DFI AL173-CT-E3930 Dual-Core Intel Atom x5-E3930 Mini-ITX Embedded Motherboard with 15 to 36 V DC Input and -40 to 85 °C

A gateway on a service vehicle, in a rail-side cabinet or at a pumping station has two awkward constraints: a 24 V supply rather than mains, and temperatures well outside an office range. The AL173-CT-E3930 is the low-power extended temperature build in the DFI AL173 series of Mini-ITX embedded motherboards, with a 15 to 36 V DC input and a -40 to 85 °C rating.

The Intel Atom x5-E3930 (Apollo Lake) has two cores at 1.3 GHz, bursting to 1.8 GHz, within a 6.5 W TDP, the lowest heat output of the extended temperature builds. It suits protocol conversion, data buffering and remote access. Two DDR3L 1866 MHz SO-DIMM slots take up to 8 GB. Intel HD Graphics still drives three independent displays from VGA, DP++ at up to 4K 60 Hz, dual-channel LVDS and eDP connectors, which helps when a local service screen is needed.

Six COM ports on internal headers (two RS-232/422/485 and four RS-232) and 8-bit DIO connect meters, sensors and relays. Two GbE ports on Intel I211IT and I210IT controllers separate the field network from the uplink. An M.2 B-key (2242/2280) with PCIe, SATA and USB signals takes a cellular module, and full-size Mini PCIe takes Wi-Fi. Four rear USB 3.0 ports, five internal USB 2.0 connections, two SATA 3.0 ports and a PCIe x1 Gen2 slot complete the I/O.

The AL173-CT-E3930 runs from 15 to 36 V DC on a barrel connector or 4-pin header and operates fanless across -40 to 85 °C, with CE, FCC, RoHS and UL compliance and a watchdog programmable from 1 to 255 seconds. For a display-heavy vehicle HMI, AL173-CT-E3950 doubles the cores at 12 W with the same rating. For indoor 24 V machines, AL173-CB-N4200 offers four cores at 6 W from 0 to 60 °C.