Discussion- Multi-purpose Onboard Computers

[charmc]

Great discussion, guys. Thanks for the invite, Terry, I'm sorry I can't make much time to join in, but here are a few thoughts:

As a great sealed box for a laptop, I recommend Otterbox. It's a plastic sealed box, part of a line of boxes for different electronic devices. I have used the Ipod box for more than a year, and can testify to its protection against dust, salt air, water immersion, and shock. The laptop and tablet boxes are tested and rated to Milspec 810F and IP67. Those ratings cover shock, water resistance to high pressure jets, spray, and total immersion, as well as protection from sub micron particles. The finest water droplets are around 10 microns in dia, the finest smoke particles are around 1 micron; even bacteria are 3 -5 microns in dia. List price now is only $169.95 USD, with a lifetime replacement warranty.
http://www.otterbox.com/products/pc_cases/laptop_case/

To operate continuously inside a sealed container, I believe a liquid coolant system designed for computers and a large capacity flash drive/solid state hard drive would work best. It is possible to put a replaceable filter element (1 micron "absolute" rating is best) in a plastic housing to filter all inlet air. A 5 inch/125 mm cylindrical element would have plenty of reserve capcity to allow sufficient air flow. It would need to be replaced 2-4 times/year, depending on how dirty the surrounding environment is. To be effective, though, the box would have to be designed with a single port for air exhaust and fitted with a filter there as well, otherwise salt air could migrate back through the exhaust port when the cooling fan is not operating.

A totally sealed environment box with a large finned heat sink attached might work, but I wonder about prolonged operation in the tropics. The effectiveness of a heat sink is based on the temperature differential, and 35 - 40 deg C + environments aren't conducive to good cooling.

Finally, I think you're on the right track, Terry, looking for low power components. I've been able to reduce my notebook power comsumption to 30-35 watts (standard is 75) operating on reduced powwer settings. This is routine, and sleep mode reduces that to 5 watts or so. Replacing a HDD with a flash drive would probably reduce power by half again.

Originally Posted by charmc

A totally sealed environment box with a large finned heat sink attached might work, but I wonder about prolonged operation in the tropics. The effectiveness of a heat sink is based on the temperature differential, and 35 - 40 deg C + environments aren't conducive to good cooling.

Finally, I think you're on the right track, Terry, looking for low power components. I've been able to reduce my notebook power comsumption to 30-35 watts (standard is 75) operating on reduced powwer settings. This is routine, and sleep mode reduces that to 5 watts or so. Replacing a HDD with a flash drive would probably reduce power by half again.

Ah - the tropics - never thought of that (as if I should be so lucky !!) ...

Q. What are people doing about displays ?
My NEC 1510 (15" flatscreen ex desktop) pulls 22 watts on it's own, which is 50% more current draw than the rest of the kit (motherboard/cpu/storage etc) combined.

I've begun considering using a laptop, but can't get any definitive power figures. It looks like a typical average/midrange secondhand laptop pulls between 25 and 40 watts, but I can't be absolutely sure. (Then I saw the above post - thanks Charlie)

Colin
(weather currently damp and miserable here in Britain - where talk of the tropics sounds good. And bugger the overheating ...)

[DanishBagger]

About the tropics:
Couldn't you weld the alu-box to your watertank, and perhaps even have ribs ribs inside the tank? It could be the fuel tank too. Even in the tropics. Or perhaps to your hull, unless it's grp

Another thing: It's not the moon. Computers work in the tropics. Even beasts of computers with a crappy set of fans all dusted.

I cannot believe that the only place one is able to use a low powered (=low wattage) computer made waterproof is in arctic waters. Frankly, the water in the tropics aren't _that_ hot.
And about the screens: The screen won't be in the enclosure with the rest of the computer, nor will there be a battery in the computerbox, as there would be in a laptop.

