MrDudeMan, please accept my apologies if you took offense at my note. It was worded a bit harshly, though I do not believe it was nearly as offensive as you interpreted it. That said, I believe that you have seriously overreacted. In particular, I would like to point out that I never used the word "stupid" - that is your word that you are putting in my mouth. Even when my private reaction would be to flame someone to a crisp, I normally try very hard to keep ad hominem attacks and such out of public forums because such behavior is to nobody's benefit.
I did however tell you that you needed to rethink your expectations, and that comment I stand by. It happens sometimes that you're given a problem that's not solvable. If this is your customer, then in an odd way, that makes things easier. Tell him: "no bid." It's as easy as that. Really. If your customer asks you to solve a problem within a cost constraint that can't be met, just tell him, sorry, you can't do that. If you try to solve a problem that can't be solved with the constraints you're given, knowing that you can't really solve it, you're going to do at best a poor job, and that's going to reflect poorly on you. There's no winning for you in that. It's been my experience that most customers will respect you a lot more for saying you can't do a good job within the constraints you're being given and explain to them why than to try to do a bad job - and those customers who get upset at such a response are the unreasonable ones you don't want to deal with anyway.
If you really want to do a poor job, I told you how - just get something expendable and plan on replacing it. It's obvious to everyone that this is a bad solution, but if you don't have any real other option than solving the problem badly and you insist on moving forward, then there's one simple bad solution. It might not be all that bad, oddly enough... a cheap SOHO switch is mostly a one-chip piece of equipment these days, and while not rated to handle extreme temperatures, the unit itself just might last through conditions way outside spec (if it's mostly one big chip, there's not all that much to fail). The power brick is likely to die first. Now, if you'll recall for a moment your comment about needing to get power up to this attic - if you can find a SOHO switch that can use power over Ethernet (try the 3Com NetJack) units, you could use that to move the power brick into the temperature controlled part of the house. (umm, while you're at it... see if the NJ can just solve the customer's problem...)
Equipment that is ruggedized for reasonably extreme temperatures is going to be data center (e.g., NEBS) or military grade. Both of those terms raise the cost a lot more than $60 just being printed on the label (NEBS especially!). Your customer's expectations for a solution rated to tolerate extreme temperatures can be satisfied, but it's going to require a serious cost premium. It's not a mass-market SOHO product, it's a specialty market product, and it's going to be priced accordingly. $60 is not even close to a realistic cost expectation for the requirement here. The products I can think of off the top of my head that I truly believe could handle this kind of temperature will cost more than $60 just for shipping.
Facebook
Twitter