptops are even built to an IP spec of 69 K which you can learn more about up here meaning that not only are they fully dust proof they can also survive high temperatures and Eve high-pressure spray downs if they need to be washed so pick some combination of these protections plus a toughened glass display which you can actually learn more about here or a touch screen that can be used with gloves on add powerful back lights and a high contrast panel technology so you can see what's happening on the screen even in bright sunlight and you got yourself a laptop that can go pretty much anywhere you can sounds great rugged laptops for all okay hold on a second ruggedized laptops do have some common issues a big Achilles heel is IO although ports can be protected with tight ceiling covers or plugs they are still a potential point of ingress for outside contaminants especially when you open them up to use them and while some manufacturers have somewhat mitigated this problem by keeping the i/o electronics in a separate chamber from the main housing kind of like our fan example earlier this still means that your ports can be damaged in harsh conditions even if the rest of the system stays usable and unsurprisingly all this ruggedness can come at quite a cost especially for fully rugged military-grade models which can go for over $10,000 each and that's without the latest core i7 and sli graphics cards but with all of that said if 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