12vdc Marine Computers

[dasboot72]

Hej Jonas
After I had repeated SD-card failures on the RPi I began to trawl the net for solutions - There are many "solutions" but none that seemed to work 100%
- adjust CPU clocking - some say it works, some say it dont (didnt work for me).
- Read only OS (Opencpn without tracks) - I could not make it work.
- SD-card class 10 (did not work for me).
The best explanation I have read is that the closed source firmware IS writing to the SD no matter what you do and if you have a power-out there is a good chance for a corrupted SD - Not OK for a navigation PC.
It is possible (have I read somewhere..) to mount an USB as OS drive, but that was where I drew the line - It became to complicated and paired with the other shortcomings of the RPi (no internal clock, very sensitive on the power source, need for external extra USB hub...) I shifted to Trim Slice (very good price right now with direct import from producer.

Im running the Trim Slice with Opencpn that shares NMEA via UDP, made it a wifi-hotspot (AP!! that works with smart-phones), A samba share, Remote desktop via VNC to PC/Android/Ipad (X11vnc) and it seems pretty good (small memory leak in opencpn), VNC can hang up and need a reboot.

/Mikkel

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by NahanniV

The power consumption of most "net-notebook(s)" is 30W and up.

...

The computers being discussing in the last few posts are all less than 10W....

What I'm thinking of is an always on nav computer that I switch the display on and off as needed.

I hear you... but 12 hr of a 5w computer = 60 Watt-hours, which would also support 30w for 2 hours . And net-books also have a sleep or no-display mode too.

I have 2 Raspberry Pi's doing various and sundry tricks in my shop, and I'm keenly watching the low-power computer space, too, but we have to be practical about where to invest time and energy. Right now, I still think an old netbook has numerous advantages over many of the ARM boards as a "boat" computer (and as a secondary tool only, not the prime navigation instrumentation - if it ain't marine-hard and sunlight-readable, it ain't prime)

I do think that development is rapid in these small computers, and I could be eating my words in a year or maybe less.

[jonasaberg]

My main concern is the power consumption.

A typical laptop draws 30-50 W including the screen, a laptop with a tiny 10" screen maybe down to 20 W.
https://secure.www.upenn.edu/computi...er-power-usage

A Raspberry Pi around 2.5 W at load .
Raspberry Pi • View topic - RasPi power usage measurements ~2 watts at idle
Without screen, of course.

My point is that if a screen is used that is turned only when it is needed (only takes a ew seconds to turn on a screen), and a low power computer is used, it will dramatically reduce the over all power consumption. This is very important in sailing yachts when you want to minimize the time needed to run engines for battery charging, but not sacrifice the comfort of following routes and having quick access to a screen with charts when needed.

A daylight viewable screen is an expensive luxury, and my aim is presently to just replace the standard PC on the navigation table with a low power alternative as a complement.

In my yacht I have a built in system (Nexus) that gets data from OpenCPN and presents steering info in the instruments in the cockpit, These instruments use very little power.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by jonasaberg

My main concern is the power consumption.

A typical laptop draws 30-50 W including the screen, a laptop with a tiny 10" screen maybe down to 20 W.
https://secure.www.upenn.edu/computi...er-power-usage

A Raspberry Pi around 2.5 W at load .
Raspberry Pi • View topic - RasPi power usage measurements ~2 watts at idle
Without screen, of course.

My point is that if a screen is used that is turned only when it is needed (only takes a ew seconds to turn on a screen), and a low power computer is used, it will dramatically reduce the over all power consumption. This is very important in sailing yachts when you want to minimize the time needed to run engines for battery charging, but not sacrifice the comfort of following routes and having quick access to a screen with charts when needed.

A daylight viewable screen is an expensive luxury, and my aim is presently to just replace the standard PC on the navigation table with a low power alternative as a complement.

In my yacht I have a built in system (Nexus) that gets data from OpenCPN and presents steering info in the instruments in the cockpit, These instruments use very little power.

I still expect that overall, leaving a small 12v computer running all day will be no more efficient than booting a small netbook a few times a day, and the netbook is self-contained, easily replaced, and superior in several other regards.

