GBM,
I'm not speaking about the dimming of just the displayed data. I'm talking
about the back glow of the powered up screen itself. The back glow on some
of these PC screens will light up the whole cockpit ruining your night
vision. No software fixes that.
Steve

"GBM" wrote in message
...

"Steve Lusardi" wrote in message
...
David,
There are several issues that make PC screens unsuitable for marine use.
There are considerations for power, protection from the harsh enrinment
etc., but a real driver that few people are aware of is night viewing. It
is
imperitive that the display dims to black. PC monitors will not.

Steve,

For night viewing, a special monitor is not needed, because software can
compensate. For example, Fugawi, one of the popular Nav programs has this
feature. To quote from their feature list:

"Dusk and Night vision display with color shifts designed to international
maritime standards."

We use this program on our boat and our car nav program 'iGuidance' has
the
same feature whether I am using the laptop or iPaq.

GBM

"Steve Lusardi" wrote in message
...
GBM,
I'm not speaking about the dimming of just the displayed data. I'm talking
about the back glow of the powered up screen itself. The back glow on some
of these PC screens will light up the whole cockpit ruining your night
vision. No software fixes that.
Steve

Steve,

Perhaps some laptops may do that, but we have sailed with a conventional
laptop sitting on cabin top, under bimini day and night and not found it to
be a problem.

We also use our iPaq day and night with the software compensating for
day/night conditions and it works perfectly - even in car where any glare
would be distracting. The iPaq has adjustable backlighting (as do most
laptops) but I don't find any need to adjust it - it's mainly a power saving
feature.

Do the low cost chartplotters by Garmin and others have any special nightime
visibility built into their displays? I seem to recall that they too have
software that changes colours for day/night use and perhaps they too have
adjustable backlighting like the iPaq.

I am sure that the commercial displays are better, but for us at least, we
see no problems using standard low cost computer hardware for recreational
navigation purposes.

GBM

DPFresh wrote:

Hi all, different topic. SO in setting up my nav center - Dell laptop
with
SeaClear software... I want to keep the laptop in the cabin so as to
avoid
exposing it to elements... So I was thinking I could find some sort of
waterproof external monitor to run from the laptop to outside the boat
near
the tiller.... Does anyone know of such a monitor for this purpose?


The Panasonic Toughbook line has some interesting stuff. The line
includes a tablet model (MDWD) that could be mounted in the cockpit to
provide a wireless data mobile display (with full I/O) for programs
running on a nearby laptop.

All of the fully ruggedized pieces (they are also some less ruggedized
models in the line) in that hardware line look to be pretty well
qualified for marine use.

Check the models out here, http://tinyurl.com/bwrnk

The stuff on the trailing edge is available at fair to good prices on
eBay and through a number of online houses specializing in
medical/industrial needs.

The prices might create a little sticker shock but I suspect that in the
long run, the toughness and survivability will offset the initial costs.

Jack


--
Jack Erbes in Ellsworth, Maine, USA - jackerbes at adelphia dot net
(also receiving email at jacker at midmaine.com)

Doesn't most nav software allow only a limited number of usages (like
2?)? So what happens when your cheap ebay laptop crashes? Isn't your
software history also?
Just wondering
Gordon

"purple_stars" wrote in message
oups.com...
DPFresh wrote:
Hi all, different topic. SO in setting up my nav center - Dell laptop
with
SeaClear software... I want to keep the laptop in the cabin so as to
avoid
exposing it to elements... So I was thinking I could find some sort of
waterproof external monitor to run from the laptop to outside the boat
near
the tiller.... Does anyone know of such a monitor for this purpose?

Thanks,
David

personally i think it's better to think "big picture" on this. what is
the goal ? to see your charts and other information out in the cockpit
near the tiller from now until the cows come home. you want it to work
in all conditions, have high reliability, be difficult to steal, etc.

one solution to that is to get a marine monitor which is going to set
you back about 4k$us. has high brightness and is made for the
environment, that's it's high point, it's the "perfect solution" or as
close as there is to one. bad points include things such as ... well,
it's expensive, you'll worry about someone taking it, you'll worry
about it being damaged and you might turn into one of those annoying
"don't touch that" people, chances are it's going to get scratched or
broken by your man over board pole or when you're loading supplies or
during that unexpected storm that drops giant hail stones or something.
a marine monitor is going to be a princess and will want to be treated
as such, it's just a very expensive piece of deck equipment, one that's
exposed to the same sort of abuse that any deck equipment is.

OR, you can just get a couple of cheap monitors and shield them from
the sun. tons of choices and they are coming down in price all the
time. even better you can get used laptops off of ebay for 100$us or
200$us and have some sort of mount made for them. disadvantages are
obvious, it's not the perfect display, harder to see if you don't have
some kind of sun shield, not as fancy as your perfect marine monitor
maybe though i'm sure you could make just as nice a mount for it, etc,
etc, i'm sure there are some other disadvantages as well. advantages,
price .. since it costs a few hundred $us you can buy TEN of them
instead of one marine monitor. in the "big picture" that's better
because then you won't worry about it so much, you won't be a "don't
touch that" person, you won't care so much that it's getting salt
encrusted on it, you won't care so much that it's sitting in the sun
all the time. if someone gets onboard and steals it, who cares, you've
got another one, and if someone accidentally scratches the face of it
with deck equipment it doesn't matter either. true peace of mind, if
it breaks, you install another one, just like anything else on deck, it
becomes a tool that can break and that you can have spares for,
something you can rely on.

your significant other has really already proven the point, you've got
an expensive Dell laptop you don't want to expose to the elements. if
you had a couple of 200$us ebay laptops you wouldn't care, and you'd
have spares.

just a thought.

