Advice about laptop for our boat

[TonyMills]

Solid State Electronics

Hi, I selected the Dell Mini9 Netbook because it is completely solid state. Admittedly only 16Gig + 1Gig memory, but I doubled that with a 16Gig SD card. I picked solid state because I wanted it as my main navigation and internet communications and wanted to limit what could go wrong as well has extend the battery capability.

It all works well. I run SOB chart plotting with C-Map covering all Australia. Into this is connected a GPS to give position and an AIS receiver. Using a USB dongle I can also get internet access when in range. My next challenge is to connect the VHF(DSC) into the machine.

I've been running it for over 12 months powered off the house batteries with no problems so far (the initial set-up was cumbersome).

When not in use for navigation I have installed the MS Office products as well as Apple iTunes for my iPod.

Regards
Tony

 

[DipperToo]

Some very good ideas here - I am in the process of interfacing a notebook to my electronics (Raymarine) and wonder if anyone has first hand experience of th USB to RS232 adapters?

Searching the internet brings up many opinions of those which do not work well and others that 'may' work. I have yet to find anyone who has actual first hand experience. Prices seem to range from less than £5 to over £50, and very few claim Windows 7 support. (But Vista drivers may work).

Unfortunately Raymarine only seem to have a 'box' which takes Seatalk in/out, RS232 for the output to a PC and NMEA in for signals from the PC. This is already installed so just need to know about the Adapters.

This thread seems better than starting a new one as it is relevant to on-board PCs.

 

[ianj99]

I think a laptop might be useful on our boat, not necessarily for navigation (we have a chart plotter) but for wifi connection for met information/keeping in touch, etc, entertainment (for the younger ones); would like to keep the whole thing as simple as possible and not too expensive. If anyone out there has experience of using a computer on board for this kind of usage I would be grateful if they could pass on any experience they can remember. Is there any particular aspect that makes Marina wifi different from normal house-hold usage? The boat (28 foot)is used for sailing along the South and East coasts of UK. Thank you.

I am very pleased with the £500 Samsung full hd wide screen R610 I bought from Argos a few months ago. It plays Bluray dvds faultlessly, the spec and performance is good and it has built in wifi. The only criticism I have is of the very weedy sound quality but I use headphones so not a problem in practice.

I also have a £275 Acer 10" mini laptop which, using Navmon (a free download) I intend to use as a repeater for the plotter. (Just needed a USB to serial adaptor (£15) and a cable to connect this to the nema out on the plotter)

http://www.navmonpc.com/

I

 

[AngusMcDoon]

The netbooks are a curious product, I ve concluded. The one big point is portability..

...and battery life,
...and power consumption,
...and cost...

but its not that hard to find space for a laptop

It may not be a problem to find the space, power and funds for a full size laptop for your boat, but there are people aplenty with less space than on your Windy for whom a netbook is just perfect.

 

[AngusMcDoon]

Some very good ideas here - I am in the process of interfacing a notebook to my electronics (Raymarine) and wonder if anyone has first hand experience of th USB to RS232 adapters?

I have 2. They both work fine, on XP and Vista. Never tried on W7. They both have the Prolific chipset in them. Cheapos from Ebay.

The only disadvantage is that the COM port that they appear as changes if you use a different USB socket on your computer, but apart from that they seem to do exactly as expected. My AIS signal comes in via one of these from my VHF radio and is read and plotted by OpenCPN.

 

[AngusMcDoon]

The advantage of a laptop vs netbook is that a laptop can play DVDs -

£30 solves that problem...

http://www.qubz.co.uk/?i=36

an earlier quote...
but don't expect the graphics card to be of blistering performance - it won't be good at displaying movies .... mine isn't!

My Samsung NC10 with external DVD plays movies fine. Sound is a bit weedy, so I connect a cable from my NC10 to my stereo which has a line in and play the sound through the stereo's peakers.

 

[southerly]

reflections

Please check out prior buying if screen of subject machine reduces reflections. Otherwise navigation get's difficult in sun light.

As far as I know only EEE PC and Samsung machines have these screens.

 

[smartcom]

Hi,
Of the many I've worked with over the years, the USB/RS232 converter from Maplin works well and is reasonably priced. I'm not sure about Windows 7 support, but in general any Vista compatible devices should work on Vista. The only thing to watch is that with Vista a lot more people are going 64 bit, and it is more important to check that it supports 64 bit Vista/7 rather than 7 per se. 64 bit XP is a very different beast, and not relevant.
Tim

 

[LORDNELSON]

Laptop for our boat

Many thanks every one! I shall have to think about all this!

 

[Seven Spades]

Get a Mac book. You can install Windows if you need it so you can use the best of both. The main benefit is that you will have a very reliable OS that you kids won't be able to muck up. You won't get viruses and everything "just works".