Building a CF-28 Toughbook Based Marine Navigation System

Ok folks ... here's my attempt at describing my current project - this page will be updated as it progresses.

First of all it helps to know that I am a cadet in the U.S. Coast Guard attending the Coast Guard Academy. (It makes this entire thing makes sense -- I think )

October 2007 - January 2008 - A friend of buys a sailing boat with his pay he's been saving up for a year. A Pearson 26, we need to sail it from
Boston, MA to New London, CT. We work out the agreement that while most our friends that will go with us will help pay for food and such I'll contribute navigation equipment. I was meaning to buy a GPS for other reasons. I end up with a Garmin GPSMAP 76CSx. Being that we don't want to save money and not purchase Bluecharts (Garmin's Nautical Chart program for GPS and computer display) we would probably only ever use once (Boston and New London are on two separate Bluechart regions each costing $120) we search the web and find SEACLEAR II a free raster charing program that allows us to use the GPS along with the computer to display free NOAA charts on a laptop. We sail the boat in two legs on two weekends to Newport, RI not New London, CT due to poor winter where we are forced to dock it for the winter. (Cadets get have only a certain number of weekends a semester we can leave be off base overnight.) From this we determine out luck tends to favor poor weather ( we took the 26 ft boat in 30+ knot winds and surf (so bad the CG actually send a motor lifeboat to check on us after someone called thinking we were in trouble). Therefore we figured it would be a bad idea to risk using our issued laptops which we paid over 2000 in such conditions. Seconding coming out of Buzzards bay we ran soft aground in a narrow channel because the GPS wasn't accurate enough and the buoys marking the channel were off station. Be the people we are we decided to find some new navigation equipment.
Now both of us had know about Toughbooks for some time, and think back we remember that the CG Cutter Eagle which we had been on over the summer had one they used for logs (and possible for back up navigation). eBay time! to our surprise CF-27s sold in the 90 to 100 dollar range, I could afford that. In my research I came across this forum and decided on a CF-28 instead.

February 2008 - Found the perfect candidate to meet my specifications - auction won.
CF-28P3JAZQM
P3 800mhz
XGA 13.3 Non-Touchscreen W/ Standard Keyboard
30gb 4200rmp Hard Drive
384 mb RAM
Floppy Disk Drive
Windows XP


So it arrives about 2 weeks later or so, slightly banged up but in working condition missing all port covers but with a good battery - it lasts over an hour and a half . Also the Power adapter I purchased arrives along with an external DVD-RW drive I purchased for 26 bucks on eBay. It is a USB for now but can be converted to be internal if I ever get a caddy for it.

I ordered a bunch of parts for a eBay seller including latches, screws and a LAN card so I can plug this thing into the internet. Also a black lit rubberized keyboard and CD port cover arrives.

As I install the keyboard I realize the paint on the tough book screen is chipping off. . This generates the idea "why not paint it a better looking color? Flat black anyone? Well it turns out another friend has a power coating setup at home. Even better Its time to do some stripping of Toughbook paint. We decided to coat the handle, the LCD bezel and the battery cover because it was already missing paint.


March 2008
Powder coating on hold because we need flat black powder coat and well we are thinking about expanding the power coasting to the entire notebook. Also found is a CF-28 600mhz on eBay missing battery and hard drive. Parts anyone? Based on the model number given on the auction I am lead to believe it may have a prized 13.3 XVG touchscreen. We shall see, its paid for and on the way here.

Well thats the progress so far, more pictures will be added as the project progresses.

The GPS Rig Although this is a laptop forum I thought someone might be interested in seeing the other components being built.
So today the new GPS arrived. I decided on a Garmin GPSMAP 182 mainly because it was one of the last GPS gamin made that was DGPS capable and it is also WAAS capable (Newer Garmin unites are strictly WAAS). The DGPS beacon also arrived a last week so I got to hook it up today. After an hour on no success and moving around the barracks to another room and rewiring we got the unit setup and working - partially.
Status the GPS turns on and receives satellites and can connect with the beacon and searches for DGPS signals, but it cant pick up any stations. I'm thinking this has something to do with the poor signal reception i get in here. See the satellites I picked up (the line of satellites is nice and great for accuracy eah )

We also chopped up a old Garmin serial interface cable for the eTrex that I found on eBay for 99 cents and a wired her into the system and well we had NEMA output to the computer. So by the end of the night my room looked like this:



Well its all back in its boxes for now for some reason my roommate didn't think our room would pass inspection if we left it up

