Micro mainframe computer versus notebook in nav station

[windwagon]

This last year I have been working on a more permanent nav station which I can afix to my Hunter 35.5. I find PC notebooks handy but they lacked versatility so I decided to go with a micro mainframe with plenty of horsepower. Since I could not find exactly what I had in mind, I and a computer engineering friend decided to design one from scratch.

As we started to build and test the unit we found many problems with interfacing free software to existing equipment at the helm and nav station. It took quite a while to interface various manufacturers' equipment (especially Ray Marine) together as one. After months of struggle we got it all to work together.

We also wanted a seamless power supply system using the least amount of operating power. Wiring to existing equipment was another issue. I decided to eliminate multiplexers and leave lots of options for expansion.

So far I have designed into one small box( 5) RS 232 ports(most of which have only the 3 connections necessary for NEMA 0183) , (8) USB ports, and a special wide band power supply which can go from A/C shore power to DC battery automatically. We also tinkered with the DC supply so it will not blank out when various pumps and compressors turn on. I added a long range internet antenna, a built in router for PC notebook use so I can watch my nav station remotely and now am busy interfacing weather faxes from a SSB receiver. My power consumption is 40 watts but can drop to 10 or 20 watts when in automatic sleep mode while still trending and entering information into my ship's log.

I put plenty of horse power in the computer with 4 giga bytes of ram and 250 giga byte of hard drive using windows 7 operating system.

The navigation software I'm using so far is Polar Navy (a very inexpensive chart plotter) that also can display all my helm instruments and give me Active Captain information about various marinas and ports. I am using the free NavMon PC program for trending, wind information, AIS, ships log , anchor watch etc. Open CPN is also linked in for charting and planning purposes. I have all the NOAA charts integrated into these programs as well.

Now we are working on a security camera system which will alert my Iphone to anyone near my boat while I am ashore, a multiday barometer graph for better weather forecast, and tank monitoring.

Here are some pictures. If you are trying to make a similar system perhaps I can help. If you have solutions to my latest projects maybe you can help me. I even thought about marketing this project to anyone interested.

 

[Kermit]

Dang. And to think I bought a boat for the pleasure of sailing it. What was I thinking?

 

[Joe Diver]

Define "micro mainframe"?

Looks like you just built a PC to me....

 

[Patrick S/V Shangra-La]

And I thought my NAV station consisted of a GPS and paper charts.

You can have all the doodad's you want one lightning strike and it's all gone. Paper charts are a responsible back up. Practicing dead reckoning is a prudent way to maintain your skills.

 

[wonkodsane]

Calling it a small server is reasonable, a "micro mainframe" just sounds a little pretentious.

However, it does sound neat, and I've often thought of all the fun I could have getting the various existing systems and instruments on my boat talking to each other, but in the end, I'll probably just buy stuff that speaks NMEA 0183 or 2000 and plug it into other stuff that speaks it as well.

With marine warranties, testing, and certification...

And the luddites shouldn't have their way all the time, but they're right about practicing dead reckoning, charts, and Chapman's!

 

[vetch]

And the luddites shouldn't have their way all the time, but they're right about practicing dead reckoning, charts, and Chapman's!

In the army when they started fielding computerized maps and gps we still trained on traditional land navigation. The argument was and still is a if your computer gets shot you have nothing if your map gets shot you have a map with a hole in it

 

[Cayennita]

The screen appears to have Lake St. Claire on it. Maybe you need all that stuff to make sure you don't cross'into Canada?

 

[Rick D]

Looks Like A Great System

While I am satisfied with my netbook for augmenting my chart plotter, it is tempting to go with a micro computer like the Acer AspireRevo and a dedicated monitor and turn over the AP functions to it from the chartplotter. I would think that a solid state drive would save energy and speed up the processing a lot, but don't know if one would be compatible with something like the Acer. In any event, it looks like you have built a terrific system with the potential to add both navigation and plenty of personal computing options in one package. Congrads.http://www.amazon.com/Acer-AspireRe...ref=sr_1_3?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1326284811&sr=1-3

 

[cb32863]

Define "micro mainframe"?

Looks like you just built a PC to me....

Glad you went first on that... It's a PC, mainframe conjures up the AS400 or System 38 in my mind, or even a VAX. How many amp hours do you think one of those uses? Also, 4G RAM on a Winders 7 box is the bare minimum. Run in 64-bit and double the RAM if you want to use the term "horsepower". But then again, when referring to "horsepower" and PC's, you are usually talking about the CPU. No mention of what that is on this system. 250GB HD, meh.....

