Computer for navigation

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by Curryfrog

I have actually used an iPad with navionics installed alongside the B&G box I use, when cruising the NW of Scotland,, so I suppose I’m already doing it.
But can you use an iPad across the Atlantic?
Do they have built in GPSs?
I could use it as a secondary system if it could be used.
Along with charts, obviously!
Very helpful guys!
Very much appreciated!

Yes.

As I understand it the Ipad would just have to connect to the onboard computer. (WIFI) Say if you had a $60-$99 Raspberry computer onboard loaded with all your OpenCPN charts with a GPS dongle

Charts from OpenCPN can be downloaded before you leave. GPS is satellite so that should work and should display on the chart as you pull up different ones

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by Curryfrog

I really appreciate the fact that you’ve taken the time and trouble to reply. I really do!
But my ignorance precludes my ability to understand, as usual!

It’s the “ also have AIS on my "chartplotter" which is an HDTV. The AIS I have coming in from my SH GX2200 VHF thru a Raspberry Pi 4 computer ($99) and then displayed on a monitor/HDTV” bit that I go all gooey brained over and I just glaze over.
Sounds great but I would have more chance platting fog than being able to wire that lot up!
That’s if I could ever understand what it means, of course.
Thanks anyway. I appreciate the attempt!!

I just put my "system" together and had lots of help. (see thread below)

It's quite simple after you get your Raspberry Pi Computer built and loaded with the raspbian software and openplotter software which is all done on one download.

My Standard Horizon (SH) GX2200 VHF has 6 NMEA wires coming out the back of it. You just use the 2 TX wires connected thru and RS422/485 adapter to USB down to your Raspberry Pi

I also have a GPS dongle ($17) hooked up to the Raspberry so I get my GPS data from that and AIS from the SH VHF

https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...er-229183.html

At this time my adapter is of the $5.00 variety but I have two types. and a spare of the $5.00 one

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Industrial-...wAAOSwp41bIz79

https://www.usbgear.com/USB-RS422-AT.html

[aeronautic1]

I am on my third Toughbook, a (Win7) CF-30. I use Time Zero as my chart plotter and a Digital Yacht usb powered AIS100 received and QMax portable antenna. Always carry a personal EPIB and waterproof VHF on my yacht deliveries.
YachtAide

[Username25]

Originally Posted by coopec43

.I worry about taking a laptop (designed for home use) aboard a boat. The local technician in a fishing village where I live says the lobster fishermen have problems with corrosion.

Get yourself a decent 2-3 year old second hand Intel i5 or AMD Ryzen 5 laptop with integrated graphics and SSD. Then take it apart, get Silicone Modified Conformal Coating and spray all PCB components.

https://www.mgchemicals.com/products...l-coating-422b

"422B is designed for applications where both high service temperature and flexibility are required. It puts minimum stress on components during thermal cycling, making it ideal for applications that involve a wide temperature range. It provides strong protection against moisture, corrosion, fungus, dirt, dust, thermal shock, short circuits, high-voltage arcing, and static discharge."

[alanrothenbush]

My two cents worth.

I have a Panasonic Toughbook in the cabin, the hard drive swapped out for a solid state drive because that just seems like a good idea.

Having said this, I know that the football coaches at the university where I worked before retiring used stock Toughbooks with stock spinning hard drives. We never lost one due to failure and the coaches were not nice to them, treating them not much better than the tackling dummies.

But SSDs are a cheap performance upgrade as well as (hopefully) a physical upgrade. Considering just how cheap the whole thing is compared to, say, my Spectra halyards, it's a no brainer.


In the cockpit, I have a conventional 7" chartplotter with zillions of sensors all running to it. (I guess I'm a bit of an electronics junky.)

Over the years though, I noticed that I was using my tablet or even my phone, both with Navionics on them, more and more. They were just better at delivering what I wanted to see, particularly in terms of zooming and scrolling about.

The problem with them was sunlight; shielding from the glare of the sun sometimes meant turning my back to the direction of travel, which just seems wrong when you're both the helmsman and the navigator.

