Laptop and nav stuff

[neilmcc]

Seriously considering buying a laptop etc to use for nav etc. I guess some of you will already use computers aboard and can maybe help with these questions. I have a Lowrance chartplotter, NASA wind, depth, speed and GPS repeater.

Can I connect all of this together to show on laptop?
What hardware and software will I need?
I have Navionics Gold on the plotter.

 

[orizaba]

all things are possible but first consider the amount of power a laptop uses,its ok with the engine running but they draw around 3+ amps which is alot if you are sailing,it all sounds a good idea but. there are a few things you can do to lessen the power use on a laptop
remove the battery i assume you will run it on an invertor
delete an amount of the fonts you don't need anywhere near all the ones loaded,
stop or disable as many programs running in the background that you don't need.
i found that the battery and fonts saved me just over 1a but still thought 2+ was alot.
it does depend as i said before on size of battery bank,charging ability etc

 

[neilmcc]

I have an 85ah battery for the engine and a 110ah for all the other stuff, I guess the laptop would run off the 110.

 

[orizaba]

going by your details i assume you have a sailing boat IMHO,a110 a battery would be to small to run a laptop for any amount of time.Iits only going to have about 85 a of usable power,you can only really discharge it to 50% which is abou 55a, that leaves you about 25a ,assuming the laptop draws 3a that gives you 10 hrs but you will use more than 3a as the invertor will draw an amount plus anything else you may have on,
i reckon you would get about 6 -8hrs use to be on the safe side.maybe less depending on the drain from the instruments allready hooked up.sorry if this seems a bit negative but laptops are power hungry beasts, but its better to work the logistics of power out before the hooking up of everything.

 

[Hoolie]

Not sure what your laptop will do but on our on-board system most of the power is used by the display so we set its stand-by time to 2 mins. If you can turn the screen off but let the processor continue you'll get longer battery life, as I imagine you'll be spending more time on deck than in front of the screen!

 

[charles_reed]

Yes

it's fairly easy to (with MaxSea software).

I used to do it when I had a laptop with a serial port, but it wasn't much use for serious navigation - nice game to play though.

Pretty sure NASA gear will read/output NMEA 0183 info.

If you want I've probably got the wiring diagram somewhere.

 

[charles_reed]

I\'ve

got 400ah and just resusticated an old Dell (running on Linux 2.13 core) 'cos it runs for 12-14 hours on it's 2 Li-ion batteries, where it only used to do 6 with Win2000.

Forget real-time navigation on a laptop PC, they're too unreliable, power-hungry and fragile.

Oh! the latest flavours of Linux do everything that Microsoft claim for Vista and are still trying (and failing) to deliver.

Look at all the IT pros putting their networks back onto XP.

 

[captainslarty]

Hi
You could get the wind depth speed and position data on the laptop with either a custom program or something like maxsea, the output from the lowrance is another thing, yes, you can get nmea 183 out of it, but youcant, for instance, display the charts directly from it, you could use a program like pc plotter to run the charts (presuming navionics), but there isnt an output as such for chart data (unless you have some version I am totally unfamiliar with)

 

[ThereAndBack]

I run my onboard laptop from a power converter I bought on eBay for about £18 (delivered). It plugs into a 12v socket and has a variable output setting. It produces 15v to run the laptop with no problem.

I am not an elecrtonics expert but it seemed a better idea to change 12v DC to 15v DC than to use an inverter to change 12v DC to 240v AC and then a power pack to bring it back down to 15v DC.

Perhaps someone more knowledgeable will correct me if I am wrong about this, but it works well for me.

Alan

 

[captainslarty]

In theory yea, however, the quality and stability of a lot of these devices is questionable. I prefer to use the laptop mains supply via an inverter. However, these small dc to dc converters can be good, just that unless you know (for instance one from the computer manufacturer ) then as said, quality can be dubious. ALso, a lot of these are designed to work on standard car charging and running voltages, some I have seen even say unplug before starting the engine, the charging voltage on most boats is higher, hence the performance of the adapter can move into unknown areas..

Hope that helps

 

[charles_reed]

I fear your information

is possibly out of date.

These transformer produce extremely clean DC power, ranging from 9-24volts on a variable output.

They're almost 100% efficient, unlike an invertor (frequently producing square sine wave) and the standard laptop charger which struggle to achieve 75% efficiency.

I've used solid state transformers for about 9 years now, though I do have a Belkin 240-watt dc-ac invertor (which produces clean power) for those devices which won't operate on solid state (USB hub and external HDD) - they're in frequently used unless I'm on shorepower when the invertor is no longer required.

