Any experience with toughbook laptops for chart plotter

[Amazing Grace]

I have a 2004 Raymarine C 120 chart plotter networked to radar, depth,speed, wind autopilot on my sailboat. I can't get charts for northern BC and can't update the charts I have for US. Rather than spending the money to replace the electronics, I'm thinking of using what I have and adding a laptop as a chart plotter running Coastal Explorer. I have Coastal Explorer now on a tablet but the screen visibility is poor in the sunlight and not water proof. I've been looking at the Panasonic Toughbook laptops and Dell Rugged outdoor laptops. Has anyone got experience using a rugged laptop as a chartplotter? I'd appreciate any recommendations.

[sv_pelagia]

Originally Posted by Amazing Grace

I have a 2004 Raymarine C 120 chart plotter networked to radar, depth,speed, wind autopilot on my sailboat. I can't get charts for northern BC and can't update the charts I have for US. Rather than spending the money to replace the electronics, I'm thinking of using what I have and adding a laptop as a chart plotter running Coastal Explorer. I have Coastal Explorer now on a tablet but the screen visibility is poor in the sunlight and not water proof. I've been looking at the Panasonic Toughbook laptops and Dell Rugged outdoor laptops. Has anyone got experience using a rugged laptop as a chartplotter? I'd appreciate any recommendations.

Used a toughbook for years with opencpn. Was great. Retired due to age (and Win7) NOT due to any malfunction. Now use Dell non-rugged laptop below decks (with OpenCPN) and Samsung Tablet (running Android OpenCPN) in cockpit. O-Charts Pacific Canada ENC (plus mbtiles etc) makes OpenCPN the best (most up-to-date) option here in BC.

Why can't you update chart cards for Raymarine? Is the type of chart card no longer available? (Not that Navionics or CMAP chartcards are ever truly up-to-date here in BC - - relative to CHS updates - - and they are pricey.)

[sailingharry]

Depending upon the layout of your boat, any laptop has even more challenging mounting situations than a tablet. I couldn't begin to see where to put one in my conventional aft cockpit configuration. It would need to be able to be open while in use in a seaway. Any mount would have to support both the keyboard and the display to avoid the risk of ripping off the display.
Police cars do seem to have a solution that leaves the laptop open while being tolerant of g-forces. I don't know if their mount translates to a cockpit solution.
All of these concerns go away at a nav station or a powerboat style dashboard steering station. My father used a laptop in his pilot house motor sailor for many tens of thousands of miles.

[Marathon1150]

We used a ruggedized Toughbook with C-Map charts for the South Pacific but kept it down below. I think that it is a Toughbook 54 that I bought new in 2017. It is super rugged, big and very heavy. The touchscreen is helpful as is the 12V power supply that is available as an option. We never used it in the cockpit, instead we used an iPad in a Lifeproof case. With a full bimini, the iPad is always visible and can be put into "night" mode if using iNavX or Navionics apps.

We continue to use the Toughbook in the cabin as backup but use the iPad and Navionics in the cockpit. We also have a Furuno chartplotter with C-Map charts but it uses a lot of power and it was power consumption that prompted the switch to using the iPad and Toughbook rather than the chartplotter.

If I had to choose between the iPad and the Toughbook as our only source of electronic navigation, I would choose the iPad because of its portability, low power consumption and the availability of apps that can do many useful things including navigation. It is not as robust as a dedicated chartplotter but it is much cheaper to replace/update than a chartplotter. Crossing the Pacific we had two iPads in Lifeproof cases, the Toughbook and the Furuno chartplotter. Redundancy when far from land can be very useful.

But the Toughbook is a great laptop to have on a boat because as its name implies, it is really tough. Refurbished models are readily available at reasonable prices.

[Pete7]

We have a couple of toughbooks at work for staff to take on trips particularly abroad. Never had a problem with them unlike some of the other laptops. Screen a bit small but for a critical piece of equipment, yes worth going for.

Pete

[akopac]

Go with opencpn and checkout “the chart locker” online. I use a raspberry pi and share the screen to my iPad Air 2 with integrated anti glare laminated screen. I’m just approaching the pass thru the coral reef full of bombies to get to Musket Cove, Fiji as I write this. It’s stupid difficult to do it without the FREE satellite chart overlays to navigate the coral reefs and bombies. I can stand on the bow with my iPad sharing the screen from my raspberry pi that is the chart plotter AND the WiFi hotspot and it uses .4 amp hrs. I have a remote built into it for the autopilot.

[Russ]

I have no experience using a laptop top as a chart plotter
Wondering how you patch in your radar and depth sounders into the iPAD etc
Great idea.

[akopac]

Originally Posted by Russ

I have no experience using a laptop top as a chart plotter

Wondering how you patch in your radar and depth sounders into the iPAD etc

Great idea.

I have a B&G Halo 20+ radar setup. It plugs into Ethernet port and power and works excellent with up to 2 simultaneous radar screens including chart overlay with +30 mile range max. The radar and Pi power consumption is like ahhhhh Fairy Dust…
Crazy.
Look up the specs. Online

[requiem]

Originally Posted by Russ

I have no experience using a laptop top as a chart plotter
Wondering how you patch in your radar and depth sounders into the iPAD etc
Great idea.

Pretty much anything that talks N2k will work with any decent app that accepts N2k data. In most cases that just means adding a wifi gateway if your plotter doesn't already include one.

The only odd one is radar; either you get one that works with OpenCPN or you use whichever proprietary app that can mirror your chartplotter.

[sailingharry]

Originally Posted by requiem

The only odd one is radar; either you get one that works with OpenCPN or you use whichever proprietary app that can mirror your chartplotter.

If you have a chartplotter, one would assume that that is your primary nav device and mirroring it is only a convenience/secondary display?

[requiem]

Originally Posted by sailingharry

If you have a chartplotter, one would assume that that is your primary nav device and mirroring it is only a convenience/secondary display?

In this case the main purpose of a plotter would be to enable the display of radar. I much prefer the phone/tablet/laptop apps over a built-in plotter, but the radar remains an important look-out tool and being able to have it usable in all conditions is critical.

Like with handheld GPS devices, the main advantage is continued usability in bad weather. In most other ways (responsiveness, design, features, etc) they lag woefully behind.

[akopac]

Originally Posted by requiem

In this case the main purpose of a plotter would be to enable the display of radar. I much prefer the phone/tablet/laptop apps over a built-in plotter, but the radar remains an important look-out tool and being able to have it usable in all conditions is critical.



Like with handheld GPS devices, the main advantage is continued usability in bad weather. In most other ways (responsiveness, design, features, etc) they lag woefully behind.

You mean like overlayed or floating radar windows on a Raspberry Pi with Halo 20+ radar running through opencpn and screen shared using areal VNC to my iPad Air 2 or iPhone wirelessly like this…?

[requiem]

Originally Posted by akopac

You mean like overlayed or floating radar windows on a Raspberry Pi with Halo 20+ radar running through opencpn and screen shared using areal VNC to my iPad Air 2 or iPhone wirelessly like this…?

Partly, but also to have a cockpit display that won't go haywire from storm or spray.

[Sos]

Have a look at Londonchartplotters

[moseriw]

Have a look on the Oukitel Tablets. They are cheap and water resistant but the OS is OpenCPN