its tough, but not a book...

I know it doesnt really belong here, but I just wanted to show off my boat computer, seeing as though ive had it out after its completed its first year of racing...
Its a fully passive PC based on a mini-itx board, with 12v dc/dc psu, 40gb hdd and connected to the GPS and all the B+G navigation and wind instruments, all the LED's, buttons and connectors are IP68 and the case is sealed with the exception of the cabel exit which will take water hosed at it, but not a submersion.- in total the machine draws about 30 watts there is a waterproof silicone keyboard and mouse too.
it comes on and goes off from a signal from the main breaker, but also has an on/off switch under the monitor - which unfortunately is a normal TFT that used a 12v power brick.

Hopefully later this year a CF-18 running VNC will act as a read only repeater for this up in the cockpit

 

nice looks like a lot of custom work went in to it.

-john-

 

I really like it! Nice work!
I wanted to build something similar for my next Carputer!

 

Except it will be with fiberglass lol

 

I was thinking something similar. I was thinking about an nice MK4 1.6 CF-29 with an underseat mount... Then run the external monitor up to a 8" double din touchscreen. With a tether to my cell I'd have a WWAN.... Then I'd also be able to talk to my car from the house... Swap files and music. I have over 15k songs of all types.

Then if I needed a laptop while on the go... I could always take the CF-29 out of the port replicator.... Maybe even relocate some of the US ports up into the dash somewhere....

It should be an enjoyable build.... A suburban 4X4 assault vehicle. Not sure exactly what base I want.... I loved my old Ford Explorer... But my Hummer H3 has to go!

 

Sigh... I have 86.2GB of immaculately named and sorted songs, mostly old Rock, and mostly of 256kbs or better. I have over 16,000 songs. I have most of the good rock of the 50's - today and some other songs of different types I just happen to like.

I used to date a DJ that gave me all her old demos and I could not bear to throw them away.

I intend to have them all loaded on my next carputer!

 

Of course you could just get a CF-07, pop in a bigger hard drive and have a smaller boat/carputer that was a real Toughbook with all the rugged features in a very small box!
CAP

 

The biggest Hard drive for the 07 that I have seen is 10gb I believe.

They are NOT normal laptop drives. As a matter of fact, they are alot smaller

 

all that and no SSD?

Great job... I envisioned something like that for a carputer, thought about the work needed and gave up. hahaha.

 

They are 1.8" ATA drives, I use 20GB Toshiba MK2004GAL drives in mine. Do not buy the ZIF versions which are common in Ipods and the like. These are for GPS navigation with a little web surfing, they are not for streaming video or gaming! Just took a quick Google, there seem to be some 1.8" 128GB SSDs out there!
CAP

 

the parts for this were mostly sourced 2 years ago, long before I realised how accessible Toughbooks were and long before i even knew of the existence of the CF-07, I have thought about one of those plus the display as I like the form factor, PIII would be more than man enough for the task and its nice and easy to mount and remove and idea of the battery in the CF-07 acting as a buffer for the unregulated 12v boat battery is excellent.
The only issue i could see with the CF-07 is the fact that it will live in very close proximity to salt water so all the exposed connectors will just corrode, where everything in the plastic box is nice and warm and cosy! and looks like new after the past year. - oh and to upgrade to a CF-07 would bean that skip wont buy a CF-18 for an ondeck repeater lol!

solid state is a direction i wanted to head in, a fullon SSD is a bit of overkill for a machine just just runs 2 basic applications with minimal disk access but I do have a CF-ide adapter but the cards were not large enough for our needs and the SDHC-IDE adapter that i have isnt compatible with my 16gb card

oh.. and one nice thing with the mini-itx is the onboard hardware mpeg decoder so we can watch DVD's if we wanted

 

Don't get me wrong, you have built a very nice rig. I just often see people trying to have a compact install for one reason or another, and if you shop carefully you can get a pretty cool computer for $100 or less in the CF-07. People seem to get hung up on the wireless display and forget that it will drive any number of remote displays like in dash car units and the like. What kind of sailing are you doing, around the marks or ocean?
CAP

 

Belve me, If I knew the CF-07 existed I think we would have had one of those! it would have been a lot more straightforward than this!

We mostly race round the cans - local series and Cowes Week each year the yacht is a Sigma 38 OOD so it can get rather close! but we also do a few ofshore races to france and belgium

we are the white boat in the foreground


and thats me in the black shirt at the front

 

Ahh I did not know that,

 

@mattpayne, I haven't done any rail rattling at the starting line since the mid-eighties, but your pictures do bring back some memories. Taking an 80' maxi up and over early in a 41' one tonner was always very satisfying!
@TBtech29, well its not often any of us get to tell you anything new, so glad to be of service.
CAP