Cockpit laptop monitor

[forsbpe]

Originally Posted by bcn

Digital Signage Display 20.32 cm 8 Zoll Faytech FT08TMIP65 EEK: A 1024 x 768 Pixel 24/7 Touchscreen, Outdoor tauglich, L im Conrad Online Shop | 1503409

330€
That's with 19% VAT included

I see in the Conrad site that the 15 inch is EUR 685:
Digital Signage Display 38.10 cm 15 Zoll Faytech FT15TMIP65HDMI EEK: C 1024 x 768 Pixel 24/7 Touchscreen, Outdoor taugli im Conrad Online Shop | 1503414

Sincerely / Per

[ErikFinn]

I reckon the german word "zoll" means inch, so the 15 inch one seems a bit dear at €685 compared to €330 for the 8 inch one, in my opinion.. If Per paid 450 for the 15 inch one that's not too bad. (What happened to the decreasing prices off consumer electronics?? lol)
What's interesting was to compare the draw, 24W for the 15, but only 7W for the 8.
Sorry, I don't mean to hijack the thread, just interested in the subject..

[forsbpe]

Originally Posted by ErikFinn

I reckon the german word "zoll" means inch, so the 15 inch one seems a bit dear at €685 compared to €330 for the 8 inch one, in my opinion.. If Per paid 450 for the 15 inch one that's not too bad. (What happened to the decreasing prices off consumer electronics?? lol)
What's interesting was to compare the draw, 24W for the 15, but only 7W for the 8.
Sorry, I don't mean to hijack the thread, just interested in the subject..

I used to have a 7 inch monitor, but the readability under sailing was poor with that small monitor, thus i upgraded to the bigger 15 inch, and what a difference, especially when zoomed out to see AIS targets ahead of time.

The power draw is related to simple fysics with lighted area at 1000 nits, these monitors have exceptional low power draw for the strong light compaired to other. Power draw is an important factor in our boat, we never need to charge battery by the engine, the solar panels provide all electricity we need.
The electrical system is well balanced, the singel most important power draw reduction was a change to LiFePO4 batteries for the houshold electricity (starting battery is still lead acid).
The computer that we use draw 12w (Ultra low voltage intel processor), so the entire navigation system use in total 36w (3A@12V).
Sincerely / Per

[Ray Perry]

Hi Paul L,

The reason I want to use an external monitor is the viewing size on the Furuno is too small for comfort. Knowing what I know now I would definitely have purchased the larger screen model.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by ErikFinn

What's interesting was to compare the draw, 24W for the 15, but only 7W for the 8.
Sorry, I don't mean to hijack the thread, just interested in the subject..

Screen sizes are measured on the diagonal. a 15 inch screen is almost 4 times the screen area of an 8 inch screen, and the power consumption is understandably about 4 times greater as well.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by forsbpe

the solar panels provide all electricity we need.
The electrical system is well balanced, the singel most important power draw reduction was a change to LiFePO4 batteries for the houshold electricity

You've got me baffled there! How does changing the battery chemistry reduce household power draw?

[Dockhead]

I know this is not exactly responsive to the question, but might be somewhat useful to the OP.

I love OpenCPN, and wouldn't want to sail without it. But I don't find it to be suited to use in the cockpit, even if you could find reasonably suitable hardware at a reasonable price, which you can't. The whole interface is made for a different kind of working, than what you do in the cockpit in the rain and maybe even in gloves. In my opinion, normal chart plotters are ideal for this type of use. OpenCPN on a PC with a big high resolution monitor (mine is 23") is ideal for the nav table.

I do have access to OpenCPN in the cockpit via an Android installation on a waterproof 10" Sony Z tablet, the same device I use for mirroring my Zeus plotter via GoFree. But I find O to be practically unusable on this device -- there is simply not enough screen real estate, plus the touchscreen is just not really suited to the interface.

Also how do you power it? Once you open the micro USB port cover, it is no longer waterproof. I was using an IPad once as my only cockpit navigation when I entered Poole -- a rather complicated port with complicated channels and buoyage -- on a dark night. The damn thing died just as I got inside the harbor. It was -- shall we say -- a brown shorts moment. I vowed never again to depend on consumer electronics, for any tricky pilotage.


To do O properly in the cockpit, I think you would need at least a 15" monitor, daylight viewable, rugged, and waterproof, which as others have said, will already cost more than a normal chart plotter. What's the point?

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Ray Perry

Hi Paul L,

The reason I want to use an external monitor is the viewing size on the Furuno is too small for comfort. Knowing what I know now I would definitely have purchased the larger screen model.

