[thaumaturgy]

Fanless would have been better, but the case will still have some kind of vents for air cooling, and the dust tends to have a static charge -- so eventually it'll still kill the system.

It's not a great environment for people, no. I'd be wearing a dust mask for sure if I worked there. But, a lot of shop guys aren't like that, especially the older ones. They just do their job and don't mind the dust.

[mikepurvis]

FitPC is what you want—sealed, passively cooled enclosure. We use their second-generation Atom machine for robots and it works great. http://www.fit-pc.com/

[dredmorbius]

With a sufficiently low-power system, purely conductive/convective cooling should be sufficient. You'd be looking at a finned enclosure, possibly with a directed airflow over that.

The real problem is providing for ports (power, networking, comms) without penetrating the enclosure. The recent Marianas Trench submersible showed a number of connectors designed for very high pressure environments, something along those lines should be sufficient.

Grounding would deal with static.

[pnathan]

my company makes computers without vents and with ESD protection.