12vdc Marine Computers

[capt-couillon]

Originally Posted by 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?

Its been so long since I used Window$ I am not sure.. I believe Lake-Effect was correct in his post, Window$ wants to format your stick, not your hard-drive. That is assuming the problem is showing up when attempting to transfer the downloaded ISO to a bootable format stick. The stick has to be reformated to include a "boot sector" to make it a bootable device. Then it will copy over the grub bootstrap info and the rest of the image to the appropriate locations on the stick. If you have over a 4 gig stick, you can allocate a portion of the remainder for storage of charts, etc but this is best done after your first boot. It is easier to accomplish in linux.

Rather than clutter up this thread with a Navigatrix problem, send me a PM with any additonal info or questions and if I can't help you out, I can hook you up with the guys who can.

Cap' Couillon

[Jonty]

For those interested in Europe. We have Datamodul 15" open frame display from B.I.S. Electronics GmbH, that has 1600 brightness, 9 - 30v, vga and dvi inputs, dim to 0, osd control on a separate lead. It's not splash-proof but in our wheel house even on the brightest day we don't need more than 50% brightness. The monitor is visible from the outside steering so we see charts, track, radar, and echo sounder and Open CPN!

Have not been so lucky with the Explorer 12v computer though.

John

[smaarch]

Originally Posted by bfloyd4445

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.

yep same here. just get it out of sunlight and it is perfect

[jkindredpdx]

Originally Posted by bfloyd4445

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

No trouble. Might have tweaked some port settings, but I think the manual with the dongle and OpenCPN help walked me through it.

[bfloyd4445]

Originally Posted by jkindredpdx

No trouble. Might have tweaked some port settings, but I think the manual with the dongle and OpenCPN help walked me through it.

I've done that but didn't work. Thanks for the help

[jkindredpdx]

Originally Posted by bfloyd4445

I've done that but didn't work. Thanks for the help

Mine dongle is essentially just an antennae, not a GPS unit. . . I saw a user with a similar issue. http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...8x-113297.html

[JRM]

Just a quick update on my progress of getting OpenCPN running on a Beaglebone Black. It works... sort of.

I've got it all up and running on Debian, and OpenCPN compiles no problem. It runs, but it's pretty flakey. At first it locked up about every 15 seconds, but now it's much more stable and will run for between 30 seconds to a minute. During that time it's perfectly usable :-)

I have a GPS board from Adafruit that I've wired in, and OpenCPN is able to access it through a UART, and locates me properly. I've also got an accelerometer/compass breakout from Adafruit that I'm working on getting going now. It's an I2C device, so I'll have to write a wrapper to convert it to NEMA. Since I have no idea how to do that yet, it's going to be a great learning experience. With hand waving. Lots of hand waving.

The OpenCPN thing was more a proof of concept and learning exercise for me. I don't plan on running it on the BBB regularly. I wasn't really planning on spending the time required to figure out why it's locking up (nor do I really have the skillset), but if anyone else is interested in following up I can try and relate (remember) what steps were required to get it going in the first place. There were a lot of "one step forward, two steps back" that I could probably save someone.

JRM

[jkindredpdx]

Sorry if this is off track, I occasionally print out the local detail charts from NOAA and slip them in a plastic sleeve. Can anyone recommend a good, small, inexpensive printer for the boat

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by jkindredpdx

Sorry if this is off track, I occasionally print out the local detail charts from NOAA and slip them in a plastic sleeve. Can anyone recommend a good, small, inexpensive printer for the boat

You can only have two out of the three Canon Pixma iP100.

[jkindredpdx]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

You can only have two out of the three Canon Pixma iP100.

That IS a good printer! I considered it seriously before I bought a $59 HP3510 for my Mtn cabin. I was amazed at the features I could get for the price, but small wasn't one of them At the time I thought I needed a scanner for signed contracts, but I found people will accept photos from my phone no problem.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by jkindredpdx

That IS a good printer! I considered it seriously before I bought a $59 HP3510 for my Mtn cabin. I was amazed at the features I could get for the price, but small wasn't one of them At the time I thought I needed a scanner for signed contracts, but I found people will accept photos from my phone no problem.

Check out the scanner apps for your phone. I use one that outputs PDF that is very hard to see it was done with my iPhone. It is called Genius Scan.

[bfloyd4445]

Originally Posted by jkindredpdx

Mine dongle is essentially just an antennae, not a GPS unit. . . I saw a user with a similar issue. http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...8x-113297.html

I got it to work by buying a different series to usb converter.
thanks for the help
next its time to get radar to work

[rgleason]

Re navagatrix install on bootable usb key. For some odd reason my mEMOREX 2gb is recognized but the fact sandisk criuser 64gb is not even after reformat and use populate command. Its pretty frustrating. Have tried this on winxp and win7. Maybe a manufacturer issue???

[capt-couillon]

Not recognized by what, Rick? Bios on attempted boot, Nx iso to stick windows executable or what?

[rgleason]

Capt-Couillon, I am trying to format and install the iso. When I execute the windows install program to install the iso on the USB key, the program finds the navagatrix.iso file, but with the 64gb Sandisk Cruiser USB drive there is no "F:/" to select in the dropdown. (However with an older 2gb Memorex USB drive the drive letter does work!).

I have reformated both USB Drives as FAT32 and wiped them clean, I have gone to Control Panel, Hardware Devices, Hard Disk picked the USB key and clicked "populate" to get the drive letter in the window, then hit "Apply"... even when this is done, the 64gb key's drive letter does not show in the dropdown selector in the navagatrix.exe install program. So I am unable to install navagatrix on the 64 gb Sandisk USB Drive because the drive letter refuses to appear! I have tried this on Winxp and Win7 machines. Any suggestions?

Thanks for the help. Leaving tomorrow, maybe I'll just use Opencpn in Windows as a start.

PS these things used to have a write protect didn't they? I don't think the 64gb Sandisk is write protected because I was able to re-format it and wipe all the files Sandisk had on it.