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Anyone ever try building an outdoor PC?

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N

notfred

Lifer
I'm thinknig of building a PC that would be set up to run outdoors. It'd be plugged into an outlet outside, and it would be subject to the weather.

It would be locatted in California where temperatures would almost never drop below freezing, and it'd rearely get hotter than 90 degrees (it'd be in the shade).

The main problem is with rain. The machine needs to be waterproof enough to keep it running, but still have a certain amount of ventilation.
 
Impossible without enclosing the whole system which defeats the point. You don't want to risk water traversing any cables to sockets or anything.

Turn your monitor to face the window....get a wireless mouse and keyboard and take it outside and look in when the weather is nice.
 
I agree, the bigscreen in the window solution with wireless keyboard and mouse is the way to go. :thumbsup:

Cheers! :beer:
 
I suppose it could work if you made the unit sealed except for the intake fans (which would have to use filters), you made sure the cables would have a drop in them so any water that got on the cables wouldn't be able to use a gravity feed to your pc, you made a stand about 3-4feet off the ground to prevent rain from boucing up from the ground, and you had a large awining to make sure rain in heavy wind wouldn't get on your equipment, as well as having some sort of enclosure to house it in when not in use, (that would seal up tight enough to keep out bugs/dust/etc.) Personally I'd just get a laptop and take it outside when you want to go outside. but I like things simple.
 
You'd spend less money and have a much more reliable system using a laptop. I could work something out for you but it would be VERY expencive to make sure it was sealed like it should be and you would have to use a water setup to cool it adequately. I'm not sure what ambients you are working with, but it would be ever so simple to buy a laptop.

You could run a duct from your basement out to the box, however you'd have to turn it off during winter so heat wouldn't get to it 🙁
 
I think you guys may be over-engineering this a bit. I live in northern california. The machine wouldn't be subject to hurricanes or blizzards. It doesn't need to be 4 ft high off the ground to aviod rain water richocheting off the ground and destroying it.

There's absolutely no reason I'd need water cooling for an outdoor PC in northern california.

The purpose of this machine is to be used as a sort of wi-fi relay station, it doesn't need a monitor or keyboard or anything, just a box w/ a power cord and an antenna or two.
 
Why don't you use commercially available stand-alone products for your project? They'd be more reliable and may be even cheaper. What are you trying to do, extend a wireless network? Be the bridge between two distant locations? Either buy a commercially available repeater or make your own from two access points. You can get access points that can accept external antennas. Make a small enclosure to keep rain off, run power to the two APs and use a crossover cable between them. You can potentially have a small shoebox sized enclosure with two high-gain directional antennas on each side, then mount it to a pole and run power to it. Done deal.
 
you could build a box/sealed room for it outside - that way you could open the hatch and use it or put antennas on the roof or whatever you want. decorate it with flowers and plant grass on it (jk)
 
If you keep your computer outside it would benefit from natural water cooling on rainy days though.Just think about the overclocking potential 😉
 
Be sure to put fine mesh over all case openings big enough for a bug to fly/crawl through, or you'll be cleaning ground up bug gunk out of your power supply some day. Or dealing with a nest of hornets. :Q
 
get a low power system that runs entirely passively. probably something not much more powerful then a pocket pc if they make something like that. needs total sealing to prevent condensation.
 
Originally posted by: Zap
Why don't you use commercially available stand-alone products for your project? They'd be more reliable and may be even cheaper. What are you trying to do, extend a wireless network? Be the bridge between two distant locations? Either buy a commercially available repeater or make your own from two access points. You can get access points that can accept external antennas. Make a small enclosure to keep rain off, run power to the two APs and use a crossover cable between them. You can potentially have a small shoebox sized enclosure with two high-gain directional antennas on each side, then mount it to a pole and run power to it. Done deal.
Click to expand...
 
I am also interested in building an outdoor pc and I live in Florida. The conclusions I've come to is that I'd have to build some sort of box with air conditioner.

Another way I've just found out about is using mineral oil to cool the pc. Wouldn't this be perfect for an outdoor pc? Maybe not perfect, but it would protect it from humidity at least, and maybe keep it cool enough.

Would like to hear any of your thoughts.

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