Ideal Boat Computer?

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

I know it was mentioned before on this thread, but why not consider purchasing a new or used 15 inch Macbook pro? It works well for us and is very reliable with low power consumption. Plus, it’s a real computer with 1TB of storage. After 30 years of fussing with pc windows stuff, I made the switch to relability two years ago and couldn’t be more pleased. I know the macs cost more, but they seem to last forever.

Don’t you finally get to the point where you just want something of quality that works?

The macbook is what I see being used by most of the folks producing the youtube cruising videos, so the computer can be utilized for multiple uses.

Well, as I posted before, I don't want any kind of laptop for this at all, and I can't use Apple even if I were willing to do so (some people like Apple, some people don't) because it doesn't run a number of programs I use.


A laptop on the nav table is fine for doing occasional light nav stuff in good weather coastal sailing. It's not suitable for doing complicated nav tasks on multiday rough weather ocean passages. I learned that the hard way when my expensive work laptop was smashed when we were knocked down in the North Sea some years ago.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

My boat computer is not used for general computing and is practically never connected to the Internet. It is used to run OpenCPN and some other navigational programs like Neptune Planner, and XyGrib. I might use it for audio or movies, but this is not an important function. I might use it as a media server, but this is also not important.



The main thing it needs to do is run OpenCPN flawlessly, with no resource issues and no crashes. In my experience over using O on different platforms over the years -- as admirably light as it is, it does need a certain amount of power, especially if you are using raster charts and have a large number of charts installed as I do. So I would be reluctant to try it on a Raspberry Pi.

Wifi network as opposed to internet. It's really handy being able to see al the boat data on any device. And graphs can be interesting an informative, pressure especially but sog, wind speed etc great as well. On y8ur boat buying a pi for a play wouldn't even register on the budget Or they are so low power it might be worth iinvestigating having one just to serve up all the data though I've no problem with encs or sat images on O a pi3, scrolls n zooms plenty fast enough.
Saw this morning windows will be shipping with Linux installed as a virtual machine soon, might make signalk installation a lot easier than on windows.
https://www.geekwire.com/2019/togeth...ernel-windows/
And did I read the opencpn dashboard is getting worked on to display sigK data? That would be just great

Batt volts/amps served up by a pi-

[fivecapes]

Would this and a 400Gb MicroSDXC card work?

Power consumption of 32bit stick. 64bit Core m3 might be higher than the 32bit Atom x5

Review

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Well, as I posted before, I don't want any kind of laptop for this at all, and I can't use Apple even if I were willing to do so (some people like Apple, some people don't) because it doesn't run a number of programs I use.


A laptop on the nav table is fine for doing occasional light nav stuff in good weather coastal sailing. It's not suitable for doing complicated nav tasks on multiday rough weather ocean passages. I learned that the hard way when my expensive work laptop was smashed when we were knocked down in the North Sea some years ago.

You do realize.... a laptop (apple or pc) can be easily secured in such a way that it won’t go flying across the saloon in bad weather. One small black rubber modified shock cord will usually be enough.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by fivecapes

Would this and a 400Gb MicroSDXC card work?

Power consumption of 32bit stick . 64bit Core m3 might be higher than the 32bit Atom x5

That's an ancient Skylake processor -- doubt if it's faster than an N5000, while using an order of magnitude more power.


The stick computer is a cool format, but wouldn't work in my application. I need to connect to two monitors, and need to connect a bunch of stuff to it. And I wouldn't want the computer just hanging from an HDMI port in rough weather.


I'm very happy with the minicomputer format. I have a perfect place for mounting one behind my nav table, with USB, memory card, and audio connectors extended to a neat panel-mount box, which allows me to hook stuff up to the computer without actually getting to it physically.

[Reefmagnet]

Any atom or celeron processors are fine for basics, but for anything else will be a disappointment. They really will be. I have a 4 core i7 laptop for my work and it blitzes, but I happily use the i3 for everyday tasks. I do have a celeron Nuc too, and it is painful to use. I originally purchased it for the boat, but it was hopeless. It's now relegated to controlling my wifi mesh system in the airbnb and it even struggles with this. My advice is skip these low powered mini PC's and go for either the RPi or other usb powered pc and/or use something with an "I" series processor or equivalent.