Have you considered selling what you have, and changing to the larger one?

[Delancey]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I was using an IPad once.... The damn thing died just as I got inside the harbor.

Just curious, when you say it died, died how? Battery ran down? Or died completely as in dead?

We are quite happy using iPad for nav. Of course we have two of them which gives us redundancy, and one is always fully charged, and they are both in waterproof protective cases.....

[forsbpe]

Originally Posted by StuM

You've got me baffled there! How does changing the battery chemistry reduce household power draw?

The lead acid batteries has significant losses through self discharging and internal resistance when charging, especially noticable with very big battery banks.
I read an article about a guy with an electric vehicle, he reduced the power consumption by 25% when changing from lead acid to LiFePO4, he had monitored very carefully charged energy versus milage for every singel use of the vehicle.
I do not have as exact monitoring, but the data on the battery chemistry confirms that it is in this range. Besides the positive effect from charging and discharging behaviour of LiFePO4 cells, discharge to 20% SOC without damage to the cells, and the battery accept almost all incoming energy unlike Lead Acid that need many hours to reach 100% SOC.
Interesting subject, but a bit of topic, sorry!
Sincerely / Per

[StuM]

Originally Posted by forsbpe

The lead acid batteries has significant losses through self discharging and internal resistance when charging, especially noticable with very big battery banks.
I read an article about a guy with an electric vehicle, he reduced the power consumption by 25% when changing from lead acid to LiFePO4, he had monitored very carefully charged energy versus milage for every singel use of the vehicle.
I do not have as exact monitoring, but the data on the battery chemistry confirms that it is in this range. ...

OK, so a a confusion of terminology. You are not talking about "reducing household power draw" you are talking about increasing charging efficiency so it takes less energy input to provide the same amount of household "power".

I agree with that.

But just to amplify:
Self discharge is really a non-issue it's a few percent a month.

Size of battery bank is irrelevant to internal resistance considerations.

I doubt that you would get anywhere near the electrical vehicles 25% improvement on a boat. The difference between LiFePO4 and LA discharge efficiency come into its own at the high discharge rates typical of an electric vehicle. At the typically much lower discharge rates of a boat's battery bank, there isn't that much different in discharge efficiency between the technologies.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by Delancey

Just curious, when you say it died, died how? Battery ran down? Or died completely as in dead?

We are quite happy using iPad for nav. Of course we have two of them which gives us redundancy, and one is always fully charged, and they are both in waterproof protective cases.....

I've heard of a few cases of iPads overheating and shutting down when running a nav app - but more commonly when out in the sun, not at night.

[forsbpe]

Originally Posted by StuM

Size of battery bank is irrelevant to internal resistance considerations.

When charging a LA battery the internal resistance gives approximately 1% of the amperage in the bank as losses, so if you have a bank of 500Ah, to overcome the internal resistance you need 5A charging, especially when relying on solarpanels with relatively low current this becomes an issue.
It is everything togheter that gives the total energy losses (a lot of small streams makes an river), as I said I do not have exact numbers of input energy versus consumed and exactly how much the change of battery chemistry affected, but that it has contributed significantly I do know from the limited data I have. I do agree that it probably is less than the 25% in the EV case, but probably more than half of that value, so an improvment of 15-18% is significant. In combination with the other mentioned positive effects from LiFeYPo4 cells.

[Kenomac]

Why not just buy a used ipad Air cellular (internal gps model) and use it as a stand alone device inside a Lifeproof case? Forget about connecting, go with redundancy. Or the ipad can be connected using the proper app and wifi.

We do the same on our boat with an HP laptop and Nobeltec, but the ipads are also stand alone devices running two very inexpensive apps Nobeltec (free) and INavx.

In the photo, my wife is using the ipad which is displaying chartplotter data via INavx with AIS information overlayed via the Vesper ais unit onto INavx via wifi. She could also switch the display to nobeltec and view the onboard PC if she wanted to. Or... just view family pictures, email, listen to music, surf the internet, read a book.......

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Delancey

Just curious, when you say it died, died how? Battery ran down? Or died completely as in dead?

We are quite happy using iPad for nav. Of course we have two of them which gives us redundancy, and one is always fully charged, and they are both in waterproof protective cases.....

Battery ran down.

People's attitudes towards this vary, of course, so to each his own.

For me, using consumer electronics for critical navigation functions involving the safety of the vessel is just wrong. What if you drop it? What if it crashes? What if a wave splashes inside the waterproof case just when you've cracked it to thread a cable through or something? What if you can't see it in bright sunlight just when you really need it? What if the battery runs down? Having a backup mitigates most of these, but still -- not on my boat!