Ideal Boat Computer?

[BigAl.NZ]

Dockhead,

I have one of these : https://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Lis...?id=2050395232

The HP Elitedesk Mini are the size of a paperback book, but pack a better punch than a NUC. Second hand they can be had dirt cheap and with a 1Tb SSD being so cheap this makes for a very powerful boat PC.

Sorry I cant tell you what the power draw is however.

My 0.02.

AG

[HankOnthewater]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Hi -- thanks for that. I would certainly be interested in your power measurements.......
I suspect that processing power is not at all the issue I've been having, that it's down to RAM and hard drive space, so I'm hoping that I can get by with another ultra low voltage box.

I measured ampere use today.
Although I said that my unit was a PN 35.... it isn't, it is an Asus UN45, purchased 2nd hand.
I use a DC converter from 12 to 19 volt like this one:
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/U2M5-120....c100005.m1851
That unit uses without anything connected to the output: 80 mAmp.

My setup as described in post #37, uses when asleep 0.11 amp, and therefore the PC might be using 110-80=30 mAmp.
When running the PC: it uses 0.56 to 1.05 Amp. The higher figure is when loading a program, just running programs 0.65 to 0.85 Amp, and that is including the 80 mAmp of the converter.
And who knows, as others have said before, it might run straight from the 12 Volt batteries, and in reality that figure of 12 is more often between 13 and 14 Volts anyway.
Hehehe, I should have measured those things on installing, but never did.

[Bill O]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

The main thing it needs to do is run OpenCPN flawlessly, with no resource issues and no crashes. In my experience using O on different platforms over the years -- as admirably light as it is, it does need a certain amount of power, especially if you are using raster charts and have a large number of charts installed as I do. So I would be reluctant to try it on a Raspberry Pi.

Dockhead.
I'm not certain why you are reluctant to try a RPi. Before a couple of years ago had never heard of a RPi but after using them I wouldn't go back. We had planned to install a desk top in the nav station but also was concerned that it would be a power hog and really was way over kill to run OCPN. We use our RPi as a dedicated stand alone nav. computer running raster charts, lots of NMEA inputs (AIS, speed, wind, depth), autopilot, etc. and it doesn't crash. Most of the time we run headless at the nav. station (we do have a large monitor when needed) and use the wifi to connect to a tablet in the cockpit as another independent control of the whole system

Originally the ~$35 to purchase a RPi was an experiment to see if it would do the things we wanted it to do. Not being super computer literate, we thought we needed to learn Linux and download everything from source. Well we did that and then found out you really don't need to learn too much Linux and just download OpenPlotter to make life simple.

Well at this stage the RPi does it all the for all the nav. and autopilot on our boat. Are there any downsides (at this point), will honestly say, yes. At least on our Rpi (3B), we can't run openGL w/o it bogging it down and possibly crashing. So we don't run in openGL and therefore don't have a problem. I believe in the OCPN 5.0 people are working around the oGL issue, but will wait for the RPi 4 to come out this year to handle the higher graphics. With the RPi 4, we should be able to add radar to the mix.

Another thing we found that will slow down the RPi, is too many charts open at once in fully quilted mode. Besides for planning purposes you don't need to have all the charts of the world open at once, to navigate in the country you are in.

There really are very few downsides to do an experiment w/a $35 computer vs. a very expensive computer that has way more stuff on it than needed for a strict nav. computer and more power hungry than a RPi. You may have already read our article on how we set up our RPi nav. computer but here is the embedded link again.


Bill O.

[JKMilligan]

Look at Kingdel fanless PC’s. Multiple MPU and memory configs. Amazon or EBay. I run an i5 with 64G SSD built in with another external drive.

[BigAl.NZ]

Originally Posted by conachair

Wifi network as opposed to internet. It's really handy being able to see al the boat data on any device. And graphs can be interesting an informative, pressure especially but sog, wind speed etc great as well. On y8ur boat buying a pi for a play wouldn't even register on the budget Or they are so low power it might be worth iinvestigating having one just to serve up all the data though I've no problem with encs or sat images on O a pi3, scrolls n zooms plenty fast enough.
Saw this morning windows will be shipping with Linux installed as a virtual machine soon, might make signalk installation a lot easier than on windows.
https://www.geekwire.com/2019/togeth...ernel-windows/
And did I read the opencpn dashboard is getting worked on to display sigK data? That would be just great

Batt volts/amps served up by a pi-

Can you tell me how you are getting that graph? Looks pretty nice.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by BigAl.NZ

Can you tell me how you are getting that graph? Looks pretty nice.