Re displays, there's a low-power display that's a combination of backlit colour LCD in low-light conditions, and paper-white, like e-books, in direct sunlight. It's expensive now but it will no doubt become lower-cost in time.

[BoomBrake]

@bfloyd4445 Yes, any outdoor viewable display is over $1,000. I already have a 10" LCD mounted on the Nav Table area, so I'm not bothering with outdoor. You can get a good 12V 10" for under $200. In the cockpit, I use a GPS repeater, that shows course, heading and distance to waypoint. I'll just pre-plan each journey on paper and electronic system at Nav Table (as a good Captain should!). In my opinion, it is not wise to have too many gadgets in the cockpit, to take away focus from important things like freighters, squalls and gybes...

@jonasberg You should simply get your OpenCPN to send the route to your Chartplotter/autopilot and control from there. Isn't that easier and safer? I have OpenCPN connected to the NMEA0183 compliant Garmin GPS 152, which then controls the Raymarine Autopilot computer. I'm still finalising config, but soon the OpenCPN routes/waypoints will auto configure the Autopilot via the Garmin GPS. I prefer the Garmin/Raymarine equipment to be "in control" of the vessel, rather than not sure which software on which PC is in control.. too risky. OpenCPN still has bugs and offers no assurance against failure. I would have multiple OpenCPN systems, but only one for backup, using only one at a time. There is software for remote control of RaspberryPI and configuring from a PC, but in your example unless you configure the two systems to talk NMEA together (serial to serial) I think you would struggle to transfer the OpenCPN data across from one PC to an ARM based system via the file system. So it follows logically, that since it is a more reliant system (process in shortest series: from paper, to electronic chart to autopilot = less risk) to have OpenCPN communicate the routes directly to the autopilot, and you already have the NMEA serial connection setup on OpenCPN in any case, then why not talk straight to the autopilot?

@rgleason Not sure what you mean by "Hartwell", as my research shows that as an Intel low power Gigabit Ethernet card, but was commonly used architecture with Atom fanless CPUs such as Intel® Atom™ Processor D525 such as this prebuilt fanless marine design system. They even have 4 x built in NMEA connectors. A bit more power consumption than the ARM systems; running at full load test on 24V they consume 1.53A at 36.72W. I'm pretty sure these units are not cheap, probably over $1,000 due to the specialist design, so out of my league!

@NahanniV Looks interesting. I looked all through the Welcome to Rikomagic - MK802 Mini PC's website and couldn't find any Technical Specs! On their ordering site they offer very basic info, but nothing on Power Consumption or power input requirements. Can you offer any more detail?

[s/v Jedi]

So, you guys know that the 13" 2013 Macbook Air uses less than 5W for regular use, 2W in stand-by with the screen at 75% brightness ? I don't think anything will beat this unless it also has Intel's new Haswell ULT tech with the super low power memory, video etc. Even with lower CPU performance this is tough to beat.

See http://www.anandtech.com/show/7085/t...eview-13inch/6 for more info.

Big catch is the price of-course...

[bfloyd4445]

Originally Posted by NahanniV

The power consumption of most "net-notebook(s)" is 30W and up.
The computers being discussing in the last few posts are all less than 10W.
I would like to hear what works in this category.

Sunlight readable displays would be nice, but most are too expensive and too power hungry.

What I'm thinking of is an always on nav computer that I switch the display on and off as needed.

I've been using a gateway netbook for over a year and the thing goes for about a day before it needs a charge if you leave it on. It has a lithium ion battery and takes about an hour to charge off 110v or 12vdc. It most certainly draws much less than my chart plotter which is also on all the time when the boat is moving and it has a much smaller screen. these things have no HD and they use a low power chip like the atom. Your not gonna find much better than these because of the display size. go for a teeny tiny display if power is your primary concern. Mine is having a display that is big enough and bright enough to see in all conditions.

