Tablet as nav tool

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My nav kit on board is considered pre-historic by many - Raymarine kit of early noughties vintage; RL70 CRC series, fitted in 2004. I'm beginning to think about a move in to the 21st century. I've been impressed by MemoryMap (MM). UKHO charts look good on my choice of tablet - Ipad - and also extremely cost effective. So, thinking of having only one MFD Raymarine screen on board and then have an independent (redundancy) Tablet/MemoryMap system running alongside.

However - does a tablet stand up to potentially long periods in use? I tried using MM on my Ipad yesterday, jolly good it was too, but it killed the battery in short order. Maybe two hours use and it was dead. It was also quite hot after being on continuously for a couple of hours. Research this morning suggests that power consumption of a 10" Ipad is about 300mA (less than a marine plotter so that's fine) though there's nothing definitive I can find online to confirm that.

I'd welcome hearing of practical experience of using such a setup.
 
I have a Samsung Tablet and my co-owner an Ipad each with Navionics charts.

We find them invaluable but:

you really need some paper charts for passage planning as it is really hard to get a good picture from a smallish screen. The same can be said for chartplotters. We plan on paper then transfer the waypoint to the pad.

if we need them on continuously ( which is not very often) then we keep the charging lead connected to a 12V socket at the binnacle. Usually, when not in use we just put them back on the chart table and connect there.

they are not good in direct sunlight and often we have to take them under the sprayhood to see properly
 
No good relying on the battery. You don't say if you are going to use this for primary navigation or as a repeater/backup. the limitations of tablets for navigation in the cockpit are power consumption, visibility of screen, mounting securely and robustness (including water resistance).

I use a Garmin 820 at the helm and a Hudl tablet at the chart table, plugged into a socket and used either as a repeater for the Garmin via a wireless connection or using Memory Map so that I have access to raster charts as well as the vector on Garmin.

Would not use a tablet as main plotter, although have in the past used a PC at the chart table and a simple Navman at the helm for pilotage.
 
The tablet will only ever be "system B" on board by which I mean it is a nice to have which backs up the main ship Raymarine system.

The problem with using a laptop on board is surely power consumption and also providing an efficient power supply - I don't particularly want to run the inverter whilst at sea simply to provide 240v for a laptop transformer which then goes back down (I think) to 19v for the laptop. How do you provide a suitable power source for the PC/laptop?
 
Robih said:
How do you provide a suitable power source for the PC/laptop?
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There are 12v "car" power supplies available for some laptops. I have a cheap Lenovo computer with a 12v supply that I've used on the boat when troubleshooting some DIY electronics. The power supply is a third party one, from memory somewhere between £15 and £20, seems of reasonable quality and works well.

(I don't take this laptop on board when actually sailing, though - I prefer dedicated devices for navigation and an iPad for "domestic" computer stuff.)

Pete
 
Robih said:
How do you provide a suitable power source for the PC/laptop?
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I have used both an inverter and a 12v supply and subsequently a 12v power supply as Pete describes. never had a real problem with power consumption.

The big advantages of a PC at the chart table are the big screen, choice of cheap software and charts and simplicity of operation. You can keep power usage down by using the sleep function and I believe (although never bothered) removing the battery so it is powered all the time without charging.
 
We no longer use a plotter. Our primary nav tool is an iPad running iSailor. This is supplemented by an android tablet rumnimg iSailor, Navionics and opencpn. We have a laptop but have not used this for navigation for a few years now.

Sailed from the Uk to Panama and across the Pacific up to Singapore. We very rarely even use the paper charts we have and when we do it for plotting ocean crossings.
 
I've a Windows tablet running OpenCPN. To deal with the battery charging I put a USB charger behind the instrument panel. I then got one of those three-way USB charging cables - the centre charges both ends - I've a ShipModul Miniplex at the other end - and fitted a USB port in a panel at the chart table. So when I plug the tablet in to get NMEA data over USB it also charges it.
 
You asked about a tablet not a laptop.

All tablets charge through USB leads so all you need is is of those usb adaptors that you plug into the cigar lighter on your car.

Just like you do with your phone - we have a double one so we can charge both at the same time.
 
Our cockpit plotter is a Windows Tablet running OpenCPN too. I've written about it before here (the setup has evolved somewhat since). Sunlight readability is pretty lousy. Apart from that it works very well, except in spray or rain we need to put it in a plastic cover, which makes the sunlight readability worse (rain often comes with cloud, but spray does not). It's always plugged in - you can't run on the builtin battery for navigation unless you do very short hops only.

We have a normal laptop (running Linux, or whatever) with OpenCPN as backup on the nav table. None of these need to be fancy and expensive, in fact I paid around £100 for each of them (make sure you get at least a Intel i5/i7 generation for power efficiency though).

Passage planning happens on my personal laptop, also on OpenCPN. Then I just save the route and syncthing copies it to all the other devices automagically.

All of the above get full instrument data from Wifi (the nav station one can also get it via an Ethernet cable, in case of severe Wifi interference - had this only once, going up the Rio into Lisbon).