All done in the Pi. The data gets sent over wifi with a esp32 microcontroller and some chea but very accurate sensors as signalk then you install a database, influxdb, and a viewer called chronograf. There's a SignalK app which will write whatever you want or everything to the database. Actually easy to set up if you have signalk running. The sensors can connect directly to the Pi and openplotter will convert to signalk but I find the wiring easier going through a little esp32. Just had some PCBs made up for a few bucks from jlcpcb to make plugging it all up much easier. Graphs are great, see trends you'd never notice just looking at the numbers. Another reason to get signalk running, nmea is stone age

With a few sensors this board will do 8 voltage readings, 2 current sensors and barometer plus connections to add thermometers .

[Paul Elliott]

Originally Posted by conachair

This is all very nice stuff! Have you got a more detailed write-up you can point us to? I've dipped my toe into SignalK but never got deep enough do do anything useful with it.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by Paul Elliott

This is all very nice stuff! Have you got a more detailed write-up you can point us to? I've dipped my toe into SignalK but never got deep enough do do anything useful with it.

Should really do a write up really, maybe soon. Signalk really has come of age now, though still not obvious to the masses how to get it installed on a win machine, or linux really. RPi is the easiest, openplotter has it installed and lots of things openplotter did at the start are now done with signalk apps. I think there is an opening for an "instructables" for boat electronics, like links to jlcpcb designs and esp code, then without knowing how to write code and just fairly basic soldering skills anyone could get access to very capable monitoring systems costing pennies compared to any commercial options.

[_m_miles]

I run a Linux variant on a Raspberry Pi. I have spoken with people that run OpenCPN on that platform. It is orders of magnitude lighter than Windows 10.

[olewsaa]

I cannot agree more. I use RPi as the yacht computer,
https://sites.google.com/site/olewsa...erver-on-board
RPi has its limitations, but you can easily use one RPi for each service.

Ole

[Norman_E]

Quite a few people are now running Opencpn from a Raspberry Pi, and that must be about the lowest power drain way of doing it. I prefer to have something a bit more powerful because I also run some spreadsheets and use the internet a lot. My preferred platform is a Gigabyte Brix as the lighter Celeron powered ones are 12 volt. I run mine via a stabilised supply which also powers a 12 volt monitor. Mine is model GB BXBT 2807. I also experimented with the slightly more powerful GB BACE 3150 which is 19 volts, but I have found that it works OK on 12 volts. You can fit any 2.5 inch drive into a Brix, but I run mine from an external drive plugged into the USB3 port so that I take the drive and all my personal data home with me.



Ubuntu 18.04 runs Opencpn flawlessly, though I have problems with it at present on another drive loaded with Elementary OS. I have a third drive with Windows 10 Pro loaded on it for the odd occasions when I need to use a Windows only program.

[mikedefieslife]

Originally Posted by _m_miles

I run a Linux variant on a Raspberry Pi. I have spoken with people that run OpenCPN on that platform. It is orders of magnitude lighter than Windows 10.

Probably the cheapest and easiest way to have a fully functional system. On problem is that OpenCPN is too taxing for it really when running live, especially once you start having things like RADAR, AIS etc.. panning, scrolling, and zooming it slow. I highlighted this earlier in the thread with the youtube comparisons.

Theoretically Openplotter which all it's bells and whistles could run on any ARM based system, and are there many more powerful than the Pi for not much more money.

OpenCPN on the other hand will run on anything, so no need to be limited by the architecture that Openplotter requires.

[AA3JY]

Great with all this wiz bang tech stuff..but will it hold up to shock loads in a heavy sea way and stand the brutality of salt air and high humidity?.

[Octopus]

Originally Posted by AA3JY

Great with all this wiz bang tech stuff..but will it hold up to shock loads in a heavy sea way and stand the brutality of salt air and high humidity?.

Some people have already said they have not had any problems after many years marine usage and that has also been my experience in over ten years using a domestic PC based system. However, I'm planning to upgrade to a 'no-moving parts' system (12v fanless mini PC with an SSD) because it can support twin 4K monitors, has six RS232 ports and eight USB ports, based on this:https://www.aliexpress.com/store/pro...374f1aecgDq5gH

[ghendoaus]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

F

Alternatively, if I cross the line over to Linux, would that be enough lighter than Win 10 to allow me to continue using an Atom box with less resources? Or maybe Linux and Celeron? Is OpenCPN more stable on Linux?


I have long resisted going over to Linux because I don't want to spend time messing around with drivers and configuring it --

I can't speak to the specific questions re Open CPN but most Linux distros these days have a full complement of drivers and need very little configuring out of the box. Linux Mint is a good Windows replacement (I prefer the Mate Desktop) I have put several windows users on to it for various reasons and all seem very happy with the switch.