bitbaltic
Well-known member
Evening chaps
I started a thread a few weeks ago looking for advice on a new laptop for the boat to use as a PC chartplotter. There were a few similar threads about at the time which led me down the route of installing a dedicated PC solution. As a lot of people seem to have been looking at this and as it’s a bit of a mix and match job to get a system working on a realistic budget, I thought I’d start this thread to document what I did and tip others off to some solutions that may work for them.
Objectives.
1) My boat has a Garmin 128 GPS and a Digital Yacht AIS100 both of which output NMEA0183, and wind and log data generated by Simrad IS20 (N2k; Simnet) instruments. I wanted to get all of these data streams into the PC.
2) I also wanted to avoid installing an inverter (partly because of the efficiency loss, but really because of the expense), so I wanted to keep the entire system 12 volt, with the PC and monitor running off a regulator.
3) Did I mention expense? Oh yes. I wanted to keep the hardware costs down, in the couple of hundred pounds range, and not wandering up into the several hundreds.
Multiplexing data.
The first challenge was to get the N2k wind/log data out of Simnet and into NMEA0183 so I could multiplex it into the PC. To do this I fitted a Simrad AT10 universal converter to the Simnet network. The AT10 needs (or at least, it has) two ports for connection to a Simnet network. The network already included a multi-joiner which had five spare ports, so connecting it was easy enough. The 0183 end of the AT10 is a cable with positive and negative tx and rx wires. I connected these to some spare two-core wiring (helpfully installed by Hanse when the boat was built) that runs between the garage/bridgedeck, where the Simnet system lives, and the electronics locker.
Now there were three NMEA0183 tx feeds terminating in the electronics locker (GPS, AIS and AT10) with one 0183 rx (AT10). The tx feeds needed to be multiplexed to the computer's USB port and- ideally- also fed back in NMEA form to the AT10 so GPS sentences could be fed to the Simnet network in order for the wind instrument to calculate true wind.
To do the multiplexing job I fitted a Shipmodul ‘Miniplex-lite’. I'd never heard of this range of multiplexers before but it is a smashing bit of kit. It has three NMEA0183 inputs, two at 4800 baud and one high speed port working at up to 38400 for AIS input. It has a single NMEA output which (despite some suggestion on the retailer’s website to the contrary) seems simply to re-transmit the multiplexed data, as well as a USB connection to the computer. I connected up the GPS, AIS and AT10 tx to the inputs and the AT10 rx to the output, and fitted the unit in the electronics locker alongside the AIS box. Here’s a pic of the multiplexer mounted alongside the AIS in the electronics locker.
PC choices.
I spent a lot of time researching the appropriate PC. The first thing I looked at, naturally enough, was the dedicated 'marine PC' market, but pricing here is ridiculous so I soon began looking elsewhere. What I was looking for was a PC which:
• Ran off an external 12v DC power supply, rather than containing an internal transformer;
• Came pre-loaded with Windows 7 or above;
• Had a VGA output, either alongside or instead of HDMI, to keep my monitor options open;
• Would match the tech specs needed by our charting software, Meridian's SeaTrak;
• Was easily secured to the boat, which ideally meant VESA mountable;
• Was cheap, or at least, less than a couple of hundred notes.
This lead me to the world of mini-PCs and to the absolutely marvellous Sumvision Cyclone mini-pc, which fulfilled all the criteria. The machine is tiny, runs off an external 12v DC, has 2gb of memory, 32 gb of solid state storage, a 1.8 ghz processor, comes pre-loaded with a completely legal copy of windows 8.1, has VGA and HDMI monitor ports, 3 usb ports, a 75mm VESA mount, and is less than £130 notes on Amazon. A wireless mouse and keyboard combo, also from Sumvision, completed the PC package.
I mounted the PC is a well sheltered position on top of a cockpit locker as shown in the pic below.
Monitor.
Finding a monitor was the most difficult piece of the puzzle. The first thing I started looking for was a dedicated 12v PC monitor. This doesn't really exist. What is out there in terms of dedicated 12v monitors can loosely be divided into CCTV or car reversing monitors (7 inch or less, too small, too poor a spec, not VESA mountable) and the caravan TV market. A 12v TV would have been OK for the job but I don’t really want TV on board, and they are all quite big- nothing smaller than 19 inches and most come with built-in DVD players. I thought one of these would be bulky mounted at our quite compact chart table.
I had a look at the current PC monitor market, hoping to find something with a 12v power supply. Those that I could find with external power supplies used laptop-like transformers, needing 14-19v DC. And again everything on the market now is quite big, 19 inches or more.
