Micro PC vs laptop?

We're primarily navigating on an industrial waterproof Android tablet from Samsung. We do have Signal K running on a Raspberry Pi with a waterproof enclosure. Ours was a bit more DIY, but now you can get quite nice marine setups for RPi. For example:

HALPI2 Computer
 
dgadee said:
Agree with all/most this but my old mini pc was 12v. No need for voltage adaptor. Why do you think a usb power input is good?
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My NAS is also 12v but I daren't run it directly off the battery as I'm afraid the 13v or 14v would kill it. Currently running off the inverter, but I guess there are DC-DC voltage regulators so I may try one of those in future.
 
KompetentKrew said:
My NAS is also 12v but I daren't run it directly off the battery as I'm afraid the 13v or 14v would kill it. Currently running off the inverter, but I guess there are DC-DC voltage regulators so I may try one of those in future.
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Get a little Victron DC-DC charger, i use them for 3 different 12V circuits. Don't use cheap and nasty ones for something expensive. But, if the inverter is on anyway, the power saving would be negligible.
 
bergie said:
We're primarily navigating on an industrial waterproof Android tablet from Samsung. We do have Signal K running on a Raspberry Pi with a waterproof enclosure. Ours was a bit more DIY, but now you can get quite nice marine setups for RPi. For example:

HALPI2 Computer
Click to expand...
Nice box! My RPi 5 with MacArthur hat was a nightmare to fit into a box. Short flexible cables were near impossible to locate.
 
Obviously, there are a range of lap tops as well. I recently up-sized from the company micro-lap top to a more powerful one. Not much bigger and a lot faster, more memory etc. The trend towards tiny, lightweight laptops has a downside. For example, my eyes aren't getting better and my fingers have not gotten smaller. At home, I plug it into a keyboard, screen etc., and it runs about like my home PC (not micro).

Get the lap top you need, keep a keyboard on the boat, and you should be good. Add big screen access if you like. I used to do a good bit of engineering work and writing from the boat, and that set-up worked fine. Honestly, the Ah were not enough to add up.
 
thinwater said:
Obviously, there are a range of lap tops as well. I recently up-sized from the company micro-lap top to a more powerful one. Not much bigger and a lot faster, more memory etc. The trend towards tiny, lightweight laptops has a downside. For example, my eyes aren't getting better and my fingers have not gotten smaller. At home, I plug it into a keyboard, screen etc., and it runs about like my home PC (not micro).

Get the lap top you need, keep a keyboard on the boat, and you should be good. Add big screen access if you like. I used to do a good bit of engineering work and writing from the boat, and that set-up worked fine. Honestly, the Ah were not enough to add up.
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If you have a nav station, a mini computer can be hidden away very easily. With a flat screen fixed to the bulkhead with industrial velcro, full size wireless keyboard and mouse, you have a grown up system that is safe at sea, easy to use and takes up minimal room.
I went this way after a laptop as it was hard to secure the laptop at sea and I needed to run it from 220v. It didn't like a direct DC supply.
The mini PC was also inexpensive
 
I'm leaning away from the idea of fitting a screen at the nav station. The chart table is 75cm deep so the screen would need to be bigger than the available bulkhead space. There's also a really high fiddle on the chart table which would make using a keyboard annoying. And the seat isn't very comfy either.

On the hunt for a vertical sliding monitor/TV mount so that the screen can come up from inside the saloon table. Bonus points if it's motorised 😂
 
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