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Old 08-08-2006, 10:38   #1
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Computer Designed for boats - interest?

I have been toying around with the idea of building a computer designed for the use on boats. The design points being water resistant, low power consumption, and low cost.

This is not an off the shelf solution, I would be custom designing them, and wanted to get a little input on some of my ideas, and find out if there is interest in purchasing such a computer.

1. able to use pcmcia cellular cards
2. able to be hooked up to TV or DVI.
3. built in? or external GPS
4. user expandable with off the shelf parts.

So what do you think?
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Old 08-08-2006, 10:58   #2
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I have considered something other than a laptop. My thoughts thus far:
1. Cube type box easy to install tucked away in some dead space but not impossible to get to.
2. 12 v powered. Power saver; hibernates when not active for X amount of time (ala laptop).
3. Wireless peripheries like flat screen display, mouse, keyboard and printer.
4. Dedicated “mouse” type GPS sensor.
5. Tons of RAM and ROM.
6. External Wi-Fi antenna at mast head.
7. External DVD read/write drive easily accessible.
8. External speakers so my computer is also my stereo/MP3 player.

Except for being water resistant, I think most of these could be had with off the shelf components.
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Old 08-08-2006, 12:12   #3
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You can make a good PC cube with off the shelf stuff. worth using solid state drives, as they are less power hungry, and massive heat sinks rather than lots of fans. you can already get 12vDC systems and boards.

personally I am happy with a laptop at the moment cause it enables me to take it home and do passage planning at home!
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Old 08-08-2006, 12:44   #4
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I have zillions of things bookmarked "just in case" I might need them some day.
This is one of them : http://www.islandtimepc.com/index.html

I am not computer literate at all, so don't know how this measures up to what you are thinking of.


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Old 08-08-2006, 12:57   #5
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Not very impressed. They are using normal hard drives (and small ones at that), whereas they should at least be using 2.5" drives due to the better capability to absorb movement.
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Old 08-08-2006, 13:58   #6
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A few days ago I was getting some upgrade parts for my desktop and was talking with one of our local PC repair folks that do a number of repairs for PCs on boats. He said they get 3 or 4 a month, so I figure that's a pretty fair sample.

He said that the biggest problem they've seen for marine PCs is inadequate ventilation leading to over-heating. He said that people tend to stick them in out of the way, tight places with closed panels and sometimes even stuff things around them. PC gets too hot and things break. So, it sounds like the best fix for that one is education about location.

I asked him about corrosion and he said that he's never seen significant corrosion even on the PCs used in boats. That the machine seems to build up enough internal heat to keep things dry. Of course, he cautioned that unless they are specially built for it, they should not be kept out in the cockpit!

In terms of power efficiency, he has been recommending that people buy regular components, using the current BTX motherboards for their improved circulation, be careful about buying efficient components and then underclock the processor. AMD's Cool & Quiet technology also gives the ability to let the PC choke itself down when less is needed and than ramp it back up when more is needed.

There's also this little calculator which can give some ideas about power consumption given a system configuration. I've used it several times with good success.

http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp

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Old 08-08-2006, 14:33   #7
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I would use a Mac mini, just 6.5 X 2 inches in size. Comes with wireless wifi, blue tooth, wireless mouse and key broad. Will fit anywhere. Add a montior and GPSNavx- you are ready to go.
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