Intensive googling and ebay-ing, however, did turf up an number of leads. It seems that around 10-12 years ago, a number of PC monitors were built with 12v DC external power supplies. Mostly these were OEM type monitors around 17 inches and I guess supplied with business PCs. They are now going very cheaply (sub £30) on ebay. However, getting good descriptions of the monitors, assuring that they could be VESA mounted, and that they were in good condition, was very difficult- manuals for most of them were particularly hard to find. Eventually, however, I found a monitor called the AOC LM720. This is a 17-inch TFT with a 4:3 ratio, powered by an external 12v DC supply, and with a 75 mm VESA mount. Best of all, it seems to have sold in the tens or hundreds of thousands, and it is easy to find lots of them on ebay at any given time. It has a hardwired VGA cable of a couple of metres' length, and you can even download a manual. I paid £26.99 for a perfect example and the monitor problem was solved.
Power supply.
Lastly I needed a DC/DC regulator to provide a stable 12v DC to the monitor and computer. After a bit of googling I found a black box solution in the Amperor 12v stabiliser, a 12v DC/DC regulator with a cigar lighter type plug on one end and- excellently- two DC jack outputs on the other. The Amperor can supply multiple devices provided the total draw doesn't exceed 6 amps (this was fine, as I expected the screen to draw 2a max and the PC 1a max). You can see the Amperor in the electronic locker shot above- it's a black box fixed at the bottom of the locker.
The Amperor needed a connection to the boat's power supply, so I simply wired an in-line cigar lighter socket from Maplin to a spare switch on the boat's electronics panel. The Amperor's cigar lighter jack is internally fused so there was no need for an inline fuse. The power jack output tips turned out to be 2.1 x 5.5 mm; both the Sumvision PC and the AOC monitor required 2.5 x 5.5 mm jacks, so I also got a pair of appropriately sized power jack converter tips from Maplin.
I mounted the monitor to the bulkhead behind the chart table using a 75mm vesa mount, through-bolted to keep it in place in a seaway. This is what it all looks like up and running, with Meridian’s SeaTrak software using Imray digital charts and NavmonPC providing the repeater dials for the ship’s instruments. I still have paper charts on the table which I can use with the Yeoman compact.
First impressions.
We've taken the setup out for a first sea trial and been very impressed. In power terms, the computer is responsible for only around 2.5 amps of draw on the 120ah house battery (which, helpfully, is new). With both the cockpit and chart table GPS units, the AIS, and the Simnet instruments up and running, the total load is about 3.5 amps. Hopefully this means that we should be able to do a full daylight sail without depleting the battery over much.
Costs and suppliers.
Getting it right led down a few dead ends and I have not included costs for consumables like crimps and wire, or postage, so the estimate below is not the actuals spent but basically the cost to do it again.
The AT10 was only needed because the boat has a propreitary Simnet instrument network. Most boats wouldn't need this and it's not strictly speaking part of the PC setup so I have kept it off the cost estimate. It was obtained from Cactus at £76.96. Similarly the AIS box which was also obtained from Cactus at £134.95.
Shipmodul miniplex-lite (http://www.yachtingsoftware.com/shipmodul-miniplex-lite---nmea-by-usb-inout_p91.aspx): £79
Amperor 12v stabilizer (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Amperor-LCD...ator/dp/B000ZLRXG8/ref=tag_dpp_lp_edpp_img_in): £34.95
Inline 12v cigar socket (http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/car-accessory-socket-fe42v): £2.99
2x 2.5mm DC jack converters (http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/maplin-21mm-plug-to-25mm-socket-dc-power-plug-adapter-l52ay): £4.58
Sumvision Cyclone Mini PC (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sumvision-C...=1432206680&sr=1-1&keywords=sumvision+mini+pc): £128.99
Sumvision Paradox III keyboard & mouse (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sumvision-P...=1434450605&sr=1-1&keywords=sumvision+paradox): £10.95
AOC LM720 17-inch TFT (http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_f...C0.H0.Xaoc+lm720.TRS0&_nkw=aoc+lm720&_sacat=0): £26.99
2x 75mm slimline VESA mounts (http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000NVR978/ref=sr_ph?ie=UTF8&qid=1434448543&sr=1&keywords=vesa+mount): £11.96
Grand total: £300.41
For that kind of money I think it’s good value and I’m looking forward using the system through the summer. Anyway I hope some or all of the above is useful to anybody thinking of going down the ‘boat PC on a budget’ route this season.