[jkindredpdx]

Originally Posted by NahanniV

The power consumption of most "net-notebook(s)" is 30W and up. The computers being discussing in the last few posts are all less than 10W. I would like to hear what works in this category. . . Sunlight readable displays would be nice, but most are too expensive and too power hungry. . . What I'm thinking of is an always on nav computer that I switch the display on and off as needed.

I run OpenCN on my Win7 Netbook Acer AO756 w/ Celeron 1.4ghz draws ~12W and <$300. I get about 4-8 hours from a battery. I have a 24" LED mounted over the below deck nav table that draws ~16W. I took a lead from a Sys Admin at work and made a slip-on hood, which I use rarely, for the netbook screen. His was made from a big cardboard box and really ticked off HR

[bfloyd4445]

Originally Posted by jkindredpdx

I run OpenCN on my Win7 Netbook Acer AO756 w/ Celeron 1.4ghz draws ~12W and <$300. I get about 4-8 hours from a battery. I have a 24" LED mounted over the below deck nav table that draws ~16W. I took a lead from a Sys Admin at work and made a slip-on hood, which I use rarely, for the netbook screen. His was made from a big cardboard box and really ticked off HR

I use a gateway atom win7. 24led is run off your Accer?

[jkindredpdx]

Originally Posted by bfloyd4445

I use a gateway atom win7. 24led is run off your Accer?

LED's power is from the boats 12v system.

[rgleason]

Capt Coulon re your post about Navigatrix I downloaded, but the exe for installing the iso on a USB drive does not seem to work. I will not allow me to turn off formating the drive and does not allow entry of the drive letter in the box. Did you have this problem? -Any suggestions?

[bfloyd4445]

Originally Posted by jkindredpdx

LED's power is from the boats 12v system.

but your accer drives the 24 inch display without an ungraded graphics card?

[jkindredpdx]

Originally Posted by bfloyd4445

but your accer drives the 24 inch display without an ungraded graphics card?

Oh yea, very well. Think it's got a pretty good video and sound (for my needs anyway) Here's a Review Acer Aspire One 756 Netbook Review.
I guess my model is already old new one has 1.5Ghz CPU and Bluetooth. I like this book, it's small, light, performs well, and has good battery life. My 30W solar keeps the boat batteries topped off and I don't see any negative impact from the netbook and accesories. I got a $30 USB GlobalSat GPS receiver for OPenCPN.

Also have a $10 USB bluetooth adapter to drive my $20 wireless speaker, upgraded memory from 2GB to 6GB ($40 Kingston). I tried to leave the 2GB in for 8GB , but it seemed to get pretty warm. RAM upgrade really helped performance.

Also got a wireless Logitech integrated keyboard/mouse-pad so I can also run the computer when it's connected to the 24" display below deck and I'm steering... but in reality I usually just have the netbook in the cockpit with me... the panel's nice for watching movies however

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by rgleason

...the exe for installing the iso on a USB drive does not seem to work. I will not allow me to turn off formating the drive and does not allow entry of the drive letter in the box.

That's correct - formatting is part of the install! You're turning a garden-variety USB memory stick into a bootable stick.

[bfloyd4445]

Originally Posted by jkindredpdx

Oh yea, very well. Think it's got a pretty good video and sound (for my needs anyway) Here's a Review Acer Aspire One 756 Netbook Review.
I guess my model is already old new one has 1.5Ghz CPU and Bluetooth. I like this book, it's small, light, performs well, and has good battery life. My 30W solar keeps the boat batteries topped off and I don't see any negative impact from the netbook and accesories. I got a $30 USB GlobalSat GPS receiver for OPenCPN.

Also have a $10 USB bluetooth adapter to drive my $20 wireless speaker, upgraded memory from 2GB to 6GB ($40 Kingston). I tried to leave the 2GB in for 8GB , but it seemed to get pretty warm. RAM upgrade really helped performance.

Also got a wireless Logitech integrated keyboard/mouse-pad so I can also run the computer when it's connected to the 24" display below deck and I'm steering... but in reality I usually just have the netbook in the cockpit with me... the panel's nice for watching movies however

did you have any trouble getting the gps to work with opencpn? I cant get my garmin gps 12 to work reliably with opencpn.