Tablet on a boat? again!!!!!

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Quandary

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My wife has been given a Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 which she has taken to in a big way. Since it has a built in GPS and she accompanies me when we go cruising I thought I might buy her her own navigation app. (Generous to a fault, I am).
Question is; she will need a 12v. micro USB charger, she already has one for her Galaxy phone, are all these things compatible and can she do any damage if she tries it? If a different one is needed any advice?
Recommendations on software would also be useful, visitmyharbour sell a set of Uk/Ireland admiralty charts for about £15 to non members which are compatible with the Google nav. app or is Navionics or something else a better option?
 
Charger should be fine, if anything it may struggle to put out sufficient power. We bog have tablets (iPad and a Nexus 7) and find that they struggle to charge up if you are using them- some applications actually drain the battery slightly faster than the charger can top it up again. I'd imagine nav software might be power hungry, but obviously many people use tablets for nav without any problems.
 
You can get 12v car socket type 3 Amp chargers that will work with a tablet and a phone. Try MobileFun or Amazon. They will charge while you are using navigation apps. My favourite picks are MX Mariner which uses raster Admiralty charts and Navionics HD which uses vector, though the Navionics one is £40 and isn't that great, though they do say on their Facebook page that they are working on it to bring feature parity with the iOS app. You do get GRIB forecasting and tides on the Navionics one though.
 
I would get a navigation package which can be used with antares charts, ie memory maps, this is what I use successfully with my samsung tablet.
 
Quandary said:
Question is; she will need a 12v. micro USB charger, she already has one for her Galaxy phone, are all these things compatible and can she do any damage if she tries it? If a different one is needed any advice?
Click to expand...

All the micro USB chargers are compatible physically and they all supply 5V, but a tablet may need more oomph than a phone charger can provide. I have a first-generation Galaxy Tab 10.1 and it takes 2.1A from its USB charger. Normal USB ports will only go up to 0.5A or perhaps 1A, so if I plug it into a computer it won't discharge but won't charge either.

To use it on the boat I found a 2.5A USB power supply which plugs into a cigarette lighter socket and that works well - and I can use the same charger with different leads to charge my smartphone, the boat's dumbphone, bluetooth speakers and various other bits of gadgetry.
 
JumbleDuck said:
All the micro USB chargers are compatible physically and they all supply 5V, but a tablet may need more oomph than a phone charger can provide. I have a first-generation Galaxy Tab 10.1 and it takes 2.1A from its USB charger. Normal USB ports will only go up to 0.5A or perhaps 1A, so if I plug it into a computer it won't discharge but won't charge either.

To use it on the boat I found a 2.5A USB power supply which plugs into a cigarette lighter socket and that works well - and I can use the same charger with different leads to charge my smartphone, the boat's dumbphone, bluetooth speakers and various other bits of gadgetry.
Click to expand...

Where did you find your 2.5A USB supply? Or is it a secret :)
 
I have a Sony tablet, with built-in GPS, which is fine, but they don't do a 12v charger, so I have to use an inverter, but that's no problem as the inverter is used for other things as well. I have as many BA Charts as I like, from Memory Map, and also Antares Charts. There is, at present, a slight glitch downloading the new version of Antares via MM, but it should be sorted on Monday. I get Internet (slowly depending on signal strength) with an O2 Sim card, @£6/ month. I was with Vodafone, but they bumped their price up to £10/30days. Any better ideas for this?
 
For internet, I just configure my smartphone as a wifi hotspot and my iPad can get online that way. No cost as I already have the mobile on a contract (£7.50 a month with 500gb plus free calls and texts). Much better value than paying for a dedicated mobile internet dongle.
I wonder if I can hoist my smartphone up a halyard when I'm in a poor signal area, yet still have it connect to the iPad.
 
Some manufacturers have special chargers, like ASUS, they supply 12V to the tablet, which allows quick charging even when you are using it.
Much better than powering it via a default 5V USB. The ASUS takes 6 Watts at normal operation.
 
Thank You , So to summarize the advice,
The existing 12v. phone charger (which does not indicate its output) will do no harm but is unlikely to give enough power for the tablet and I should look for one emitting more than 2 amps? We do have a 12v/230v inverter on board as part of the boat electrics which could be used with the mains charger where we can not get shore power though it is rarely used, the laptop we take has its own 12v/19v adapter which is easier on the batteries when sailing?
I should look for Antares charts, I presume this is because they are compact enough to be permanently stored on the tablet's SD card and can be used anywhere while the very large and detailed Admiralty UK chart folio offered by 'Visit my Harbour' would need internet access to allow download for each use?
 
Quandary said:
Thank You , So to summarize the advice,
The existing 12v. phone charger (which does not indicate its output) will do no harm but is unlikely to give enough power for the tablet and I should look for one emitting more than 2 amps? We do have a 12v/230v inverter on board as part of the boat electrics which could be used with the mains charger where we can not get shore power though it is rarely used, the laptop we take has its own 12v/19v adapter which is easier on the batteries when sailing?
I should look for Antares charts, I presume this is because they are compact enough to be permanently stored on the tablet's SD card and can be used anywhere while the very large and detailed Admiralty UK chart folio offered by 'Visit my Harbour' would need internet access to allow download for each use?
Click to expand...

Don't know about "Visit my Harbour", but with Memory Map you pay something like £20 or £25 and you can then download as many of the 800 BA charts as you like. They are then in your tablet, and you can access them whenever you want. No internet required.
Antares Charts are mainly small areas of anchorages and passages, produced by a private individual, to a very high standard. They are useful for pilotage, rather than navigation.
 
I think you will find that it is unreadable in summer in the mediterranean sunlight.......
This is why chart plotter screens costs an arm and a leg. Something to do with transreflective display technology which involves different layers in making the panels.
 
michaelchapman said:
I think you will find that it is unreadable in summer in the mediterranean sunlight.......
This is why chart plotter screens costs an arm and a leg. Something to do with transreflective display technology which involves different layers in making the panels.
Click to expand...


I, for one, am certainly not suggesting that a Tablet can be seen as a substitute for a plotter.
 
I thoroughly recommend a tablet as BACKUP to chartplotter. Two weeks ago mine saved our bacon when a Chinese gybe took out all instruments and the chartplotter at midnight passing through a narrow gap between islands 200m SW of SE Point (Wilson's Promentory). The boombrake saved us from rig damage. I had previously loaded all the waypoints and route from the chartplotter (Raymarine SL631) to my PC(OpenCPN) and iPad (iNavX). The PC was not on but the iPad fired up quickly and my crew hand steered from it while I progressivly fixed the electrics below. This is OpenCPN but the iPad view is almost identical. The main shipping channel is just S of SEPT001 & 2.

View attachment 39540



Andrew
(I suspect the gybe was contributed to my Ratheon/Raymarine GPS120 battery being moe than 10 years old - but that is another story)
 
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