My solution was to add a Panasonic Toughbook Tablet to the mix. This device is the toughest (sorry for the pun) computer Panasonic makes, and has a sunlight readable screen, one that works even with polarized sunglasses on.

I've been told, and experience bears this out, that most chartplotters use a special film to allow them to be seen in sunlight, and there's something about this film that interferes with polarized lenses. For quite a few years, I wore flip-up sunglasses, like a baseball player uses, to counteract this.

As to operating systems, I use Windows 7 on this computer and accept the risks that come with the use older operating systems. In the case of Windows 7, those risks are pretty much completely mitigated by not using it to web surf. It is (now), for me, an OpenCPN appliance. It's not a computer any more.

Note that I could "upgrade" it to Windows 10; the hardware requirements of Windows 10 are really no more stringent than Windows 7. Indeed, I have a machine at home with 1 GB of RAM running Windows 10 with no problem whatsoever.

But since the notebook is not really a computer any more, it's an appliance, there's nothing to be gained by upgrading, so the "upgrade" is moved to the bottom of my 800 line long to-do list.


For the tablet, I use Android! Note that I didn't buy the Android version of the Panasonic ToughPad, I bought the higher performing (and sadly, much more expensive) Windows version.

There is a way to easily install a new version of Android on an Intel computer. This is not an emulator that runs under Windows, this is stock Android running natively. I then go to the Play Store, just like my phone or "genuine" Android tablet, and install my favourite tablet apps in the usual way.

I could run Windows and OpenCPN on this tablet, and indeed, it dual boots Windows and Android. But I've found that in the cockpit, the Android apps are my preferred choice; I just never seem to boot Windows on this any more.

For the record, it's Windows 10 that the tablet boots, because Windows 7 on a touchscreen is so-so at best.

What I may try one day is TiKi Navigator for Windows. This software is different in terms of UI than any of the others but I think it might also be better than any of the others, for use in the cockpit anyway.

All the others that I've tried or have seen are Windows apps, with Windows menus and Windows interactions. They just assume you have a conventional keyboard and mouse. Tiki allows you to work without either; a coarse touch screen runs just fine.

I don't want to go on a preachy rant here, but it is absolutely worth a try.

For both notebook and tablet, NMEA data is sent via WiFi. There are any number of devices that can do this.

My particular scheme has the chartplotter in the middle of it all; it gets all the data. The chartplotter has a serial output, and I connect this output to a WiFi device I built myself for about 10 bucks and ta-da, data.


Hope this helps.

Alan

[DHLyman]

Both the iPad and iPhone with Navonics work offshore on long voyages. You do need to download the charts covering the areas you intent to sail through, when ashore and have WiFi. The charts come with the software at no more charge, so long as you pay the annual subscription fee. Which is more than reasonable, and equal to the cost of one paper chart.
It seems while reading the posts so far, most are lost in another generation of MSDOS and Windows OS.
I find Navonics great. It's linked to ActiveCaptan, providing user notes on anchorages, can provide a track of your voyage, and gives you a quick and easy way to measure routes and distances. Using it on an iPhone, gives you access to all the other apps you use, like three kinds of weather, buoy reports, ASI ship tracking, a camera, a note pad, and a phone.
While sailing the Caribbean this winter I used Verizon's International service. It costs $10 a day, for the days you use the service, and you get data, phone calls in and out, messaging all through what every carriers you can receive. The plan was cheaper that going ashore every day for WiFi and paying $10 for a few beers and getting only 30 minutes of WiFi.

[MJH]

Originally Posted by coopec43

I am nearing completion of my yacht so my attention has turned to navigation.

I'll probably use OpenCPN on a secondhand Panasonic Toughbook computer because:

• it would be suitable for a marine environment.
• the screen is readable in sunlight.
• the screen is a touch screen
• the unit can be separated so you can take the screen up into the cockpit.

