12vdc Marine Computers

[seandepagnier]

Originally Posted by mvandervoort

You can't buy a "standard" $20 HDMI display which also:

the $20 7 inch display has relatively low dpi, as well as consumes 2 more watts than it should... but it's certainly cheapest, and it's what I use for my single board arm systems.

[*]has touch interface which can be used in wet marine environments, even to use with your gloves on

Interesting, is it a different touch screen all together?

[*]is sunlight readable

The cheap and effective way to achieve this is to crank up the back light.

[*]has AR/AR treatment

what is that?

[*]is waterproof

This is very good but should be possible with any display given a suitable enclosure and sealant.

[*]has audio[*]operates from -20 / + 70 Celcius

Why do we care about either of these?

Regarding 3D Printing.
I wonder if you've used such a $300 in practice. If so, you know the results can't be used on a boat

Right now I just use existing plastic boxes and cut holes in them then use glue and sealant.

I'm developing a device which also is capable of OpenCPN using vector maps and will be capable of directly connecting NMEA200 devices. This requires a CAN bus interface. No RPI has them. UDOO has.

Great to use adc or i2c or what features a given board has but otherwise, CAN<->USB is possible, and most people don't care about nmea2000 anyway.

I am much more interested in this udoo because of the inertial sensors and pwm outputs and adc inputs.

By simply connecting a remote control dc motor controller to this (with a shunt sampled from the adc to measure current), and connect it to any hydraulic pump or linear actuator and have a working autopilot.

A brushed esc for up to 50 amps is about $10.

I did this with a raspberry pi a few years ago, but I had to plug an arduino as well as a 10dof on the i2c pins. I also just used a very powerful rc servo to drive the wind vane and this was using about 1 watt of power on average to steer the boat.

[rgleason]

I like Sean's idea of an aluminum sceen enclosure. My father was an inventor and worked with many materials. He had spun alu motor housind we used for lamp shades, but what about using pressed aluminum in two halves, fairly light gauge, that fit one inside the other, one half for the screen the other the back. Then you just use sealant and can take it apart when necessary. Would it solve the heat problem? If not fit one or two cpu heat pipes along the edges perhaps, or horizontally if that works better.

[BluegillBoy]

gamayun - you might also consider the MSI CUBI. comes in a choice of processors and starts barebones under $150. any of those will need mounting where the weather can't get to it.

i use a used 10" Panasonic Toughbook touch screen sunlight-viewable monitor which is weatherproof or at least highly weather resistant. Available on eBay for about $50-60. It's a power hog - about 50W at full brightness although I never run at full bright, just not necessary.

[gamayun]

Thanks, BCN and Bluegill, for confirmation on the approach! I'll do some more research into this.

[verkerkbr]

Here a Raspberry PI 2 in an alu casing made by Flirc.

Processor is connected with paste to the alu casing for cooling.

In combination with a waterresilent daylicht HDMI Touchscreen working on 12 volt.

OpenCPN 4.1.1301 and Journeyman taskbar which seems to work best in combination with the Touchscreen.

Mini SD card 10 with 32 Gig

Bram

[BluegillBoy]

hey, gamayun, one more thing - those Panasonic touch screens say the input is 15V but they work just fine on plain old boat 12V. no need to worry about a power supply.

[wdkester]

verkerkbr,

How about a link to where you bought the screen.

[verkerkbr]

It is bought from a Chinese source by a friend of mine. Is has a heavy metal casing and a bright daylicht screen.

There no indication about the supplier on the monitor. It is an HDMI monitor. And comes with an USB cable to be used for the Touchscreen movement. I will check for the supplier by my friend.

There was one problem with recognizing the right resolution of this screen. But if you start the computer first and then switch on the screen is comes up in a low resolution, which seems to be just right for looking at the screen from a distance.

Power 12 volt 10 Watt.

Regards,

Bram

[Littlechay]

I use a little Nettop pc. AMD E350 processor with 4GB RAM and I changed out the supplied HDD for SSD.

It's been running a couple of years now. Runs MaxSea Timezero, OCPN, OziExplorer, DrDepth, WxtoImg, airmail and GPSGate routinely and concurrently. I also run VNC to view the charts in the cockpit occasionally but find that staring at a chart in the cockpit is rarely needed.