 

[captainslarty]

Re: I fear your information

Hi Charles
The problem is more of the make or one from a dubious source, they can be very good, some very bad, the poster said he bought one from ebay, some stuff great, some not. Personally I wouldnt trust my 3000 euro Dell with such a device. I would rather use my inverter which is pure sine wave (Studer) to the OEM SMPS.
Efficienciy is not my concern here, it is one of cost and quality ref the cost of the laptop and the inconvenience of problems.
You pays yer money etc. Mind you, I have and never will advocate buying a cheap inverter either.
Joe

 

[orizaba]

Re: I fear your information

have to agree with the captain re the12v transformers,have found that though ,you set the level at 15v you may get more i,always check with a multimeter first ,most things will run below nominal voltage safelybut alot don't like overvoltage,.the worst transformer/regulators are the ones that are adjutable and plug into a lighter socket the ones that step 12v down,set them to 6v and you will probably get 7+
not all though ,guess to a degree you get what you pay for ..i bought an invertor from maplins and when i read the instructions it said it shouldn't be used with the engine running,hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
it does pay to check these things as if you get it wrong it can be very expensive.some one once said a multimeter is one of the most usefull thing to have on a boat,i'd be lost without mine.(gps packed up had to do some quick fault finding)

 

[testmonkey]

to run nav software in a boat a laptop is not a good solution. Why not get something like this thin client , i.e. a low power fanless thin client, throw in a hard disk, DC-DC converter and nav software. Build the thin client somewhere inside chart table away from water spray, get a waterproof rollable keyboard, and build a dedicated display into a bulkhead. This solution has lower power consumption, will function even after you get a bucketful of water thrown inside, and looks professional. Quite possible that the cost is lower than a laptop as well. A laptop is always on the way as the keyboard and display are tied together.

 

[Danny]

I don't think an inverter is a good idea for running a laptop on a boat. It's very inefficient because you're doing two power convertions: 12v up to 240v via the inverter - and then 240 v down to 15<>20v (they vary a bit) via the laptop mains psu.

A better way is to use a car adapter - either oem or from the laptop manufacturer. I have several of these from various manufacturers and mine have all been 100% reliable used in boats and cars over the last 10 years.

As far as conserving power is concerned look at setting up a suitable power scheme on your laptop to switch off the screen and hard drive after a short period of inactivity. Also think about using sleep and standby modes where appropriate.

Running w/o the laptop battery is a good idea if your laptop is happy doing this. The problem with doing this is that you loose the "UPS" characteristic inherent in a laptop's design. Some laptops will even run directly from 12v but I don't think I'd recommend this.

Laptops do consume a lot of power but surely on a long trip you wouldn't need the laptop to be on all the time - not for navigation purposes anyway.

 

[fishermantwo]

[ QUOTE ]
Seriously considering buying a laptop etc to use for nav etc. I guess some of you will already use computers aboard and can maybe help with these questions. I have a Lowrance chartplotter, NASA wind, depth, speed and GPS repeater.

Can I connect all of this together to show on laptop?
What hardware and software will I need?
I have Navionics Gold on the plotter.

[/ QUOTE ]

I use an ordinary household PC loaded with Seaclear on my fishing vessel, I have lots of electricity. The GPS this uses is a usb plug in unit off Ebay. 23 channels and cost about $120. Its works superb. Now of course since the common use of nav systems in cars these GPS units are now about $14 on Ebay. My advice would be to use one of these and keep your unit totally portable and separate from any existing Gps units.

 

[Richard10002]

[ QUOTE ]
Seriously considering buying a laptop etc to use for nav etc. I guess some of you will already use computers aboard and can maybe help with these questions. I have a Lowrance chartplotter, NASA wind, depth, speed and GPS repeater.

Can I connect all of this together to show on laptop?
What hardware and software will I need?
I have Navionics Gold on the plotter.

[/ QUOTE ]

With Navionics Gold on your plotter, and all the other info in front of you, why do you want to repeat it on your laptop, which would have to remain below, in the dry.

I speak from experience as I have the Nauticpath charts in my Lowrance, (which are pretty crap), so I revert to the C-Map setup on my laptop when getting near to port or an anchorage, or whatever. It's a ballsache having to go below to zoom, or reposition the boat, or whatever. It's also a ballsache using all those amps to run the laptop. If I had what you have, (I'm only missing the charts, but it would probably be cheaper to buy a new plotter), I wouldnt bother with Laptop navigation, other than as a project purely for fun.

 

[neilmcc]

Thanks for all of that. I will have a look at Maxsea etc and have a serious look at Linux as an alternative to Windows.
I saw a buffer which claimed to allow NMEA 0183 transfer to a PC is this how it should be connected?
Off to e-bay to see what I can find by way of GPS etc.........

 

[captainslarty]

Hi
Personally wouldnt bother with linux unless you are a drug crazed hippy.....
As for connecting nmea 0183 to a pc, its bascially a serial port connection normally 4800 baud, N.8.1
You can either buy a usb gps - which is a gps connected to a usb serial converter, or, to wire your existing, then get a usb to serial converter (presuming no serial ports on the lappy) and you only need pins 2, 3 and 5
5 is ground, 2 is nmea OUT from your nmea device, 3 is nmea INTO your nmea device
Hope that helps

 

[testmonkey]

[ QUOTE ]
I have a Lowrance chartplotter, NASA wind, depth, speed and GPS repeater.

Can I connect all of this together to show on laptop?


[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry to say but NASA wind, depth and speed instruments don't seem to provide NMEA output, so you can't connect them to your PC.