The computer comes with Win 7 installed although one of the sales claims is that Win 10 (which the latest units have loaded) can be downgraded to Win 7 (Why would anyone want to do that? But I suppose that is another question)


I am completely new to navigation so any advice would be welcome.

I just transitioned from a Toshiba Windows 7 laptop to Windows 10 HP laptop and moved my navigational software to it; I will now use the older Windows 7 laptop as my backup on voyages.

Having accomplished that I sold my previous backup laptop, a much older Toshiba (Windows XP SP3) with navigational software that only had a 40GB HD, to another boater. It functioned well for many years as my primary and later as the backup to Hawaii and Alaska. Despite XP no longer being serviced by Microsoft, since there is no Internet connection onboard to it there is no chance of it ever being hacked.

Navigational laptops that are removed from the boat when not being used have shown me to have little concern for corrosion...why would you want to leave it onboard anyway?

FWIW, I plot my route on the navigation station laptop, transfer it to a Garmin handheld (Garmin GPSmap 76CSx) for use at the helm, thus saving thousands over a Multi-Function Display.

~ ~ _/) ~ ~ MJH

[SteveC68]

I would caution you against installing a 256gb SSD. After you account for the space that the OS takes up there will be very little room left for anything else. I built my sons desktop pc last year and started with the smaller SSD. That lasted about 2 months before I installed a 1TB SSD. Seriously it’s $99 on Amazon.

Steve

[aeronautic1]

I agree with Sean. I did not upgrade my stand alone Toughbook Win7 with TimeZero because I have all of the last patches before it went unsupported by MS. And the only reason why I upgraded Toughbook CF-30 from an earlier WinXP was because Nobeltec VNS was no longer supported after acquisition (I still have it functioning on my older Toughbook as back up).

[thomm225]

I'm still amazed about these little Raspberry pi computers that you can get from $65-$99.

The Raspberry Pi 4 has 4 Gb Ram. around a 1.5 GHZ cpu, and uses a 32 gb sd card which is plenty for navigation. It also has wifi.

And if your VHF already has AIS and GPS, you can build yourself a chart plotter with a backup GPS on a dongle plugged into one of the USB jacks.

I bought a second Raspberry Pi computer and a couple backup 32 GB sd cards

All thats left to complete your plotter is the rs422/485 adapter to bring in the NMEA from the VHF and downloading the free charts from OpenCPN.

Plus downloading the openplotter software which includes the Raspian OS

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Raspberry-P...-/233284198418

[aeronautic1]

One more reason why I like the Toughbook; it is easy to find a retired military computer for sale that has a 20 channel military grade GPS sensor installed internally. No need for USB external sensor.

[thomm225]

I have GPS coming in from both the VHF and the $17 gps dongle.

Similar to this one and I did not have to install a driver.

https://www.amazon.com/Navigation-Ex...2921197&sr=8-9

I gave the higher priority to the dongle so that is showing my vessels position on my monitor/HDTV

Also just noticed this Raspberry Pi Model 3B for $41.00 which canl handle the navigtion duties also. Many use them.......

https://www.amazon.com/Raspberry-Pi-...V8SS28A2RS8ZEZ

[markiobe]

Why not do it with an iPad? It’s waterproof you can put it in an extremely tough case and I’m told all the functionality you’d need already exists in various apps. Without having done much research that’s kind of what I’m planning to do, would love to know if I’m barking up the wrong tree however..

[Curryfrog]

I think this is going to be my answer.
Don’t need everything linked up.
KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid.
Also, built in redundancy...

And also - I am lost with all this raspberry thing.

[rla]

Originally Posted by markiobe

Why not do it with an iPad? It’s waterproof you can put it in an extremely tough case and I’m told all the functionality you’d need already exists in various apps. Without having done much research that’s kind of what I’m planning to do, would love to know if I’m barking up the wrong tree however..

I haven't seen a waterproof Ipad, 30 pin connector, volume switch, power switch .. You can get a waterresistant clear bag, which it does work in well but the power lead needs really special entry into the bag...not detailed.



Unless you only sail for a few hours a day !!