Mount Laptop for Nav Station

[sailingjazz]

I have a 89 E28 without a nav station. I want to mount a laptop to use as a nav aid underway and workstation when docked. It needs to be secure and out of the way (but viewable) when under way and convenient and comfortable to use when docked. I’ve been thinking about this all season and haven’t come up with a good idea. I’ve looked at truck mounts and Ram makes some interesting ones, but I’m not sure they would have the scope I need and they look a bit ‘industrial’ for the boat. I’ve been trying to think of a desk or something that would fold up and down and/or slide back out of the way,but there is always something (batteries, engine, electrical panel, etc…) that would get blocked or covered.

The standard fold down table in the cabin is too high and I don’t want to mess it up or make it unusable for its intended purpose (playing cards).

Thoughts or suggestions?

Cheers
Kevin

 

[sveinutne]

I use an Ipad with www.navionics.com and it works very good.

 

[sailingjazz]

Laptop Mount

I use a iPad in the cockpit at the helm also (they are fantastic). I still use OpenCPN on my laptop for planning and want to hook it to my VHF for DCS. And I need to be able to use the Laptop to work on the boat (or the boss might find out I'm not slaving away in my cube). Just haven't figured out a good way to mount one.

Thanks
Kevin

 

[e38 owner]

laptop

I worked on this for quite a while. I wanted to mount a laptop as opposed to an Ipad because of the software I already owned.
I did not want to chance destroying my laptop
I was concerned about power usage.
My solution was to buy and used couple year old dell mini for about $60.00
I then purchased about 25" of Velcro strapping. Two small screws hold the Velcro in place and I just strap in the mini.
I found a DC plug on Amazon. I also purchased a wireless mouse.
As a result I have the following
My mini is running navmonPc and takes all the Nema data from my instruments and GPS via r232 usb adapters
It also runs open cpc for charting as well as another routing program.
It runs Windows 7 and via Connectify it will transmit the data to either an android tablet running Iregatta or an Ipad running Inavx
Since I do not own an Ipad I send the data to the phone

 

[ref_123]

Salt is the enemy

Well, I speak from experience... A bad one... even a tiny bit of salt water + laptop = total disaster!!! We could not revive poor Thinkpad, no matter what we did.

A wee bit of spray through the not completely closed port (my case) or a few drops from your foulies can completely ruin the thing.

However... In comes Panasonic Toughbook. Price is steep, but it really does not matter how you mount it. Should withstand pretty much anything...

Regards,
Stan

 

[Randy Rutledge]

Heavy but bullet proof

Panasonic toughbook is a good answer long battery life, boat proof and good visibility in sunlight. There is a lesser tough book and then the Military or police model. Also a hand held PANASONIC TOUGHBOOK CF-U1 that is on EBay for $299. the ruggedized PCs are around $450 but a no worry unit and if it gets seawater in the keyboard you just run freshwater over it and wash it out. I use my P T B for nav and my e-mail contact when on the boat and don't worry at all about the unit.

 

[sveinutne]

Well, I speak from experience... A bad one... even a tiny bit of salt water + laptop = total disaster!!! We could not revive poor Thinkpad, no matter what we did.

A wee bit of spray through the not completely closed port (my case) or a few drops from your foulies can completely ruin the thing.

However... In comes Panasonic Toughbook. Price is steep, but it really does not matter how you mount it. Should withstand pretty much anything...

Regards,
Stan

I use a waterproof plastic bag with zipper around my ipad.

 

[Randy Rutledge]

svein,

That works well and the Ipad is easier to handle than the bulky toughbook.

I was on a delivery a few months ago from Port Canavral to St Simon, GA in rough weather and one of the crew had an Ipad in the cockpit of the Chriscraft sailyacht 35 (Yes a 1964 sail boat and center cockpit) when a wave came over the bow, the Ipad and crew were soaked, Bruce took the Ipad below with water dripping off it and wiped it off and it still works fine, It had no cover and not bagged. I think one day I will get an Ipad as a cockpit unit and use the laptop as a planning tool. The Ipad is instant on and good batter life.

 

[toddster]

A couple of points in favor of the iPad is that you could probably velcro one up just about anywhere and it uses a LOT less power than a laptop. I carved the end off one of the settees in my 29 to make a decent chart table, but I don't immediately see an equivalent nook in the drawings of the 28. (Pics for reference in the blog section.)

 

[footrope]

I watched a Geek(?) at Best Buy prep an iPad for a customer. He sprayed a generous amount of liquid cleaner all over the thing and wiped it off. Then he wet it down again and placed the screen protector film over it. Used a plastic spreader (like a Bondo spreader) to smooth the sheet and force the bubbles out. He positioned the protector perfectly while it was still wet and then carefully wiped the excess liquid off. I was amazed to see how much cleaner he used. It wasn't salt water, but you get the idea. The iPad is pretty splash proof.

(I'm getting one for my birthday)

 

[ref_123]

Screens on them are indeed spill-proof - after all they are designed to withstand copious amounts of cofee, juice and soda to be spilled on them...

