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rugged laptop/high altitudes CWShannon 05-22-2006
Posted by CWShannon on May 22, 2006, 12:15 pm
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 Does anyone have any experience using a rugged laptop at 30,000ft? The
laptop will be in the back of a military aircraft sometimes flying
unpressurized at 30,000ft. One issue that I've found a solution to is
the hard drive heads crashing into the platters in the very low air
density. A Colorodo company named Mountain Optech makes hermetically
sealed hard drives that can operate at up to 50,000ft.

The other potential problem is the LCD display. Will it work at
30,000ft? I'm not sure. Panasonic and Amrel specs all specify
MIL-STD-810F which calls for the equipment to operate at 15,000ft.
They didn't test the laptops for higher altitudes, but I'm just curious
if anyone has experience using a laptop (or any device with an LCD
display) at high altitudes.


Posted by eM eL on May 22, 2006, 2:38 pm
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> Does anyone have any experience using a rugged laptop at 30,000ft? The
> laptop will be in the back of a military aircraft sometimes flying
> unpressurized at 30,000ft.

At 30 000 unpressurized..? Cold (~ -50F) may be a problem in addition to
the
(low) atmospheric pressure. IMO you'll need military spec on everything -
display, drives, electrical connections (inherently safe..?) FWIW my
off-the shelf ThinkPad worked just fine on top of Mt. Evans in Colorado
(14K) but the temps were only around freezing (it was August.)

--
><eM eL><




Posted by Chris on May 22, 2006, 4:15 pm
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Yeah, it has to work at 30,000ft unpressurized. It will be cold but
this section of the aircraft will have heat pumping in...and humans
operating the equipment. All of the equipment is MIL spec, but MIL
spec in this case is MIL-STD-810F which doesn't happen to be good
enough as far as altitude is concerned. The temperature concern is
still a good point. I just never thought to inquire about it because I
assumed it would be kept realativly warm for the operators....I will
have to bring that up and see if it causes any additional issues.


Posted by zwsdotcom on May 22, 2006, 4:38 pm
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Chris wrote:
> Yeah, it has to work at 30,000ft unpressurized. It will be cold but
> this section of the aircraft will have heat pumping in...and humans

Another issue with altitude is that the circuits may need conformal
coating. As pressure decreases, it becomes easier for plasma to form.
I'm thinking in particular of the circuitry around the inverter here -
the spacing between pins of the HV output may not be enough to prevent
arcing at low pressure. I don't know enough about the empirical numbers
to know if this will be a problem for you, though.


Posted by Barry Watzman on May 22, 2006, 6:01 pm
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As you note, hard drive won't work under those conditions; hard drives
require airflow to keep the head "flying" over the platters. At 30,000
ft., the air pressure is very, very low ... too low for operation.

I'm not aware of any reason why an LCD panel would be particularly
sensitive to pressure. Aircraft with "glass panels" (displays instead
of real instruments) have LCDs and have to be able to operate in a
depressurized cabin environment.


CWShannon@gmail.com wrote:

> Does anyone have any experience using a rugged laptop at 30,000ft? The
> laptop will be in the back of a military aircraft sometimes flying
> unpressurized at 30,000ft. One issue that I've found a solution to is
> the hard drive heads crashing into the platters in the very low air
> density. A Colorodo company named Mountain Optech makes hermetically
> sealed hard drives that can operate at up to 50,000ft.
>
> The other potential problem is the LCD display. Will it work at
> 30,000ft? I'm not sure. Panasonic and Amrel specs all specify
> MIL-STD-810F which calls for the equipment to operate at 15,000ft.
> They didn't test the laptops for higher altitudes, but I'm just curious
> if anyone has experience using a laptop (or any device with an LCD
> display) at high altitudes.
>

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