Analysis
Fanless in-vehicle PC
NEXCOM has developed a fanless Transportation PC. Based on a compact design, the NICE 3300 fan-less transport PC is said to be resistant to shock and vibration, can operate in extreme temperatures and is equipped with a variety of built-in I/O ports and an internal GPS/GSM/GPRS communication module. These features make the e-marked NICE 3300 ideal for integration into a wide variety of applications within buses, utility vehicles, trucks, police cars, taxi cabs, limousines, marine, aviation, trains, and much more.
The The NICE 3300 transport PC has passed e-Mark Certification, a requirement for any components or electronic devices used with-in a vehicle in Europe. The e-Mark certification ensures the NICE 3300 transport PC meets regulations on emissions and immunity requirement; hence the NICE 3300 does not interfere with the safety and reliability of today's increasingly complex vehicles, trains and marine vessels.
The x86 based NICE 3300 transport PC is compatible with Win XP/XPe/2000 as well as Win CE and Linux. In addition, most PC compatible hardware and software will also work with the NICE 3300 system.
The NICE 3300 system has a build-in power ignition control that enables it to adapt to various power supply conditions in transportation environment. The user can control and manage the system's power with 5 different time delay settings, for instance the NICE 3300 system can be configured to boot with engine ignition, to continue operation after the engine has been turned off, or even switch to optional power source from back-up battery and more.
With well-protected HDD and fixed components, the NICE 3300 transport PC has high vibration and shock tolerance for use within most transport applications. An optional vibration protection bracket is available for even tougher environments.
For power failure protection, the system automatically back ups all un-finished transactions, or data is transmitted to NVRAM. When the power is restored, the NICE 3300 transport PC will continue to process un-finished transactions and can transmit data that has been saved in NVRAM. This feature avoids data loss or duplicated transactions.
The NICE 3300 transport PC has a space provided for an optional GPS/GSM/GPRS function board this is designed to facilitate GPS navigation and data/voice communications. On the function board, the Siemens MC55 module is used for GSM/GPRS applications whilst the Ublox LEA-4S module is utilised within GPS applications. Since the GPS/GSM/GPRS function board is an off-the-shelf product, users can implement the navigation and real-time voice & data communication applications with ease, and without the requirement for additional H/W design.
The NICE 3300 transport PC supports LVDS (Primary) and VGA (Secondary) video outputs with dual independent display function. To enhance the integration with the touch-screen monitor, NEXCOM has a proprietary LVDS connector to integrate the USB signal for touch-screen controller, LVDS signal and 12 VDC into one connector.