Acal BFi invites engineers to challenge the new GE Wolverine III PC

Acal BFi - a division of Acal plc (FTSE: ACL) - announces that it is inviting companies operating in hazardous environments, such as oil and gas exploration and drilling, to challenge the next-generation Wolverine III flat-panel computer against their toughest operating conditions. The Acal BFi Demo Challenges will take place at customer locations throughout January-March 2012 and will allow customers to test the Wolverine III's ability to withstand salt, spray, dust, shock, vibration and extremes of temperature. During the challenge customers will also have the opportunity to test the operation of the unit's touch screen which will work even if the operator is wearing thick oil-covered gloves. "If a customer wants to put the Wolverine III in a freezer before using it, or reconstruct blinding desert conditions to test the display, then that is what we will let them do," explains Ian Richards, GE Intelligent Platforms' Franchise Manager at Acal BFi. "We want customers to see how the Wolverine III combines significantly higher performance and reliability, with fast maintenance and a substantially lower weight than previous generations of rugged flat-panel computers." Developed by GE Intelligent Computing Platforms, Wolverine III sets a new benchmark for mean-time-to-repair of just 1.5 hours for on-site replacement of the CPU, display screen, processor or other modules from spares inventory. This significantly reduces down-time by eliminating the need for the unit to be swapped-out for repairs and upgrades which is typically required by other flat-panel computers. The Wolverine III is rated to operate at temperatures down to -40?C (with internal heater) and to withstand salt-water, contaminants, pulse shocks up to 40G and peak random vibrations up to 2G. Competitively priced against other rugged flat-panel computers, this new generation is light enough to be carried by one person allowing easy installation. The Wolverine III is fully approved to Mil-Std-810E, with CE and ATEX Zone 2, NEMA 4X to IP65 approval imminent, and rated to UL 1604, UL50, Type 4, and Class 1, Division 2, Zone 2 and ATEX3 premium system. Customers can book a Demo Challenge of the Wolverine III at: www.acaltechnology.com/landing.php?id=5246 About Acal BFi: Acal BFi is a pan-European technical distributor with specialist skills and in-house services which allow OEMs to minimise time-to-market during concept development, prototyping and manufacturing. Specialist teams help OEMs to create new revenue streams by using emerging technologies in a number of key vertical sectors: wireless machine-to-machine (M2M) networking, defence and aerospace, medical, industrial, telecommunications, offshore and security. A carefully-selected product portfolio combines electronic and photonics components. These include semiconductors and RF & microwave, frequency control and power management components as well as microsystems, electromechanical, interconnect, passive and magnetic devices. The photonics product range features electro-optics, imaging and fibre-optics, optical systems, assemblies and metals. Acal BFi's In-house design, manufacturing and logistics services include an EMC chamber, in-house programming, copper & fibre-optic cable assembly, quick-turn prototype PCB production, CAD and specialist test equipment, as well as logistics services such as VMI (Vendor Managed Inventory), EDI processing, tape and reeling, customer-specific bar-coding, Kan-Ban/ship-to-line, kitting and flexible shipping agreements. www.acaltechnology.com