And I'll still stick with recommending Linux for a boat systems. True, some devices won't have Linux drivers, but the simple solution is to use only hardware and vendors that support Linux. Many do, so its not that difficult even for cutting edge gear.

[HankOnthewater]

Dockhead, you had a thread a few years ago when you were considering a boat computer. I contributed to that thread and suggested a NUC. Since then I went sort of that way myself with a mini computer, Asus mini vivo PN 35, with Celeron processor (yes, I read you do not like.... why?), one very small fan, 250 Gb SSD, 4 Gb ram, downgraded windows 10 to windows 7, run OpenCPN, Microsoft office and a very small array of software, running 24/7 (for 15 months now), connected 2 monitors (running on 12 Volt), and really… not much slower than my top of the range laptop (gen8 Intel, 16Gb ram, 1Tb SSD) with the stuff I do. It works very well for me.

If you are interested, I can measure the ampere use when running and when asleep. Let me know.

You mentioned “definitely not windows 7”. Could you share your reasons?

Eh….. we all know that we have to change computers and software on a regular basis, either for lack of support, a change in our needs, technology advances or just a plain hardware failure ☹

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by HankOnthewater

Dockhead, you had a thread a few years ago when you were considering a boat computer. I contributed to that thread and suggested a NUC. Since then I went sort of that way myself with a mini computer, Asus mini vivo PN 35, with Celeron processor (yes, I read you do not like.... why?), one very small fan, 250 Gb SSD, 4 Gb ram, downgraded windows 10 to windows 7, run OpenCPN, Microsoft office and a very small array of software, running 24/7 (for 15 months now), connected 2 monitors (running on 12 Volt), and really… not much slower than my top of the range laptop (gen8 Intel, 16Gb ram, 1Tb SSD) with the stuff I do. It works very well for me.

If you are interested, I can measure the ampere use when running and when asleep. Let me know.

You mentioned “definitely not windows 7”. Could you share your reasons?

Eh….. we all know that we have to change computers and software on a regular basis, either for lack of support, a change in our needs, technology advances or just a plain hardware failure ☹

Hi -- thanks for that. I would certainly be interested in your power measurements.


I didn't write anything against Celeron -- someone else did. I'm leaning that way myself, namely this: Beelink Content of the article


Actually not branded "Celeron"; rather "Pentium Silver", but it's all the same -- based on the Gemini Lake ultra low voltage processors, essentially the "Atom" family.


I'm glad to hear your experience -- my use case is actually even less demanding than yours, as I don't run Office, surf the Internet, or do any general computing at all on the boat computer (have a Dell XPS 13 with 8th generation Core i7 for general computing). I just need for it to run OpenCPN with a ton of charts installed, and several plugins running including radar, FLAWLESSLY, no lag, no crash, and with maybe a couple of other windows open like XyGrib, Neptune Planner, etc.



I suspect that processing power is not at all the issue I've been having, that it's down to RAM and hard drive space, so I'm hoping that I can get by with another ultra low voltage box.

[mikedefieslife]

You mentioned that MacOS cannot run the software you want. Can both Linux and windows?

Also what architecture can the software run on? Is it only x86, or is ARM ok too?

Is OpenCPN still single-threaded, and 32bit. So throwing more cores at it won't really help.

I'm the one that was bagging on Celeron cpus, as traditionally they were just cut down Pentiums and usually woeful. The Pentium Silver does seem to be a different though.

Here are some clips of OpenCPN running on various systems:

Pi3b - ARM Cortex A53 1.2ghz
https://youtu.be/b2tuavxgLUc?t=129 (beware the crap music)

Asus QM1 - Atom x5 Z8300
https://youtu.be/JYhsQSQOEbM?t=268

Nvidia Jetson TK1 - ARM A15

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh7o5b7FTWk

The Nvidia board looks promising. The TK1 has been discontinued now, but the nano is around $99 and features the faster ARM A57 cpu. The nano uses 10w, or offers a lower powered 5w mode. It's no plug and play though, you would need to do some configuration to get it running as you want.

The Pentium Silver N5000 is around 150-200% faster the Atom x5. I've no idea how that looks in OpenCPN but should be a good improvement.