Cheers
I started a thread a few weeks ago looking for advice on a new laptop for the boat to use as a PC chartplotter. There were a few similar threads about at the time which led me down the route of installing a dedicated PC solution. As a lot of people seem to have been looking at this and as it’s a bit of a mix and match job to get a system working on a realistic budget, I thought I’d start this thread to document what I did and tip others off to some solutions that may work for them.
Objectives.
1) My boat has a Garmin 128 GPS and a Digital Yacht AIS100 both of which output NMEA0183, and wind and log data generated by Simrad IS20 (N2k; Simnet) instruments. I wanted to get all of these data streams into the PC.
2) I also wanted to avoid installing an inverter (partly because of the efficiency loss, but really because of the expense), so I wanted to keep the entire system 12 volt, with the PC and monitor running off a regulator.
3) Did I mention expense? Oh yes. I wanted to keep the hardware costs down, in the couple of hundred pounds range, and not wandering up into the several hundreds.
Multiplexing data.
The first challenge was to get the N2k wind/log data out of Simnet and into NMEA0183 so I could multiplex it into the PC. To do this I fitted a Simrad AT10 universal converter to the Simnet network. The AT10 needs (or at least, it has) two ports for connection to a Simnet network. The network already included a multi-joiner which had five spare ports, so connecting it was easy enough. The 0183 end of the AT10 is a cable with positive and negative tx and rx wires. I connected these to some spare two-core wiring (helpfully installed by Hanse when the boat was built) that runs between the garage/bridgedeck, where the Simnet system lives, and the electronics locker.
Now there were three NMEA0183 tx feeds terminating in the electronics locker (GPS, AIS and AT10) with one 0183 rx (AT10). The tx feeds needed to be multiplexed to the computer's USB port and- ideally- also fed back in NMEA form to the AT10 so GPS sentences could be fed to the Simnet network in order for the wind instrument to calculate true wind.
To do the multiplexing job I fitted a Shipmodul ‘Miniplex-lite’. I'd never heard of this range of multiplexers before but it is a smashing bit of kit. It has three NMEA0183 inputs, two at 4800 baud and one high speed port working at up to 38400 for AIS input. It has a single NMEA output which (despite some suggestion on the retailer’s website to the contrary) seems simply to re-transmit the multiplexed data, as well as a USB connection to the computer. I connected up the GPS, AIS and AT10 tx to the inputs and the AT10 rx to the output, and fitted the unit in the electronics locker alongside the AIS box. Here’s a pic of the multiplexer mounted alongside the AIS in the electronics locker.
PC choices.
I spent a lot of time researching the appropriate PC. The first thing I looked at, naturally enough, was the dedicated 'marine PC' market, but pricing here is ridiculous so I soon began looking elsewhere. What I was looking for was a PC which:
• Ran off an external 12v DC power supply, rather than containing an internal transformer;
• Came pre-loaded with Windows 7 or above;
• Had a VGA output, either alongside or instead of HDMI, to keep my monitor options open;
• Would match the tech specs needed by our charting software, Meridian's SeaTrak;
• Was easily secured to the boat, which ideally meant VESA mountable;
• Was cheap, or at least, less than a couple of hundred notes.
This lead me to the world of mini-PCs and to the absolutely marvellous Sumvision Cyclone mini-pc, which fulfilled all the criteria. The machine is tiny, runs off an external 12v DC, has 2gb of memory, 32 gb of solid state storage, a 1.8 ghz processor, comes pre-loaded with a completely legal copy of windows 8.1, has VGA and HDMI monitor ports, 3 usb ports, a 75mm VESA mount, and is less than £130 notes on Amazon. A wireless mouse and keyboard combo, also from Sumvision, completed the PC package.
I mounted the PC is a well sheltered position on top of a cockpit locker as shown in the pic below.
Monitor.
Finding a monitor was the most difficult piece of the puzzle. The first thing I started looking for was a dedicated 12v PC monitor. This doesn't really exist. What is out there in terms of dedicated 12v monitors can loosely be divided into CCTV or car reversing monitors (7 inch or less, too small, too poor a spec, not VESA mountable) and the caravan TV market. A 12v TV would have been OK for the job but I don’t really want TV on board, and they are all quite big- nothing smaller than 19 inches and most come with built-in DVD players. I thought one of these would be bulky mounted at our quite compact chart table.
I had a look at the current PC monitor market, hoping to find something with a 12v power supply. Those that I could find with external power supplies used laptop-like transformers, needing 14-19v DC. And again everything on the market now is quite big, 19 inches or more.