Neato Pateato if you really have a use for it but.... I don't know how many folks here need something like full blown computer navigation for where they sail though.

Cool that you were able to get it all talking to each other though. Nice work.

 

[Buck420]

catawba island Joined: Nov 2010 Posts: 11 windwagon hasn

Well Windwagon, I, (for what it's worth) like it.

As for the "ney-sayers", ... "one lightening strike (or any other problem) and your're toast", ... just build a second one as a spare.

I've been using inexpensive desktops (ie.. in the $200-$300 range), for the past 11 years to run my nav software (and keep a log, and access the internet, and, and ,and).... Inexpensive to upgrade every few years, inexpensive to keep a 2d one on board in the event the first fails, ... and they have been much more versatile than, and FAR less expensive than, Ray-Marine "stuff". So, I'm in your "camp".

OK, paper charts and a sextant ( well, your GPS can fail, too ...) will still do the job, but, come on, ... that's the same argument people make against all new technology. ...
"'Dem new fangled steam engines might work OK for awhile, but you better have sails to get you home when the 'thing' blows up".

 

[Jerry Clark H356 SV Persi]

Nice job! You have solved some really complex communication issues between devices to get all those things to talk to each other. As for the lightning strike theory, just carry some paper charts for spares. It you can put all that together, sailing off paper charts would be your least worry after a lightning strike!

 

[Br3nt]

Sounds impressive. You don't mention what kind of HD you're using. Is it SSD or mechanical? I'm betting that SSD will withstand a lot more abuse and may even save power.

 

[Bill Roosa]

Hey WindWagon
Man if it floats your boat, go for it.
However: Certainly seems like a lot of work for what you got.

My RayMarine 300 GPS, ST60 wind, ST50 depth and 7000 AP connected to laptop reading the 0183 GPS data and talking to the AP on the other 0183 line did this out of the box!!???
Mounted the laptop on a docking station under the nav station and used the TV/DVD player as a monitor so just a keyboard and mouse on the station top. With everything running (12 volt) it only draws 3 amps (24 watts). I've found that Otto does not really care if he can see the chart plotter at the helm. At least he has not complained to date.
We take the laptop home when we leave so we can do our planning on it (OpenCPN). Then just dock it and execute the route transfer program to load the GPS.
The only thing I had to build was the 0183 serial cable to connect the computer with and the two power connectors for the TV and computer.
I think with a sufficiently long USB cable I could just plug in a web cam and have the video monitoring also (linux lets you do that over the laptop connection BTW) I don’t have a tablet so I can’t think of how I’d actually see what was being recorded by the webcam though (yes, I’m a luddite). Aren’t that what locks are for??
How are you going to account for the fact that the barometer is a moving target (moves with the boat) to aid in weather forecasting? Android has an app for that no doubt.

Mine came with the boat, the laptop was work surplus ($0.00) and the serial connector and wire loom and power cables cost like $15.00. I think I spent about an hour setting it up. Most of that was getting docking station secured to the grill under the nav station and routing wires. The dell laptop has a 2 GHz processor, 4 GB Ram and a (yawn) 39 GB HD. I use Openoffice for all the boat logs, to do, maintenance, costs, data/stats but keep a Ship’s log as required.

 

[kenn]

Thanks for the report windwagon.

For boating I have a cheap netbook running Linux, a GPS USB dongle, a USB to RS-232 adaptor and some Linux apps including OpenCPN, but it's pretty much a geek toy for when we're moored, and not a real sailing tool.

I have thought a bit about whether there'd be any real use for a dedicated, 'marinized' small industrial computer permanently installed on a boat.It could be a real nerve center, as long as all the data you care about (fuel and water tanks, engine, instruments, bilge, battery etc) could be easily input. It could monitor and woarn on many things while underway, and with a wifi or GSM link, could be remotely addressable.

But then, I also recall about people with digital dashes in their car, or even our new clothes dryer with a single control board, and how if that one controller goes south, you can do NOTHING (except pay an expensive bill for a new dash or controller)

Hey - I go sailing to get away from this stuff!

 

[bebebleu]

Wow, I am amazed, we had the same idea. I built almost the same machine using the same enclosure you used. Looks like we chose different mother board from the look of your back panel. I went with the Intel Core i3 2100T processor for lowest power.