The only problems I have had with my laptop around the tropics (we're talking heat here - away from the sea, as it isn't sealed), is a dead battery. Cooked to smithereens. Li-ion batteries obviously don't like too much heat …

Nonetheless, correct me if I'm wrong:
There's no screen and no battery in this soon-to-be computer?
Computers with a lot more heatoutput (i.e. could be a laptop being charged, or eve some crappy desktop) are able to work at some rather "impressive" temperatures.
Your computers will be encapsulated, but you won't have such high wattaage components.

Seriously, I doubt a computer will f… up from running at, say, 80 degrees centigrade.

Heck, you could even put your harddrive (please make it a 2.5, since it won't need much power=watts) in a separate boxs with separate ribs. And a separate box equals more area : Further, you could add even more boxes should you want to, without adding much more heat to the original box. And speaking of that paste: Why not stick it on the side of a tank (except the holding tank, of course …) and "glue" the boxes to it?

I think you guys are making a mountain of a hill in some areas (but are way over my head in so many others, of course).

[TerryKing]

Thanks for the many contributions here. A few quick comments and then I'll ask a couple questions in another post...

(Disclaimer Again, I'm making a shot a something I want to prototype soon, not saying this is the Only Way!)

- Only things I see in the main box: System Board with 1 Gb memory DIMM, 12 volt to ATX mini switching power supply, 1.8" or 2.5" hard drive. Power:
System Board 12 watts at full speed,
Power supply 95% efficient, so .05*12= 0.6 watts
Hard drive: 1.8" about 1.0 W 2.5" about 2.0 W
Total: About 15 watts.

- Other Smaller Box: CD/DVD Read/Write drive, SATA cable: About 5W when operating (not underway, probably).

- Display: Separate, 10-25 watts depending on type.

TEMPERATURE:
Rated operating temperatures:
System Board 0-50C (30-125F)
Hard Drives 5-55C (FLASH 0-70C) (Automotive drives -30 to 85C)

QUESTIONS to come...

[TerryKing]

UPDATE: SUMMARY SO FAR:

• TEMPERATURES
  80 to 100 Degrees F seems like a consensus. 130F at marina in sun is mentioned. 90 in Florida.
  Another experience: "We typically see mid to upper 80's inside in the summer in the high tropics (eg. Hawaii or New Cal) and
  upper 80's to low 90's in summer on the equator. "
• HARD DRIVE SIZE
  Large number of charts for most of US waters and more: 3088 files, 2.2Gb
  So a 60 Gb 1.8" Notebook Drive seems like: No Problem.

-------------------------------------------------
This is related to a discussion over at:
Discussion- Multi-purpose Onboard Computers

We are trying to figure out some requirements for a "MultiPurpose Onboard Computer System".

QUESTION1: How HOT does it really get INSIDE the cabin of a Cruising Boat, in the Tropics? What's the typical you've experienced? What's the worst-case??

QUESTION2: If you use computer-based charts on a laptop or other onboard computer, how much Harddrive space do your charts take up?? (Let's say for a passage, or your typical cruising area)?? How large a hard drive do you feel you need to be "comfortable" for charts and your other uses??

Thanks! Please answer here or at the discussion thread on BoatDesign.net

Ah - my comments about a screen pulling 22 watts and the laptop consumption were rather more about watts (as in flattening batteries) rather than watts (as in keeping warm on a frosty night). Guess I shouldn't have lumped these together with comments about tropical heat ...

What I was *really* thinking about was whether it is wise - from very first principles - to have a damned great screen sucking juice out of the batteries, when something far more rudimentary could give me the same info for a fraction of the power.

By all means invoke several thousand pixels when there's a chart to be read, but keep to a simple character-lcd and flashing LEDs etc for more modest tasks ....

Colin

[TerryKing]

I updated the diagram (Post #28 - http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/sho...7&postcount=28)

I added my (Highly Important ) thoughts on all those INPUT type things on the left.

I know this is looking like Pie-In-The-Sky right now, and I don't plan to implement all this stuff myself, but I wanted to capture all the stuff the big new Yachts are doing, and the high-end manufacturers are selling. Each of us picks the subset we find most important. OK? Any comments welcomed...