Additionally my phone has Navionics with the charts for our area on it. We use it to crosscheck charts, as standalone backup unit and because the Sonarcharts are very handy when creeping into shallow anchorages.

We have sold our last papercharts this winter (they were for the English channel, which we left behind some time ago). If you're cruising long distance, paper charts are pure lunacy. Even if you can afford them (we can't), there's nowhere to put them all and updating them would take silly amounts of time, not to mention a chartplotter being so much more practical when you're shorthanded and going into unfamiliar ports at night (that, and the radar). If you've counted above, we have four redundant chart plotters instead, which is more than most ships have ECDIS units.

For future upgrades I'd like to replace the tablet with something more designed for the job - a Getac or similarly rugged outdoor computer (they have transflective matte screens and are waterproof). In a fantasy world, someone would build or hack an affordable chartplotter with buttons and everything so it can run Linux and OpenCPN. I think the Onwa KP units are most likely candidates for this (they already run Linux internally, although probably not X11).
 
Robih said:
Yes! Wasn’t sure I deserved that! Tranona mentioned using a PC and I was simply asking how he powered it (and thanks for his response) I’ll keep my head down in future!
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Don't worry about it. I'm sure davidej meant no harm and I don't think any of us are in the position of being able to throw stones at someone for not fully reading the previous posts.
 
Low voltage equipment, such as laptops, are best powered by DC-DC converters, rather than inverters. My laptop is powered by an off the shelf car charger. My TV and soundbar came with "power bricks" to take 240v down to 14v DC, i have replaced these with DC-DC converters that take the boats battery voltage up, to a stable 14v.

My laptop is hidden in the chart table and is connected to a 24" LED TV and soundbar on the forward saloon bulkhead. I have OpenCPN and the laptop gets the N2K nav data via wifi, as does a 12" Samsung tablet, running Windows, again with OpenCPN. Everything is controlled by a wireless keyboard and mouse on the saloon table (except the tablet of course). In addition to being able to receive ships data via wifi the laptop has USB GPS and the tablet has inbuilt GPS so either unit can be used stand alone.
 
lpdsn said:
Don't worry about it. I'm sure davidej meant no harm and I don't think any of us are in the position of being able to throw stones at someone for not fully reading the previous posts.
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You are kind and I didn't. Perhaps it is me who should keep his head down.

I thought (perhaps wrongly) that the OP was asking about tablets and someone else threw in laptops as a red herring.

Usual thread drift.
 
Use a tablet for full time navigation

What I especially like about it is the fact its self sufficient. Any issues with power on the boat and the tablet is still good for 5+ hrs worth of navigation. It also doubles as a source of music!
 
Okay, I am sure I have evolved into a Luddite but I am genuinely astonished at how much trust most of you seem to be putting into crappy consumer electronics designed to be used in a Starbucks rather than the Sargasso Sea.

I don't trust the battery reliability or the resistance to salt air and water of tablets and similar gear.

A couple of years ago I did a largely single handed Atlantic Circuit and of course I took an iPad with iSailor but its performance was a poor second to my main Standard Horizon plotter - visibility in bright light very poor, battery life modest at best, in hot weather it gives up after a few minutes complaining about the the temperature.

To some extent my suspicion also applies to the chart plotter but this has actually been extremely reliable and is of course made for the job. As a consequence I always carry paper charts to give at least outline cover of everywhere I go. These paper charts do not always give the fine detail of iSailor and some are not current but they are pretty foolproof should all else fail.

To confirm my credentials as an old fogey I also admit to having a sextant on board for when solar flares fry the navigation satellites....
 
I see nothing wrong in the old Raymarine kit - it's what I use at the moment. However, one day it will fall over in a terminal manner and need replacing. When it does, things will have moved on again and maybe by then tablets will be more robust, have better screens and won't drain their batteries in five minutes: if so, then I'll be looking to move onto a wifi and tablet based navigation/autopilot/radar solution. Until then, the iPad and iPhone and Navionics act as the backup along with paper charts and almanacs.... And the sextant for when I'm so bored that it comes out to prove to myself once again that I can still use it.
 
PaulRainbow said:
Low voltage equipment, such as laptops, are best powered by DC-DC converters, rather than inverters. My laptop is powered by an off the shelf car charger. My TV and soundbar came with "power bricks" to take 240v down to 14v DC, i have replaced these with DC-DC converters that take the boats battery voltage up, to a stable 14v.

My laptop is hidden in the chart table and is connected to a 24" LED TV and soundbar on the forward saloon bulkhead. I have OpenCPN and the laptop gets the N2K nav data via wifi, as does a 12" Samsung tablet, running Windows, again with OpenCPN. Everything is controlled by a wireless keyboard and mouse on the saloon table (except the tablet of course). In addition to being able to receive ships data via wifi the laptop has USB GPS and the tablet has inbuilt GPS so either unit can be used stand alone.
Click to expand...

That reads like a fine system.
 
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