Computer in the shop?

If you are doing it, or planning to do it, I would rig a plastic dust cover of some sort to keep it covered at all times when not in use. Personally, I would not do it at all. The cooling fan will constantly be sucking ambient dust into the machine.

-- Charlie M. "Woodworking - patience = firewood"

I agree with Charlie’s comment. I periodically take the desktop apart to vacuum the fan and interior and it is always loaded with dust, lint, etc. Putting it in a dusty environment would make this worse.

-- Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful- Joshua Marine

There are homemade enclosures with Hepa fiters that people have made for N.C. machines running in woodshops. Google around and I’m sure you could get some plans.

What is an N.C. machine?

I have my netbook there all the time. Just cover it when I’m not using it. No problem so far.

-- Bruce from Central New York...now, if you'll pardon me, I have some sawdust to make.

Numeric or Numerically Controlled. Computer controlled equipment basically.

-- "I like the quiet I hear." - Channing, age 4

We ran them in our small cnc lab in school and didn’t have any issues. All we did was use cheap rubber keyboards, like these http://www.kmart.com/shc/s/p_10151_10104_018W024011470001P?vName=Computers%20&%20Electronics&cName=Desktops&sName=Accessories&sid=KDx20070926x00003a&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=018W024011470001P.

Keep the machine blown out regularly. Should be fine.

We used them in Animal barns for running the feed systems. THAT enviroment was corrosive as well as dusty.
The rubber keyboard is good idea. Just don’t SEAL up the tower, it needs air to cool the inside.
Overheating will cause problems .

-- "My mission in life - make everyone smile !"

It looks like there are some inexpensive solutions out there, like:

http://www.computerdust.com/
http://www.dirtbag.biz/covers/tower.html#ordernow

This may not be a solution for you but this is what i did. i have a large conduit chase between the house and the garage that i ran when i when i did the power in case i needed to run something else out there. so i leave the pc in the house and chased a vga cable and and a few usb extensions out there. so all thats out there is the a monitor, keyboard, and mouse.

-- I buy tools so i can make more money,so ican buy more tools so I can work more, to make more money, so I can buy more tool, so I can work more

Huh! I thought there was some limit on the length of USB and monitor cables (like really short). In my case, the shop is detached and it would be at least 150 feet . . .

I use a terminal that displays a running copy of linux. no moving parts, no viruses.

USB specification limits the length of a cable between full speed devices to 5 meters (a little under 16 feet 5 inches). For a low speed device the limit is 3 meters (9 feet 10 inches). Unless you start daisy chaining hubs together; then you can max it out at about 88 feet. (This is with a maximum of 5 hubs)

There’s a company that makes CPU covers out of a filter material, most run just under $20 that work pretty well with only a minimal temperature increase. Shop Shield

-- Men have become the tools of their tools. - Henry David Thoreau

Builid a box and fit an A/C filter in the back. However, no matter how airtight, there will be dust. Like CharlieM1958, I wouldn’t do it.

For a shop environment I would recommend something like this. I don’t have any personal experience with these, but there are other manufacturers that make fanless pc’s like this that are typically used in automotive applications.

http://www.stealth.com/littlepc_fanless.htm

Bigjoe