[TerryKing]

Originally Posted by SAE140

..(snip)..What I was *really* thinking about was whether it is wise - from very first principles - to have a damned great screen sucking juice out of the batteries, when something far more rudimentary could give me the same info for a fraction of the power.

Colin, I wonder about that too. Different for a powerboat underway with 500 watts plus from the alternator than cruising under sail. Now, there's more power to the display than the whole computer system!

The whole subject of "Power Budget" (Uh, Energy, actually) for cruising is complex, but others have done a lot on it.. need to study that. Anybody here worked on the numbers for that???

My 12V 2amp LCD display comes back on in 1 second. Hmmm. Maybe in 'ideal offshore cruising' there's one easy-to-hit button that turns the display on and off, and it can be set to turn off automatically after a settable delay. AND the monitoring software turns it ON with any significant update or alarm condition.
And I agree the Status/Alarm indicators are just high-efficiency LEDs.

Maybe the newer White-LED illuminated LCD displays are more efficient??

I'd always want the compass and backup GPS displays operating and visible while underway. But they're very low power.

Another 5 or 10 "Hmmmm??"s

[DanishBagger]

Oh, I see, Colin. sorry about that, then.

I constantly go back to PocketPCs (In my mind, that is - don't want to misunderstood here, as I'm just a bit of a geek, lol): Small screen, you can get ruggedized ones, some can even run external HDDs and so forth. Why not use some of that technology?

Best of course, wattage-wise, would be to use an Oled display.

[TerryKing]

Originally Posted by DanishBagger

..(snip)..Best of course, wattage-wise, would be to use an Oled display.

Long run, that's probably a good solution. I wonder how they are in bright surroundings? Right now at $1700 for an 11 inch display it's 'Future' for me

Here's a link to some info.
http://www.eetasia.com/ART_880048296...10,EEOL,EENEWS

I hope to get to the Flat Panel part of China Tech Expo this weekend... Hope to check on available sunlight-readable displays. Usually they are $1000 for the equivalent $100 plain LCD display.

Right now I'm budget-minded: $150 Max wide LCD display that uses 12V DC power. And mounted overhead (above the helm view of the water forward), with some anti-ambient light and anti-reflection measures.

[DanishBagger]

Well, my Samsung oled in my portable player is pretty good in sunlight. But that's the only one I have actually seen in the sun. It's even better than the old monochrome iPod-displays (the new colour ones aren't that good, to be honest).

But you're right, that really is expensive :-(
How about a 8-9 inch TFT? Would that be too small?

I wonder how small you could go, because at those prices for OLEDs one could buy a UPC/UMPC or even a couple of these:

http://www.foundertech.com/tabid/201/Default.aspx

http://tabletkiosk.com/tkstore/pc/vi...?idCategory=35

http://www.samsung.com/uk/products/m...q1_v000suk.asp

http://www.oqo.com

http://usa.asus.com/products4.aspx?l...05&modelmenu=1


Shouldn't it be possible to buy one of the cheap(er) ones, open it up, and "marinise" and upgrade the parts? It seems as if it could compete prise wise. And since most of them don't use much power, yet they still run windows, linux et al, they might have all the features you want, except you'd want one you can marinize. I'd still go for the PocketPCs, though! :–)

Originally Posted by DanishBagger

Oh, I see, Colin. sorry about that, then.

I constantly go back to PocketPCs (In my mind, that is - don't want to misunderstood here, as I'm just a bit of a geek, lol): Small screen, you can get ruggedized ones, some can even run external HDDs and so forth. Why not use some of that technology?

Best of course, wattage-wise, would be to use an Oled display.

Nahhh - the apology should be mine - spreading confusion wherever I go. You should see me docking at a strange marina - owners ducking below in a panic to check their insurances are still valid .... <G>

Right - displays. Anyone here know of anyone working on the one-laptop-per-child project ? We're talking a 1 (one) watt 1200x900 colour display, with a current draw of <15 watts for the whole system. http://laptop.org/laptop/hardware/specs.shtml

Pity they have no plans (afaik) to market a more conventional marine version - I'm sure there could be a win-win deal there to put some dosh in the collective pot for benefit of the third world.
Colin

[TerryKing]

Originally Posted by SAE140

..(snip)..Right - displays. Anyone here know of anyone working on the one-laptop-per-child project ? We're talking a 1 (one) watt 1200x900 colour display, with a current draw of <15 watts for the whole system. http://laptop.org/laptop/hardware/specs.shtml

Actually I got to play with one at the UN World Summit on the Information Society a couple years ago, in Carthage. It's not rocket science, but a very well thought out combination of current technology. The high points are the Mesh network (probably not applicable offshore!) and the very-low-power display.