[SwellGuy]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

"With OpenCPN running, continuously rendering the chart"
I don't think so. The chart data are rendered and then an image is sent to the video display memory. In fact, the entire display is kept in an assigned block of video memory, which is static if the image is unchanging.

Sometimes. Software such as this is typically designed as a set of gizmos that are reacting to input (gps/sensor data, ticking time, etc.). At some regular cadence, a presentation layer asks all these gizmos to render themselves on the screen.

Its a really nice way to design software and separate presentation (view) from the underlying logic, but it does make it a lot less trivial to implement the sort of optimization you describe here (where no serious arithmetic is being performed if nothing "changed").

Knowing if the "image" is "unchanging" is difficult to do when that "image" is actually a composition generated on the fly by a bunch of stateful little gizmos reacting to input.

I wouldn't be surprised if lots of rendering arithmetic was happening every single view frame even when nothing is visiblly changing, particularly in something like OpenCPN where the software architecture is... organically grown.

Long story short- I bet OpenCPN uses a decent amount of computing resources the entire time it is running.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

You do realize.... a laptop (apple or pc) can be easily secured in such a way that it won’t go flying across the saloon in bad weather. One small black rubber modified shock cord will usually be enough.

Sure, but it can't be secured in a way that stuff can't fly onto it. Plus, I need the desk space for notes, pilot books, radar plotting sheets, and paper charts. I use a large 4k monitor, not a laptop screen. No laptop for me for this purpose.


A minicomputer is right for my use case. The nav table is free for chart work, notes and books, the computer is out of the way, the cables are neatly routed and out of sight.


I am BTW not the only genius to have figured this out. Way back in 2008 when I was first boat shopping, the Oyster 485 I had a contract on and almost bought, came with a minicomputer installed behind the nav table just like mine is now, with a monitor fixed on the instrument panel. Minicomputers were quite rare at the time -- I think this one was a Mac Mini or something like that. I was impressed with this solution and I'm not quite sure why it took me so long to implement it myself.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by SwellGuy

Sometimes. Software such as this is typically designed as a set of gizmos that are reacting to input (gps/sensor data, ticking time, etc.). At some regular cadence, a presentation layer asks all these gizmos to render themselves on the screen.

Its a really nice way to design software and separate presentation (view) from the underlying logic, but it does make it a lot less trivial to implement the sort of optimization you describe here (where no serious arithmetic is being performed if nothing "changed").

Knowing if the "image" is "unchanging" is difficult to do when that "image" is actually a composition generated on the fly by a bunch of stateful little gizmos reacting to input.

I wouldn't be surprised if lots of rendering arithmetic was happening every single view frame even when nothing is visiblly changing, particularly in something like OpenCPN where the software architecture is... organically grown.

Long story short- I bet OpenCPN uses a decent amount of computing resources the entire time it is running.

I'm sure this is right. The image is never unchanging, as long as the boat is moving, whether the display is powered or not, right?

[Pete7]

I think you are over analysing this. The primary objective is for an ultra reliable mini pc to run the nav stuff. If it takes 30AH a day in stand by mode, well perhaps that's what it takes. I wouldn't want to jeopardise the primary objective just to save a few wiggly amps.

Something else you might consider, presumably this is powered from the house bank. If there was a catastrophic failure of the bank, how easy will it be to restore power to the mini pc and monitor from somewhere else?

Pete

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Pete7

I think you are over analysing this. The primary objective is for an ultra reliable mini pc to run the nav stuff. If it takes 30AH a day in stand by mode, well perhaps that's what it takes. I wouldn't want to jeopardise the primary objective just to save a few wiggly amps.

Something else you might consider, presumably this is powered from the house bank. If there was a catastrophic failure of the bank, how easy will it be to restore power to the mini pc and monitor from somewhere else?

Pete

I agree with you. I think as soon as we finish this trip I'm just going to order one of those Pentium Silver boxes and just see how it goes. I think it should be ok. I'll post the results.


For any kind of catastrophic failure (God forbid) I do have OpenCPN on my work laptop, and I can power any of these devices from any of the three completely separate battery banks on board.

[conachair]

This from playing back a vdr file with lots ais targets and following the boat with screen updating. Even on the humble rasp pi O doesn't use a lot. Minimising the window doesn't seem to make much difference.