Intensive googling and ebay-ing, however, did turf up an number of leads. It seems that around 10-12 years ago, a number of PC monitors were built with 12v DC external power supplies. Mostly these were OEM type monitors around 17 inches and I guess supplied with business PCs. They are now going very cheaply (sub £30) on ebay. However, getting good descriptions of the monitors, assuring that they could be VESA mounted, and that they were in good condition, was very difficult- manuals for most of them were particularly hard to find. Eventually, however, I found a monitor called the AOC LM720. This is a 17-inch TFT with a 4:3 ratio, powered by an external 12v DC supply, and with a 75 mm VESA mount. Best of all, it seems to have sold in the tens or hundreds of thousands, and it is easy to find lots of them on ebay at any given time. It has a hardwired VGA cable of a couple of metres' length, and you can even download a manual. I paid £26.99 for a perfect example and the monitor problem was solved.
Power supply.
Lastly I needed a DC/DC regulator to provide a stable 12v DC to the monitor and computer. After a bit of googling I found a black box solution in the Amperor 12v stabiliser, a 12v DC/DC regulator with a cigar lighter type plug on one end and- excellently- two DC jack outputs on the other. The Amperor can supply multiple devices provided the total draw doesn't exceed 6 amps (this was fine, as I expected the screen to draw 2a max and the PC 1a max). You can see the Amperor in the electronic locker shot above- it's a black box fixed at the bottom of the locker.
The Amperor needed a connection to the boat's power supply, so I simply wired an in-line cigar lighter socket from Maplin to a spare switch on the boat's electronics panel. The Amperor's cigar lighter jack is internally fused so there was no need for an inline fuse. The power jack output tips turned out to be 2.1 x 5.5 mm; both the Sumvision PC and the AOC monitor required 2.5 x 5.5 mm jacks, so I also got a pair of appropriately sized power jack converter tips from Maplin.
I mounted the monitor to the bulkhead behind the chart table using a 75mm vesa mount, through-bolted to keep it in place in a seaway. This is what it all looks like up and running, with Meridian’s SeaTrak software using Imray digital charts and NavmonPC providing the repeater dials for the ship’s instruments. I still have paper charts on the table which I can use with the Yeoman compact.
First impressions.
We've taken the setup out for a first sea trial and been very impressed. In power terms, the computer is responsible for only around 2.5 amps of draw on the 120ah house battery (which, helpfully, is new). With both the cockpit and chart table GPS units, the AIS, and the Simnet instruments up and running, the total load is about 3.5 amps. Hopefully this means that we should be able to do a full daylight sail without depleting the battery over much.
Costs and suppliers.
Getting it right led down a few dead ends and I have not included costs for consumables like crimps and wire, or postage, so the estimate below is not the actuals spent but basically the cost to do it again.
The AT10 was only needed because the boat has a propreitary Simnet instrument network. Most boats wouldn't need this and it's not strictly speaking part of the PC setup so I have kept it off the cost estimate. It was obtained from Cactus at £76.96. Similarly the AIS box which was also obtained from Cactus at £134.95.
Shipmodul miniplex-lite (http://www.yachtingsoftware.com/shipmodul-miniplex-lite---nmea-by-usb-inout_p91.aspx): £79
Amperor 12v stabilizer (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Amperor-LCD...ator/dp/B000ZLRXG8/ref=tag_dpp_lp_edpp_img_in): £34.95
Inline 12v cigar socket (http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/car-accessory-socket-fe42v): £2.99
2x 2.5mm DC jack converters (http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/maplin-21mm-plug-to-25mm-socket-dc-power-plug-adapter-l52ay): £4.58
Sumvision Cyclone Mini PC (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sumvision-C...=1432206680&sr=1-1&keywords=sumvision+mini+pc): £128.99
Sumvision Paradox III keyboard & mouse (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sumvision-P...=1434450605&sr=1-1&keywords=sumvision+paradox): £10.95
AOC LM720 17-inch TFT (http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_f...C0.H0.Xaoc+lm720.TRS0&_nkw=aoc+lm720&_sacat=0): £26.99
2x 75mm slimline VESA mounts (http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000NVR978/ref=sr_ph?ie=UTF8&qid=1434448543&sr=1&keywords=vesa+mount): £11.96
Grand total: £300.41
For that kind of money I think it’s good value and I’m looking forward using the system through the summer. Anyway I hope some or all of the above is useful to anybody thinking of going down the ‘boat PC on a budget’ route this season.
Cheers