Ubuntu variant Linux for OS..

Anyone know if Ozi or Fugawi or equivalent runs on Linux??

I do have a couple contacts there, and I'll ask about the display technology.. if there are any commercial variants.

Right now you can buy two for $400 or so, and they give one of them away to a child.

**Added photos below. It's changed some. Crank is an external option, etc.
The meetings had Education Minister types from all over Africa and South America. The guy in the third photo is from the Department of Communications in South Africa. I said "I like your vest!". He replied, "Hey Man, I don't stay in the office!".

[Tim B]

Sorry I haven't posted for so long, I've been madly busy at work. Anyway, Screens...

What do we want to display on it? and where do we want it displayed. If we are only interested in "simple" data (speed/track etc.) then the obvious answer is a character LCD. Moving up a step, to helm-mounted navigation displays, I would have thought a small (8 inch max) LCD with touchscreen would be a good solution. For internal nav displays, use the largest screen you can get away with, especially if it'll double as a telly.

So, we have 3 display types. Now the major question is interconnecting them. We have a few options....
1) Run them all off a central on-board computer.
2) Run them through low power thin clients using X forwarding. (or equivalent on windows)
3) Run "fat" clients with a central data-server.

Given that the difference between "thin" and "fat" clients was a hard-disk, perhaps it's worth considering separate "fat" clients on a network.

Now, let us consider the network topology, where a server may be located anywhere with any IP address. That includes 127.0.0.1 (ie. localhost). So, with a bit of clever coding (using network sockets) we can put our front-end and back-end anywhere (actually anywhere on the planet) including on the same machine.

Now let's take this a little further. The ability to get a client connection to any server infers that it is possible to get the client to connect to more than one server. Now, there are only a few cases where this would be needed, but for larger vessels it would certainly reduce the overall power requirements.

Cheers, I'm going back to writing the FYcom API. :-)

Tim B.

[TerryKing]

Tim, First, the Client-Server architecture questions are good and I'd like to discuss them in more detail as we have the time.

Displays: My direction has been to run a medium-large (maybe today that means 17 inch?) LCD display which displays both a typical NAV software application like Ozi or Fugawi, covering about 2/3 the screen area, with the rest (probably the top and right side areas) being status and data displays for onboard systems like engines, power, etc etc.

BUT, the last 3 days I have seen about 1000 + different LCD displays, most of them 4 inch size or smaller, And also some REAL bright 1 and 2 line LED displays that would be cool for Status messages. Hmmm.. Maybe some of both would be good! (This was at the China High Tech Fair, here in ShenZhen near Hong Kong). This photo:
http://www.terryking.us/photoalbum/m...g2_itemId=3561
was typical of many wall-sized displays of different LCD Displays. Then there was the "LCD Paper" technology which is front-lit, only 4 shades of gray, but ZERO power after it's written to. I gotta go thru all the literature I picked up, and think about it some more.

If anyone wants to see more of the High Tech side of China, take a look at:
http://www.terryking.us/photoalbum/m...g2_itemId=3553
which are the images I am feeding to the ShenZhen Daily newspaper. (You click on one of those album thumbnails, then click on other thumbnails to enlarge. Use BreadCrumb trail at very top to get back.. etc)

I guess I need to try to sketch out what the Helmsman would see, and describe how (he/she) would interact with the system and the displays and controls. Then Youze Guys (again, generically speaking) can tear it apart.

BTW, I also found another 2 or 3 good 'embedded size' 'PC Architecture' systems and boards that I have to go through. Another subject to catch up on.