My rational was a little different. I built something that can act as an entertainment system as well as for navigation (leaving with the wife and kids for a 2 year cruise down south starting next fall).

I installed windows 7 and Ubuntu as a dual boot system and taking advantage of the best of both worlds.

 

[windwagon]

Yea gads I never thought I would be so attacked for semantics over substance. We designed our micro computer for long term sailing trips which I plan to do upon my retirement. It is my lifetime dream to sail all the great lakes and then the Carribean. Though I greatly enjoy sailing, I must admit I like my autopilot after a few hours of manual steering. Contrary to observation I generally sail in Lake Erie not Lake St.Clair which each year claims about 12 lives every summer making it one of the most dangerous lakes in the world.
If someone else is on watch and we are out for several days and I am in the cabin I like the security of seeing how well we are sailing. Occasionally I will tweak the autopilot from the Nav computer to take advantage of wind change. I do not remember ever mentioning or condoning the doing away of charts. In fact having the computer mounted above nav table was done so I could easily lay a chart under the screen. I also know that those who claim they can hook up they're Raymarine ST60 wind instrument to a NEMA 0183 connection is making it up because without a special interface box or the right encoded driver software which we developed it ain't gonna happen.

By the way our CPU has dual 64 bit processors and we have installed a solid state
disc for storage. We also blocked all automatic updates for continuity of performance and put all marine data including charts on one disc in case a reboot is needed due to a software failure.

For those of you who truly are interested in what we have done with free software and a low cost modified open end computer, I have included a few more pictures. Again if anyone is interested in the low cost technology that we have designed and would like not to have to reinvent the wheel, we would be more than happy to help you build your own or perhaps we could build one for you.

 

[vetch]

If I sounded like I was bashing your setup I apologize. I looks really cool.

What I meant was automation is good and has its place, but it doesn't replace traditional navigation skills

 

[wonkodsane]

Tempted to go with this [LINK] Golden-i instead. Picture gallery here [LINK]. VNC to the no-head Raspberry Pi [LINK] to which you've linked a wifi dongle. It uses an SD card for the drive and runs on MicroUSB for power. Small enough and cheap enough to keep spares, powerful enough to run OpenCPN and hook up to a USB NMEA 2000 bus. Mind you, that Golden-i critter is $2,500, so you may only want one of those. (-:

As for semantics...well, it may not sound like a big deal to you, but a dyed-in-the-wool techie (like a lot of the hardcore sailors happen to be) is likely to be turned off by the description of a middlin' powerful desktop in a small case as a "micro-mainframe."

Still impressed with the connectivity and work that went into your little critter, and your choice of GPS pucks is above reproach. (-:

 

[Joe Diver]

No, my bad on that one. I got all excited when I saw "mainframe".

I'm an IT Engineer and design/build large scale midrange systems for data centers. I specialize in Solaris and AIX, building anything from clustered blades to multi LPAR P7's and multi domain Sunfires. We've got the new IBM zLinux micro mainframes in the pipe for this year and I'm totally stoked about them.

So when I saw your post my inner nerd took over and I was disappointed. Not in what you've done, it's awesome! I just expected something else.

 

[Sumner]

Nice job and I like all that you have running together. Hope you add more detail about the build in the future, but maybe if you are trying to market them that might not be in the plans??

Wow, I am amazed, we had the same idea. I built almost the same machine using the same enclosure you used. Looks like we chose different mother board from the look of your back panel. I went with the Intel Core i3 2100T processor for lowest power...

Also pretty similar to what I built also, but think the enclosure...

....is a little different. It was hard finding a small enclosure that I could have a DVD drive and also a 1/2 high card in.

I also went for low power as the applications I use don't need that much computing power. The computer/monitor combined are about 2 amps and when the router and Bullet radio for WiFi are running about 2.5 amps.

We run ours mainly for the use as a chartplotter that is also tied to a Garmin handheld, but I also do all of my computer work on the computer (using it at home for this right now) and some for entertainment and the long distance WiFi gets used a lot on the boat.

We are running SeaClear and I do plan on tying it into the Autopilot on the Endeavour and will probably add the AIS later.

I finally added the build to my mods page here....

http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner/macgregor-navigation/Compter-Nav-index.html

...with parts and pricing at the time of the build. We have been using it for over a year and love it,

Sum

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