An ideal Computer for a Yacht, One for the IT lads!

poter

poter

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Following on from Trouville's post regarding a Yacht laptop!

With the wealth of IT talent on the forum, can we get a recommendation for an onboard computer?
Or even some entrepreneur, or a group of, to put one together & flog it to the rest of us?

I assume all would want similar specs. (but open to suggestions)

1/ Cost effective (say a budget of around £500 for the hardware)
2/ Very low electricity draw.
3/ A basic operating system.
4/ basic progs. for comms, tides, chartplotter, etc.(ok these to be paid for &
added by user not included in the hardware cost)
5/ Water resistant
6/ Internet & wireless capable, also an external aerial if required?
7/ An external plug in hard disk (data)
8/ Very small footprint

What do the IT specialists think???
is it even possible /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

poter
 
The Panasonic TOUGHBOOK should do everything you want.

We have had one (CF-28 older model) for several years now, never any problem whatsoever.

1. Wireless capable
2. Waterproof (if it has been on deck I hose it down to get rid of any salt)
3. Shockproof (been drooped frequently)
4. Touchscreen
5. USB & infrared port

Only (major) drawback - they are not cheap. You might want to look for them on eBay.
Having said that - I have taken it with me to Afghanistan & Basra and it has not let me down once.
 
KISS computer, a Christmas prezzie from the IT lads....

pen_and_notepad.jpg
 
Yanita

Just looked on Ebay & there are some toughbooks CF28, for around £750 second hand so not too bad but still outside what I would spend on an onboard computer.
I was also thinking of a more permanent setup with a removable hard disk only, not a laptop, primarily to keep the cost down.

poter
 
the biggest problem with a sub £500 price tag is the monitor, for that kind of money you will not get a water resistant screen, building the actual PC is a doddle and a reasonable spec pc can be built for a couple of hundred pounds, but then comes the monitor. Many people just use normal lcd/tft monitors for this, which many have found to be perfectly up to the job, as long as you remember that any kind of guarentee/warentee would be pretty much null and void if you use it in a marine environment since they are not designed to be used in one, but then the initial £150 layout may be worth it even if you do have to replace it due to water damage, you would need to replace it several times before the cost of a fully ip67 rated monitor.

It is certainly possible to build a machine for less than £500
 
Many have tried this for the average yacht. Main problem is a decent screen and most of us agree that the best bet is a second-hand laptop is the answer. Cost is £200 - £300 and does the job well. Not really to be used out in a wet cockpit though. If you need a cockpit system then go for a decent chartplotter that is built for the job, doesnt have the versatility of a PC but does the job.
 
Have been looking at these mini-ITX systems - seems like it is possible to get fanless mother boards in closed case (better than a "normal" case anyway). Power consumption seems to be pretty low too. The screen is always going to be the tricky bit - not a such a major concern for me as I wouldn't even try to mount anywhere in the cockpit. Have seen a cute 7" TFT screen - OK, small (so some of you are asking why bother?) but must have lower power consumption. If you're going to make a PC an integeral part of your boat setup I would think that keeping power cosumption low is number one priority.

Jeff.
 
What about a new plam life PDA with 6giga HHD £200 wi-fi bluetooth etc or

Dell v5 flash memory less expensive but VGA out ?

Or better a mini ITX whatever that is? small keyboard (apple size) and video out to a 7 inch screen on a DVD/TV player small very low power consumption.

The palm and Dell look good when a larger screen/keyboard can be used aboard,easy to water & humidity proof fast 634 proccessor and the PDA can be slipped in the pocket and taken to the cafe to surf/skype

Whats really needed is a scuttlebut operating system that will work with all sites. PDAs (unless the latest OS has caught up) cant accsses say yahoo or GO.com they all say up grade your browser!!!

Otherwise a PDA with larger screen and keyboard would be a perfect boating companion and or back up??
 
Well, we've had Dell laptops on board for over ten years now, much of the time full time cruising and including Atlantic crossings. The two current ones have a 14" and widescreen 15.4" (Ultra high definition/Centrino) and provide everything we need from entertainment to Wefaxes/navigation.

Never had a problem of any description. That's good enough for us!
 
Re: £199.00 Toughbook or try Toughbook search on Ebay ...

Some of the older ones are 99 quid Buy it Now .... with the smaller footprint / screen at 12" .....

plus of course all the bigger ones are there as well.
 
Cutting it down to size - not high tech.

Ok maybe we are getting somewhere close.

The basic idea is really for log book/word processing & coms not overly concerned about chartplotting, a nice to have but not essential.
Entertainment - these days can be provided by stand alone DVD players, they seem to be good value, especially in the sales.