Testing
We took the rig out on the boat for the first time last weekend and mover here to the academy from winter storage. It was a bad trip over 18 hours (we left 0530 got in round 2400) to go just 50NM --the seas were bad and we were plagued by gps problems. Blah.
Looks like I need to replace the OEM Garmin DGPS antenna with something more substantial, this thing sucks and cant get a fix to save its life. I have my eyes on a nice 4ft Shakesphere DGPS antenna for 14 bucks on eBay. Also it looks like there is a faulty power connection somewhere, the power kept turning on and off and despite about 6 hrs of whacking wires and re-doing connections it still did it. Maybe the boat's power system is bad? It seems the only thing that worked was the toughbook . When it did get a GPS input from the Garmin it gave me some nice mapping.
I took the following picture shortly before puling up to the academy.
I'll post some more later.


Also in other news I got the 600mhz toughbook in and it had a touchscreen...now the nav comp has the touch screen. I'll post a description of the process and pictures later.

 

Look everyone, we've roped in a Dell user! No more Dell jokes.

Welcome to the forum. And looks like a worthwhile project.

Check the threads for info on the LCD switch from 600 to 800. There are some questions about compatibility here - it may not be a simple switch, but others will have more experience and can advise you.

Keep us advised.

 

Okay... First of all... Welcome to the Panasonic forum. Believe me... we love the fact you guys aren't affraid to dig into your laptop! BUT.... I'd rethink powdercoating it black. Panasonic used to do it. and they had a higher failure rate because of temps. Sunlight, which I assume this will be exposed to when in use, may/will raise the temperatures enough to cause premature failure of your CPU/hard drive.

Not all parts from the 600Mhz are swapable to the 800Mhz & 1Ghz... Be careful. The screen may work but you will have to take off the back and reroute the wires running to the connectors as they are reversed on the 600.

Why not swap out the touchscreen that you have onto the other laptop? The one in the picture looks good and bright but I'm sure you will say that it is the non-touch. You can make the picture fill out the whole screen by adjusting the resolution. Right click on the desktop and then select properties and then slide the resolution bar over to the right!

Please keep posting... We'd like to follow your progress and help when we can!

 

And...

it looks like you are running in low resolution on your LCD.

Download the appropriate drivers for the video from

ftp://ftp.panasonic.com/pub/Panasonic/Drivers/notebooks/

There is a list in the data.txt file - different drivers for each model and each OS.

 

Thanks for the advice on the screen connectors....that picture was taken when i first powered it up out of the box, I now have it running full resolution, as for the swap you are suggesting I am a bit confused. As of now, I have 02 laptops that are non touch screens (the dell and the 800mhz CF-28) and 1 touchscreen (600mhz CF-28) in the mail to me (i hope). My plans as of now are to either part out the 600mhz and sell the unused parts or if it still runs after I am finished sell the unit on eBay. Also thank you Toughbook for the advice on power coating, I'll have to look into that problem further.

 

I think I misunderstood - thought you were going to switch the 600 touchscreen to one of the non-touchscreen model - that is where some issues come up I think.

 

No you understood perfectly well---that's what I am planning to do when I get the 600 in the mail. I 'll do my forum research before I try that one though

 

I added an update about the GPS behind the system above.

 

Sounds like you are on the right path.

Okay... So you ARE going to swap the non-touchscreen off of the 800 to the touchscreen from the 600. What I meant was (And you'll see when you take them apart) is that there are two connectors that attach to the mobo. They look distinctly different. They are reversed on the laptops. You will need to take the top cover off of the 600 and pull a little of the wiring out in order to make the connnections reach. The wires are recessed in a little "trench" in the foam padding inside the screen just under the top cover near where the wires exit the screen and go into the laptop. The trench is sort of "L" shaped. You can cut your own trench bisecting the corners of the "L" and make a straight shot to the outside of the screen. This will leave you with extra wiring that can be bunched up under the hinge cover or carefully taped and tucked back into the screen... Your choice. Just make sure you use packing tape to keep the wiring in the trench... Like the factory did. This will make sure it doesn't pop out when you reassemble and will keep you from pinching one if the tiny little wires.

Jeeez... I've made this sound very complicated when it is actually very easy. You'll see when you open it up what needs to be done!

 

I've been lurking for a bit, but now that I've just bought my first TB I feel fully qualified to add my completely unsolicited advice to Toughbook's excellent, earlier warning about powerdercoating the magnesium parts.

These things have no fan, right? And they shed heat by radiating/convecting, primarily through the magnesium bits...