It's the connector you should worry about. And, in case of laptops, the ventilator. Keyboards and screens are spill-proof these days. New models even have speakers covered.

Regards,
Stan

 

[Mindscape]

iPad in the cockpit?

So I'm playing with this iPad in the cockpit thing. Lots of possibilities, but how do you see anything in the sun? The screen is just not visible in the sun. Is it just me or does everyone have this issue?

 

[Sven]

So I'm playing with this iPad in the cockpit thing. Lots of possibilities, but how do you see anything in the sun? The screen is just not visible in the sun. Is it just me or does everyone have this issue?

Nancy had the same problem with hers. I asked if there wasn't a brightness setting and there is, you just have to turn off "Auto" in the brightness preference. Don't know how that impacts battery life ?



-Sven

 

[brianb00]

Laptop survivability

You might consider instead of a laptop, using a small PC/server. Then add splash proof keyboard and either cheap LCD displays or the expensive displays used in the medical/dental industry. Place the server in a very dry or watertight box/location. Then when the peripherals fail, you just replace them at low cost. I have a collection of failed laptops that died at sea. Just condensation in the salt air will eventually kill anything as open as a laptop or any consumer PC product. Just check out the history of long ocean races and laptops. Many competitors will either bring the aforementioned industrial/military units or carry multiple PC's.

I recently experienced an hilarious failure in a long ocean race. I had a laptop that doubles as a tablet. The display can be twisted onto the keyboard, resulting in a tablet like unit. Because of this feature the display will adjust for orientation automatically, like smart a phone display. I set this all up for nav/weather/comm in the race, all tested multiple times in SF Bay waters. So I get out to sea, day two, big ground swells. Swells = accelerations and the orientation accelerometers kept guessing wrong. The result was that every bump and grind of passing swells the display would rotate one direction or another. It moved so fast that I could not get the cursor onto the Control Panel button to shut down the pad driver. So, that laptop went into a bag and I sailed the race the old fashion way with no weather data and paper charts.
Brian s/v RedSky

 

[Akavishon]

I currently have an older (read: cheap) Lenovo laptop on a rotating tray, mounted on my nav table. It runs PolarView/PolarCom (~$40) with NOAA raster/vector charts (~$0) and gets its GPS signal from a GlobalSat USB "puck" (~$35) someone mentioned before. This, ahem, cost-effective setup works very well in moderate and dry weather ... If there's any chance of rain/spray entering the cabin, I detach the laptop and store it in a dry location (and whip out the Garmin and my paper charts

If I were to redo this setup (and was willing to spend more $$$), I'd probably go with a small form factor PC with an SSD drive, install it in a plastic battery box somewhere safe, maybe under a settee, and leave either a cheap/dispensable or ruggedized/industrial keyboard/video/mouse set out on the nav table. It may be nice to have an iPad display at the helm (and there are ways to add one to this setup), but I don't think it's all too necessary, at least for my style of sailing/navigation.

Actually, on 2nd thought ... PolarView seems to have a decent "touch screen" mode, so a touch screen display mounted at the nav station may be all that's needed when under way. In dry conditions (or in a port) it would be easy to add a wireless keyboard and mouse and have a "normal" PC experience. Oh, and if the display could be mounted in a way to easily swivel/rotate towards the settees, it could also double for at-anchor visual entertainment

Zoran

 

[Steuermann]

Consider a Mini-ITX Form Factor Computer System

Laptops are not very rugged, unless you are willing and able to pay a couple of kilobucks for a ruggedized notebook like the Panasonic Toughbook.

If you're up to the task of building your own PC from components (MOBO, case, power supply, memory, hard drive, CD/DVD ROM), you can construct a pretty darn good dedicated PC that will run Seaclear (my preference 'cause it's free - I'm cheaper than you are!) and whatever else you want, while running just fine on 12V and consuming only a handful of watts. Google "mini-itx" for information. Or read about it here: http://www.mini-itx.com/default.asp

The motherboard for these computers is 17 cm square (6.7" x 6.7") http://www.mini-box.com/Intel-D2700DC-Mini-ITX-Motherboard and they have all the connectors on the back edge. http://www.mini-box.com/site/index.html gives you an idea of case sizes. Many of the motherboards even have built in wifi.

Such a computer, while it can't easily be sealed water-tight, can be mounted inside or underneath a chart table and thus be protected from spray. If you really get creative you can modify a surplus ammo-case for it and have it completely sealed.

I've built several of these computers and they're inexpensive and they work great. I'm boat shopping now; when I end up with my ride I'm going to permanently install such a computer which will be used for navigation and whatever else I need. The last one I built, a little over a year ago, cost just over $350 all up. It's hanging on the back of my monitor and I never even see it.

 

[steven]

I just opened the top on a not cheap notebook and the display frame cracked and permanently jaggied about half the screen- rendering the machine working but useless (but can still sort of run a scondary display). This was at my office desk. Would hate to be dependant on one of these things in a harsh environment.