Low power nav PC

dgadee

dgadee

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Looking for a low power PC box for navigation. This seems appropriate, having wifi and bluetooth:

T1 Fanless Eco PC - http://aleutia.com/t1-fanless-eco-pc

I understand that I might get better performance by putting an ITX together myself, but not sure if I need that performance for navigation purposes.

Cost (without an OS is about £340).

Any views?
 
Toughbook (panasonic); I was advised to buy one (used is cheap) from a guy in computer shop - as fishermen found out the hard way it outlasts any other thing. So I got one, with new system, warranty and extra SD card slot for bit over 200. Power consumption is moderate - no idea how much exactly, depends on what you do anyway, but the processor is 10 watt; newer model is said to be even more economical. It runs on 10,5 V, can be connected direct to DC - though I have no idea if this is "proper way" :confused:
Its 1200 Mhz, 60 disc, extra 40 in card, two years now.
 
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zambant said:
I use an 800Mhz laptop tough book .....cheap 2nd hand on ebay
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I have been using a small notebook but it seems to be using around 4 amps which is fine on a boat with plenty of battery power, but not mine. These low power PCs would substantially reduce power requirement.
 
I use a Toshiba NB200-12N & run it off a 12V to 19V DC-DC converter. It takes 2.5A while the Netbook battery is charging, that drops to under 1A when charged. That's under 12W including the monitor.

Of course it has a standard hard disk drive, but that has an inbuilt accelerometer to detect the bumps and put the drive into a "safe" mode.

I'm using SeaPro Navigator Lite.

I've used it for one season - so far I'm very pleased.
 
fisherman said:
I run Maxsea on this:
http://www.tinygreenpc.com/fit-pc.aspx

the 2i
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The Aleutia looks good more suitable for me - wifi and bluetooth particularly. I want to be able to do work if I am caught up with bad weather (research/wp mainly) and to have a larger screen than the small notebooks which are being suggested. A system box can sit under the chart table, wireless keyboard and mouse on the chart table, and screen fixed on the bulkhead. What more could a man want?
 
The Aleutia looks great, only drawback is that their SSD prices seem a bit high - they have dropped a lot in recent months - and the OS costs also look a bit steep. Otherwise, just about perfect for an on-board PC.
 
JohnGC said:
I use a Toshiba NB200-12N & run it off a 12V to 19V DC-DC converter. It takes 2.5A while the Netbook battery is charging, that drops to under 1A when charged. That's under 12W including the monitor.

Of course it has a standard hard disk drive, but that has an inbuilt accelerometer to detect the bumps and put the drive into a "safe" mode.

I'm using SeaPro Navigator Lite.

I've used it for one season - so far I'm very pleased.
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Netbook are officially almost dead.


"As noted by The Guardian earlier this week, the netbook industry will be winding down in the first quarter of 2013, as major players Asus and Acer will be shutting down production of the tiny notebooks.
Actually, the number sold in 2013 will be very much closer to zero than to 139m. The Taiwanese tech site Digitimes points out that Asus, which kicked off the modern netbook category with its Eee PC in 2007, has announced that it won't make its Eee PC product after today, and that Acer doesn't plan to make any more; which means that "the netbook market will officially end after the two vendors finish digesting their remaining inventories.

Asustek and Acer were the only two companies still making netbooks, with everyone else who had made them (including Samsung, HP and Dell) having shifted to tablets.
The report points to four factors that likely contributed to the demise of the netbook: the overall PC market including the rise of more powerful ultrabooks, the global economy, poor profit margins on netbooks, and the iPad leading a charge of tablets to the market.