So, as Toughbook pointed out, if you coat it black, you now have a decent radiation absorber if used in sunlight, i.e. a ship's topside. Paint it black and you won't be able to touch it in summer time.

An example you may understand is the black nonskid deck on the ships you're going to sail. That rough, black surface actually melted a pair of my boot soles one summer. Imagine your treasured toughbook that hot...

If you really want to have a totally trick TB - thermally speaking - have the parts that are exposed to sunlight polished like chrome. Then paint or anodize the non-exposed parts flat black. Bottom parts and all inside surfaces black, top parts shiny.

A flat, matte surface is the closest thing to a perfect radiator (blackbody in infrared dork-speak) you can get. The thinner the coting is the better, and powder-coating is pretty thick compared to spray paint.

Finally, use some of that arctic silver goo on all magnesium contact points so the heat transfers to all the parts equally.

Congrats, you now have a computer that will operate at LEAST 2 WHOLE DEGREES lower than a boring old stock one. And you're also a complete nerd like me. [ Actually, it just won't overheat in the sun. That's important.]

Oh, and thanks for your soon-to-be service. Coasties rarely get the respect they deserve.

 

It's funny you mentioned polishing like chrome... I did that to a CF-28... I stripped the paint and primer then started sanding with 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1200, 1500 then finished wth 2000 grit... Then all grades of steel wool ending with 0000 wool. Then I started with the polishing. I used Flitz and the top shined just like a mirror! ...For 3 days until the oxidation process started. Magnesium oxidizes faster than just about ANY other metal. It forms a "rust" almost like a fine ash color. You can keep it polished or spray/powder coat that with clear. My advice is to stay with silver. If your eyes caught the sun coming off the top of the laptop that was polished... They would be no good looking at the much dimmer screen.

I DO like the Arctic Silver paste idea. I used that on my 29 an it did lower it by 1-2 degrees. Not much... But every little bit counts! I don't know if it would work as well on the 28... But it would be worth a shot. We would definitely need to capture temp data to prove/disprove its effectiveness though.

 

TB - remember my earleir post on this subject - the heatpipes on the CF-28 are designed to take into account the thickness of the thermal pads... I do not believe that your case halves would sandwich properly without those pads, and there have been issues with Arctic Silver reacting badly with other thermal compounds, attacking the metal they were in contact with. My experience with the product indicates it produces no statisictally significant improvement over OEM titanium oxide type thermal compound UNLESS your cooling solution is inadequate to begin with...

mnem
*How about just plopping it down in a bath of oil to keep it cool? I've done it with PC mobos before...

 

Mnem... I agree... The Thermal paste I used was on the 29 along with the thermal clay they use to help disipate heat. I wouldn't remove the pad and add the paste... You are right... There would be clearance issues. I'm not sure you could do it on the 28 because of the pad it uses... But I think it might still be worth a try. But I guess the weakness is the pad. The paste wouldn't matter that much because the conductor is still the pad.

I have noticed an oil on the pad on the ones I take apart. Whether the oil is applied before/after the pad or it leaches out of the pad... I don't know.

 

It leaches out; the thermal pads are a colloidal oil/silicone material. the oil is the thermal conductor; it is however not permanently trapped in the colloid; if it were, it couldn't contact the surfaces it's intended to cool.

mnem <~~~ Likes to stick his tongue to peltiers*

 

Remember, he could use it as a signaling mirror while out to sea...

I was mostly teasing in my first post, but now I'm just trying to picture a polished magnesium laptop. Gawd, talk about bling. Might as well replace all the plastic parts with carbon fiber while you're at it.

Oh, and get some of that fake braided stainless steel hose sheath to cover the AC adapter wires. Very, um... 'industrial.'

Almost as silly as encapsulating a thumb drive in a chunk of copper tubing with epoxy and then polishing it. (oh, wait, already did that...)

 

Heh - I potted a Kinsgton Travelmate (??? The switchblade one) inside a brass reloadable 12-gage shotgun shell... just tap it on the edge of a table or snap it like my Gerber multiplier, and out it would pop. Eventually got so loose I couldn't plug it into anything, but it was bad@ss while it worked.

mnem
Never bring a pendrive to a shotgun brawl.

 

I have Intel 82830M video chip and I found a newer driver 6.14.10.3889 here

http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/intel830m/#anchor2

To check your video properties right click anywhere on your desktop and click on properties then look for settings then look for advanced and then adapter and it will show what the chipset is

 

Great find Randy. I'm showing 64mb of video memory with the new driver.

Kudos