Peter Pan wrote:

"Stephen Trapani" wrote in message


Ansley Sawyer wrote:


Stephen,


I welcome any thoughts of yours.

I'll let you know if I think of something that ends up working well.
Right now I'm having a strange vision of some kind of arm, like the
url from Armond, but maybe with homemade stuff like Peter Pan
mentioned...

I'm going to look the next time I get on the boat at the dashboard in
the cockpit. I wonder if I can put a plexiglass window or something in
it so i can just swivel the laptop around inside the cabin and see it
from both areas. If that's too crazy, maybe just a second mount in the
cockpit so I can move it to both locations. Since I have to wire to
all locations no matter what for nmea, might as well run the other
wiring too, but...

I'm not really fond of the idea of not being able to use it during
foul weather and I don't think I can trust a bimini/dodger setup to
protect a laptop in foul weather. But other than seeing it from
below, one can override the autohem stuff from the helm, right? so
having it out in the cockpit isn't really necessary? Being able to
see it in all weather from the helm would be great though...

Maybe just a swivel like the url so it can swivel into the hatch
opening so one can see it even with the hatch covered, but um, then
it will have to be swung out of the way to go below and come out...
Maybe that's no big deal, um wet hands, um...

The laptop screen probably isn't bright enough to see it at all
through a window in the cockpit in brighter weather, so that idea
might not work well....

I'm leaning toward swiveling into the hatch opening like DS's do.

Stephen


Be aware that laptops are not waterproof at all. There are quite a few
options for using a desktop however, in an enclosed area, with extensions (1
or more than one) to allow remote monitors/keyboards/mouses etc. Not that
big of a stretch, and you can have multiple monitors. That's also the way
they do it now, especially for explosive atmospheres.



Hey thanks for the information. :-)

Is there some kind of waterproof laptop monitor one can attach to the
steering pedestal? Maybe this is too expensive?

And it would be nice if the monitor ran off 12 volt, so one could still
have the option of running off 12v with the laptop, since I, um already
have the laptop and all.

Stephen