(i realize fully that there are people for which 4k$us is pocket change
and they can afford to swap out 4k$us monitors all day long ... but
that's not me! lol)

"Gordon" wrote in message
...
Doesn't most nav software allow only a limited number of usages (like
2?)? So what happens when your cheap ebay laptop crashes? Isn't your
software history also?
Just wondering
Gordon

Gordon,

I think that Fugawi allows two installations - That's not bad when you
consider most software only allows one plus a backup. I believe that Fugawi
will also accommodate you if you have a system crash and need to
re-install - BUT, I have not tried this - it presumably requires a telephone
call and some of the people there are a bit difficult to deal with!

I have had Fugawi 3 for quite a number of years and have not hit into the
installation limitation, even although I have it on my Desktop, on my laptop
and on my Iraq. The laptop has had one hard drive replacement. Fortunately,
I had backed up my complete laptop hard drive so did not have to re-install.

There does not seem to be any limitations on number of installations to
iPaq, because I have lost all programs in memory several time when battery
ran down due to lack of use and had to re-install.

GBM

Does anyone know of such a monitor for this purpose?

http://www.cdynamics.com/
http://www.inducomp.com/
http://www.datalux.com/
http://www.hismonitors.com/
http://www.norteng.com/
http://www.dynamicdisplay.com/
http://www.smallpc.com/lcdmonitors.php

Stealth has PCs you can leave right in the cockpit, no problem.
http://www.stealthcomputer.com/portables.htm
They also have displays you could attach to your fragile notebook in the
cabin.

Stealth computers are currently at war with the boys in Iraq and
Afghanistan. I've talked to a few of them on Skype...(c;

Also consider getting an actual marine chartplotter and a PC interface. Get
a pair of cheap PC laptops (lay in one as a spare) and stick it belowdecks.
Use the PC for it's regular features and chartplotting. Then upload the
routes and download other data from the marine chartplotter. That way you
get at-sea reliability from the 'real' chartplotter but also get the
flexibility of the PC. This is what I do and it works out great. When
looking, check out MapTech's Chart Navigator Pro. It's a repackaging of
Rosepoint's Coastal Explorer in conjuction with ALL of MapTech's US charts
(including contours). Quite a bargain if you buy it online from Boatfix,
and there's a $50 rebate from Maptech running now.

-Bill Kearney

If you get two PCs that are the identical model you could setup one and
simple mirror the drive for the other one.

Most software also allows more than one install. Most allow 2, some allow
three. Most also allow you to call in and request they rearrange the keys
in the event of machine failures.

There are several issues that make PC screens unsuitable for marine use.
There are considerations for power, protection from the harsh enrinment

True, protection against outdoor moisture levels is well beyond what most PC
monitors can deliver. Not to mention they're not very good at displaying in
direct sunlight.

etc., but a real driver that few people are aware of is night viewing. It
is
imperitive that the display dims to black. PC monitors will not.

That's untrue. It's entirely dependent on the application driving the
monitor. If the application program doesn't use the energy star or other
power managment functions then it'd certainly be less than ideal. But in
this day an age very few things remain that defective regarding power
managment.

If you avoid the commercial
certified screens and go with the yacht screens, you will end up with the
marine performance sans certification costs.

+1, great suggestion.

Please also be aware that when interfacing things like black box radars,
be
aware of aspect ratio, not just screen size. If the screen size does not
physically match the resolution to be used, circles appear as ovals and
that
really looks horrible.

If you're running PC applications just make sure your video display card can
drive the monitor at it's native resolution. Most cards can support the
usual 4:3 aspect ratio as well as newer 16:9 and other variants. Check
first, otherwise stick with getting a 4:3 aspect ratio monitor at pixel
resolutions like 800x600, 1024x768 or 1280x1024.

Avoid the automobile screens with only 400 line vertical resolution. That's
fine for presenting a touchscreen FM radio/CD player but it's horrible for
the sort of precision you'd need for chartplotter applications.

Bill Kearney wrote:
Also consider getting an actual marine chartplotter and a PC
interface. Get a pair of cheap PC laptops (lay in one as a spare)
and stick it belowdecks. Use the PC for it's regular features and
chartplotting. Then upload the routes and download other data from
the marine chartplotter. That way you get at-sea reliability from
the 'real' chartplotter but also get the flexibility of the PC. This
is what I do and it works out great. When looking, check out
MapTech's Chart Navigator Pro. It's a repackaging of Rosepoint's
Coastal Explorer in conjuction with ALL of MapTech's US charts
(including contours). Quite a bargain if you buy it online from
Boatfix, and there's a $50 rebate from Maptech running now.

-Bill Kearney

All he needs is a waterproof super-hi-candela screen (shatterproof glass, of
course), mounted in a steel bulkhead (preferably by welding), with a steel
plate door, double locked, a waterproof keypad and a waterproof mouse or
scroll ball, with a drop-down table for the keypad. The whole think linked
by Wi-Fi to his laptop down below. Seven or eight thousand dollars should
easily cover it. Thank God I'm not sailing on the boat with him!

BTW, a Garmin GPSMAP60C or CSx will cover most cockpit navigation problems,
particuarly if you use the same Bluecharts in the Garmin as you use on the
laptop. Less than $500 if you know where to look, and you take it home with
you at night!

Dennis.