Thread: Fishing Boat Installation - Hard Drive Shock, Vibration - SSD, Flash?

Originally Posted by marcram

Well, I already have the first board on it's way to my house. I am not critically concerned with computing power of the board. Not sure if the heat will be dramatically reduced with the new one, but maybe I can replace the heat sink later.

From another post: :Location Updates I am using goops on my boat and would also really benefit by estimating the track between gps spots. Especially since I would like to use the aerial views to estimate the shallow areas in the bay.

On that note, what are the optimal settings to get the update to run faster? Is this solely based on the output rate from the GPS unit? In my case, I am using a Garmin GPS/fishfinder.

Thanks in advance,
marc

Marc, How are using google earth in your boat? I wanted to continue the conversation from the LCD thread, but since it was off topic I thought I would move it over into the boat computer section.

Don't a lot of the charting software packages do what google earth does and combine it with nav and underwater charting?

To tell you the truth, I haven't looked into many charting software packages. Which ones have you heard of? I like using goops into google earth and have overlaid raster maps whose opacity can be changed. It is nice to have sattelite views of very shallow areas and the depths predicted by raster plots. I bought the raster charts package from earthnc, but I have found that I can make them from the same free source online. I can also modify the color-shemes of the map to give more contrast. Especially because of my LCD outdoor visibility problems as discussed in this forum:

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/lcd-...ml#post1324592

It is also very easy to add placemarkers i.e. fishing hotspots, channels, etc. Overall, I just like the flexibility offered by google earth. The only thing that makes me mad is when google earth is started up on the boat, I get error messages and have to close a couple dialog boxes to accept that I am not connected to the internet. Other than that it works very well.

I also have an old Garmin gps/depthfinder on board that is now dedicated for depthfinding only and as a gps backup. I have used the serial cable from the Garmin (NEMA comm) to send info to the pc and also have a usp gps antenna that works very well. Having backup solutions are key.

I'd like to find some software application that would display the depth found on the garmin and could display it on the PC.

Originally Posted by marcram

It is also very easy to add placemarkers i.e. fishing hotspots, channels, etc. Overall, I just like the flexibility offered by google earth. The only thing that makes me mad is when google earth is started up on the boat, I get error messages and have to close a couple dialog boxes to accept that I am not connected to the internet. Other than that it works very well.

I also have an old Garmin gps/depthfinder on board that is now dedicated for depthfinding only and as a gps backup. I have used the serial cable from the Garmin (NEMA comm) to send info to the pc and also have a usp gps antenna that works very well. Having backup solutions are key.

I'd like to find some software application that would display the depth found on the garmin and could display it on the PC.

You could probably hibernate to get rid of those warning boxes.

Does the depth information come from a sonar reading or charts? In the past I have used some of Maptechs products. Next weekend I hope to test some mac software using a p2140 and a mac mini.

Are you using the Google ocean component? I would imagine the 30 meter resolution isn't enough to tell you much.

Originally Posted by Fiberoptic

You could probably hibernate to get rid of those warning boxes.

Does the depth information come from a sonar reading or charts? In the past I have used some of Maptechs products. Next weekend I hope to test some mac software using a p2140 and a mac mini.

Are you using the Google ocean component? I would imagine the 30 meter resolution isn't enough to tell you much.

Hibernate sounds like a good option for when we will be using the boat on many consecutive days. For extended times of not using it, I guess shutting down would be the way to go.

I have depth plotted on the raster charts, but also get real-time depth through the depthfinder. It would be nice to plot these experimental depths and overlay them on the charts that have previous depths on them. I have asked earthnc about using the google ocean component and to accentuate the depth resolution for the bays. West Galveston bay is about 8 ft max depth and a few inchis in many spots. That would be a nice addition to change the resolution of the depth reading ... like you said, the current resolution is for oceans and such, not shallow bays.

Maptechs Chart Navigator Pro looks really nice. With my GE, I can only do raster charts, not vector charts. I also like the virtual instruments. I guess these work by the NMEA code sent from the depthfinder.

For now, I'll stick with the almost free GE/goops, but will upgrade to something more sophisticated in the future. I would love to demo some of this software to make sure I would get adequate coverage in West Galveston Bay. Do you connect to the internet when on the water? If so, by what means?

Thanks.

Originally Posted by marcram

Do you connect to the internet when on the water? If so, by what means?
Thanks.

most of my boating is near shore on friends boats - in which case I use a tethered phone or a data card (verizon, sprint, xohm, wimax ect)

Here is an update on my boat pc project. So far so good.

Details on the transflective monitor are in this thread:
http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/lcd-...ng-boat-3.html

I just installed some MTX wakeboard tower speakers on our t-top and have a 2-channel MTX amp that powers on from the M2 psu on the boat computer. I like this setup a lot, but will add the PAC LC1 Remote Amplifier Level Controller
as a physical volume control unit between pc and amp. I'll probably change out the knob and mount it in the hole that the old xenarc occupied.

More pics: