Recommended hardware

Hi!

Is there any commercial small form factor PC tested and recommended for emc2?
I saw somebody was trying Dell OptiPlex models.
What keyboards and touchpads for industrial use (very dusty) work fine?
What SSD's are recommended? (Samsung Pro 850 or similar?)

The PCs don't need to be new models, just available ones!

Also:
What are the additional cards recommended? (Parallel cards, Mesa, etc.?)

Is touchscreen support available and working?

I came to see if Raspberry has good reviews, but I see that PC's are still the better option.

I have 3 emc2 systems (already 5 years old) running on machines with Ubuntu 8.04, and I want to update the hardware.

Thanks in advance!

Personally i use Dell Optiplex series tower and sff, all of them have a parallel port and they do work on dusty environments for years.
If you can also find older Dell keyboards they are also very good.
I also use strictly Mesa cards, had over 20 of them installed and working without a single issue, ever.
Use the RTAI kernel version of Linuxcnc, most probably you are already using that one.
Any type of SSD will work fine, i use Samsung, Intel, and Adata ( i have an Adata Pro something that does 560MB/s writes). Hard drives also work nicely but they tend to raise the latency a bit.
It is very important to disable Intel speedstep and C0 sleep modes in bios.

I find that off lease HP 8300 USDTs are nice for Ethernet connected cards and can manage a 4 KHz servo thread over Ethernet if you disable the Intel spyware (AMT).

I know that the J1900 based Gigabyte Brix is also ok for Ethernet. Probably newer mini PCs are ok also but i don't have personal experience with them.

If you go USFF, I would look for one with a dual NIC card so you had one for your ethernet Mesa card and one for your network. You can get J1900 ones from Alibaba/AliExpress.

I can confirm the J1900 and N3160 Gigabyte Brix PC's work fine. I have a J1900 on my LinuxCNC machine and writing this on a N3160. Just you can't use the internal wifi card. You need a USB wifi dongle.

Thanks to anyone who gave e suggestions.

IS this one of the units you recommended:
articulo.mercadolibre.com.mx/MLM-6001432...42ghz-_JM?quantity=1

As I see, there is has a mini PCI Express slot. I would have to use it for a parallel card. (What models would fit and work?)

Yes, thats what I use but with a Mesa Ethernet card. I suspect you may run into troubles trying to install a parallel port but you can probably get an adapter cable to break out the tiny expansion card inside to a full size one. I've got no experience with parallel ports and LInuxCNC.

Personally, If I was to run a parallel port, I'd look at the other recommendations.