Going a bit further, Slate argues that Apple is the primary culprit in the demise of the netbook, with the MacBook Air and iPad squeezing netbooks from both sides and leading to a transformation in personal computing.
Apple alone stood against the tide of netbooks. Apple’s brilliant insight was that despite netbooks’ popularity, nobody really wanted a netbook per se. Instead, Apple realized that people who were buying netbooks were looking for one of two things—they wanted full-fledged laptops that were very portable, or they wanted cheap machines that allowed them to easily surf the Web, use email and do other light computing tasks. Rather than building a single netbook that fit both these audiences poorly, Apple built two machines that were, each in its own way, much better than any netbook ever sold.

Slate's Farhad Manjoo goes on to note that Apple simply couldn't compete in the netbook market given the pricing model, and it had no interest in building an inferior product in an attempt to do so. Steve Jobs himself said at the iPad's introduction in 2010 that netbooks were simply a non-starter for Apple.
If there's going to be a third category of device it is going to have to be better at doing these types of tasks than a laptop or a smartphone; otherwise it has no reason for being. Now, some people have thought 'that's a netbook!' The problem is that netbooks aren't better at anything. They're slow, they have low-quality displays, and they run clunky old PC software. So they're not better than a laptop at anything, they're just cheaper. They are just cheap laptops. And we don't think that they're a third category of device.
With the MacBook Air and iPad emerging as Apple's alternatives the entire computer industry was spurred to follow its lead, ultimately squeezing netbooks out of existence."
 
fishermantwo said:
Looks good but is there a screen to match, 12volt and about 17 inch?
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There have been various suggestions on earlier postings - one mentioning EPOS monitors, but all the ones I see are touch screen. Not sure if I need that, or if the nav software would work with a touch screen anyway. My thoughts were a 12v TV might be found which was suitable.

If you have any suggestions, though, ....
 
Touch screens will work but the last thing I want is wet salty finger marks on my screen. I guess a smart person could cobble up an older laptop screen from a damaged laptop.
 
Hard to aim. We used touchscreen computer, with C-map. The screen was meant to be abused (industrial kind, installed as main navigation plotter) without keyboard or mouse, OK until it got rough... had to connect both as accurate touching was impossible, especially AIS target or point. Not to mention wrong command on menu.
It was mounted on bulkhead vertically, so more problem than when you can put hands on table.
On toughbook it's nice to overturn screen so it's like small tablet or plotter when placed at wheel. But it's small and even more difficult to aim...
 
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fishermantwo said:
Looks good but is there a screen to match, 12volt and about 17 inch?
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I have a Telefunken 17" LED tv which as VGA, video, S-video and normal aerial input and runs directly from 12VDC without and voltage conditioning.

Also available in 19" 22" 24" and 26".

I use it for Computer monitor, Satellite TV, normal TV and Video input from video cameras.

My local supplier

http://www.nuworld.co.za/UploadedFiles/catalogue 2012/TELEFUNKEN CATALOGUE 2012_web.pdf


Also have a look at this for a low power fanless PC

http://www.amazon.com/2-13GHz-Mini-...=1353779445&sr=1-2&keywords=itx_mini+atom+car
 
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Netbook are officially almost dead.
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I hope my trusty Dell Mini-9 won't be dead for many a year! It does everything I want from an on-board computer, power usage is minimal and it takes up very little space. With its solid-state HDD there are no moving parts to fail, and it runs all the software I want.

I thought the article Ex-Solent Boy quoted was rather superficial - no mention of anything running the Android operating system, for example, which is very much giving Apple a run for its money at the moment. For mobile and net-centric computing, there's a plethora of touch-screen tablets on the market which have totally priced netbooks off the scene - although that hasn't stopped Google trying, with its bargain-basement Chrome netbook.
 
fisherman said:
I just use any 12v monitor with the Fit 2, plus keyboard and mouse, my mate uses a trackball.
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I use a Logitec trackball too. Had one on my fishing vessel as well. Mounted so that the water on your gloves drained away, once you use one it would be hard to go without.
Looking at the 12v monitors available now sold for caravans I would say that the Aleutian system, 12volt LED monitor, Logitec trackball and a rubber keyboard would be the ultimate system.
 
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