OS is currently windows 10, was Windows 7

It has six USB interfaces, WiFi but no built in Bluetooth.
USB ports used as follows:
Bluetooth Dongle (Pactor modem via BT)
Weather satellite receiver
Logitech unifying dongle for keyboard, trackball
Verper Marine Watchmate
Actisense NGT (N2K to TimeZero)
Actisense NGW (NMEA 0183)

GPSGATE distributes the NMEA data via virtual serial ports and UDP and logs everything in hourly logs (also provides replay when I want it)

MY screen is currently an old Proview 13" (ish)

The screen is the main issue as it is rubbish at night (too much light leak around the edges) and it pulls too much juice.

The PC with all interfaces active pulls a little over an Amp

The screen about 1.2 - 1.4A I have the power saver settings adjusted to switch it off after 5 mins of inactivity. With these settings its ok in normal navigation as it's off most of the time but if I'm working on route planning or processing satellite images or whatever at the PC obviously it is on and using a lot of juice. Oh and we watch movies on it.

So where to source these cheap 12V screens that everybody keeps talking about? I want a usable screen for more than nav, doesn't have to be waterproof but some sort of industrial hardening would be nice. Low power draw and good night performance high on the list. full sunlight viewable is not a requirement.

If I can find a suitable screen that is economically viable for me I'll worry about how to ship to somewhere I can get my hands on it.

Suggestions please.

Chris
--
SY Morgane
Tweed's World | A high latitude sailor preparing for tropical cruising

[travellerw]

Not sure if I'm the first to post this, but this looks very promising.. At $99, it sure beats the hell out of dickering with micro computers..

Kangaroo is a miniature $99 Windows 10 PC that slides into your pocket | The Verge

One USB port for a touchscreen interface and 1 usb port for a GPS puck. The Wifi is already built in.

[Paul Elliott]

Originally Posted by travellerw

Not sure if I'm the first to post this, but this looks very promising.. At $99, it sure beats the hell out of dickering with micro computers..

Kangaroo is a miniature $99 Windows 10 PC that slides into your pocket | The Verge

One USB port for a touchscreen interface and 1 usb port for a GPS puck. The Wifi is already built in.

I got one of those Kangaroos, and the initial testing looks promising. I will do some power consumption tests and report back (the supplied wall-wart power supply puts out +12V), but I had to order a very tiny power plug so I can power the thing from my lab supply. I should have some numbers next week.

I was able to attach my low-power USB-interface monitor to the Kangaroo, so I suspect that I will have some fairly good power consumption numbers to report. It was running OCPN and NavMonPc well enough to be useful.

[gamayun]

Originally Posted by BluegillBoy

hey, gamayun, one more thing - those Panasonic touch screens say the input is 15V but they work just fine on plain old boat 12V. no need to worry about a power supply.

Thanks for the additional suggestion. I'm with Littlechay and also looking for ideas on a 12V monitor. I searched on the Panasonics, but didn't find anything specific to what I am looking for. I have also found out that the Lenovo 1421 monitor, which a friend uses, does not have a driver for Windows 10 (yet..?). Another problem I see with the newer monitors is that they are too large for my space. I would like to find a 14-inch monitor, DC power, with or without touch screen, low power, and bright but not necessarily for sunlight. It has been suggested that I could use a power brick, but that seems like an unnecessary add-on. Right?

[Littlechay]

Originally Posted by travellerw

Not sure if I'm the first to post this, but this looks very promising.. At $99, it sure beats the hell out of dickering with micro computers..

Kangaroo is a miniature $99 Windows 10 PC that slides into your pocket | The Verge

One USB port for a touchscreen interface and 1 usb port for a GPS puck. The Wifi is already built in.

What's the advantage of one of these over a Nettop similar to mine?

One big disadvantage that I see is the lack of USB ports and the need for and HDMI to something else cable for most monitors.

Chris

[Littlechay]

Originally Posted by gamayun

It has been suggested that I could use a power brick, but that seems like an unnecessary add-on. Right?

Very inefficient if you are talking about an ac brick. The dc/dc converters are generally OK




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[travellerw]

Originally Posted by Littlechay

What's the advantage of one of these over a Nettop similar to mine?

One big disadvantage that I see is the lack of USB ports and the need for and HDMI to something else cable for most monitors.

Chris

Any sized external monitor for one. Ever used a chartplotter with a 26" monitor, its pretty damn nice. It also makes a pretty good backup movie watcher in the salon!