Coms/wireless connections would be really important & that may mean an external antenna.
Screen - not really that bothered about size the smaller the better I assume for power consumption?

I agree with Aeolus keep the cockpit clear of "Bits" - oldfashioned, maybe but I like a cockpit with just the essentials, & maybe a handheld GPS.

Woofy's "KISS" is a reasonable way to sail as well. /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

poter
 
Re: £199.00 Toughbook or try Toughbook search on Ebay ...

It depends on which chartplotting software you want to run as to how efficient the older models will be.
Processor speed will be less important than memory.
If you want to use Seaclear, Maptech or even C-mapECS then they will run fairly happily on a 266 with 128MB or maybe a bit less memory.
Bear in mind that the BIOS in older machines had an upper limit of memory, in a lot of cases 128/160/192MB max.
So if you want to run Maxsea or a similar "Windows" based program, where every display aspect even including the toolbar is a separate open window, then you will soon run out of useable memory, and even the processor will struggle to keep up.
This really needs a minimum of 256MB if you want more than one chart window open plus all the other displays open at the same time.
So really a note of caution, find your software first, check out the manufacturers minimum machine spec, and buy accordingly.
Dont just buy an old machine and expect it to run the Latest Admiral 8 software with all the Marpa and AIS add-ons, networking.. etc, 'cos you will be disappointed.
However for just simple raster and earlier vector chartplotting then an older Toughbook will be OK.

On the subject of waterproofing a monitor for cockpit use, this is more than possible, using canvas same as your covers are made of and a plastic screen same material as windows in covers.
SWMBO made ours, knocked it up in about half an hour on the sewing machine.
It pulls down over the monitor from above like a glove. Venting is not a huge issue with LCD screens, as they will vent adequately through the canvas.
The big issue is daylight visibility which still hasnt been cracked in cheap monitors that we can afford, but that said they are getting better all the time.
Some of the latest Combined TV/VGA domestic units now have a visibility rating of 450 or 500 l/m2 which is well on the way to the 800 that is considered daylight viewable.


Steve
 
Re: £199.00 Toughbook or try Toughbook search on Ebay ...

we lost sight of the point. Low energy say max 1amp 12v then increase in power for the screen size increase alone asy +3amps thats way less than a laptop or toughgh book draws

Used for transfers say data to an external HHD able to load applications but respecting the basic needs of fast start OS that loads all sites and ale to wi-fi and bluetooth for about £200

Peter poter you haven replied to my question about Port Napolian.Please do
 
Re: £199.00 Toughbook or try Toughbook search on Ebay ...

I suppose it is more of a problem in a sailboat, but I have a cruiser with a dry cabin and an ordinary laptop works just fine. Mine is a Hewlett-Packard that I paid $850 USD for (about 567 pounds). It has a very bright display that I can read in sunlight. My navigation application is Fugawi ENC, a very good buy for the price.
 
Ok onto specs ...

I have had near all chart software pass across my desk as the originator of GPS Nav group ... in various forms ...

I have tried them out on following machines :

Celeron 300 .... slow but worked.
Celeron 550 / 600 .... near same but worked
Celeron 1000 .. again similar.
All above with average 128mb memory - with trial 256mb later. Little difference to be honest.

PII with 192mb ..... fine

AMD Sempron and others - fine, 256Mb and more.

Conclusion ..... Maxsea, Seapro, Maptech, Seaclear, Fugawi ran on ALL the above and provided reasonable service. It was not noticed so much any speed difference on loading next chart or updating. The visible time was on initial start up of the application. Once loaded - worked ok.
Let's be honest - not many are going to want to run Office or other intensive processor applications - which also hog system resources even when not in use ... so the spec reduces ....IMHO and observation of above. Therefore generally available middle of road machines will do the job ... IMHO.

Actual machines used :

Siemens Scenic 5
Maxdata 350M
IBM 600E
Acer Aspire 1362
HP Celeron 600
Dell Celeron 550
ITX
as examples .....

Best for me was IBM 600E ...... reasonably small footprint, clear screen, relatively tough and cheap .... installed XP and charting software ... after removing all other high end applications. That meant plenty of paging space available on HDD as well as the 192mb of memory.
 
Re: Ok onto specs ...

Nigel.

£120 for the IBM (ebay price)
Then my £500 is not looking too unreasonable for an onboard system, it looks like the hardware is available but I do want comms, to me that is the important bit, & a non memory hungry word processing package, but what spec & what hardware for the comms, is it memory hungry? do I need a powerfull processor? what VDU
& of course all this needs to be on a 12V boat circuit.

poter
 
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