28' Bayliner Contessa Boatputer

Great forums here folks! I thought i'd share my setup plus future plans and I look forward to your comments and suggestions.

The main setup consists of:

A hanging locker used for an enclosure for most equipment.
Sony Vio P4 notebook with display removed.
17" Dell flatplanel lower, 7" tft at the upper.
VGA controller with vga passthru, composite, component and Svideo in's.
Wireless keyboard/mouse
USB GPS
USB Wifi nic

Accessories:
SD digitial tuner with amplified external antenna
stand alone DVD player
Buffalo IR distributor with receivers on bridge and in salon. (as all equipment is enclosed)
cmos camera in salon
winamp remote thru a comtrol device server (currently disconnected)

Wifi/Internet:
Cradlepoint wifi cellular router
Usb extension cable for easy access and good antenna placement of cell card.
Ubiquity nanostation 2
Ubituity bullet HP with 6dbi omni

DC Power Supplies:
12v nom. to Adjustable ~19v notebook power brick
12v nom. to 5v
12v nom. to 9v
12v nom. to 12v reg.
Seperate switching and fused.

Software:
Winamp FTW (guess I'm old school....)
winamp remote
Maptech Chart navigator Pro
a bunch of other stuff...

Misc:
Powered usb extension to make run from enclosure to display.
USB hub hear display so USB devices will still work if display is powered off (display also has onboard hub).
TV in forward stateroom (split off off tuner, all other components goto the main VGA controller)

Wiring:
8 ga +/- from batt. switch to cap/enclosure.
Multiple CAT5 runs between enclosure, bridge, Display and forward stateroom for power, IR, and ethernet.
Multiple RCA runs between enclosure, bridge, display/camera area and the forward stateroom for audio and video.
25' VGA extension cable between enclosure and display

Audio Equipment:
Jenson 4ch 600w for the cabin
Jenson 4ch 300w for the bridge
KLH Sealed marine speakers in cabin
Polk Sealed marine speakers on bridge
12" dual VC sub in sealed enclosure mounted in bilge under the dinette.
1 farad cap with voltage display

Inverters:
400w that doesn't get used much anymore.
700w/1000w that is the day to day workhorse.
2000/4000w current getting relocated for shorter and thicker gauge run to battery bank.

Batteries:
(3) Group 31 Marine deep cycle's

Charging:
80 amp Delco (one wire, local voltage sensing)
12 amp dual battery marine charger
10/2 amp dumb automotive charger for backup (when the above charger acts up, there is a story behind it)


Systems Explaination.

The computer is an obvious one, Music is priority one. I'm a diehard winamp user because of it's low cpu usage plus high reliability and performance. Visualization plugins are also nice for late nights.. Use Maptech navigation software and download all the raster and vector charts free from NOAA. USB GPS provides data for positioning and speed. Wireless keyboard and mouse are at the lower helm, so currently the only control from the upper helm is ir remote (song control and volume).. for now.. There is a display at the upper helm so you can see the gps, computer display and camera in salon.

Computer is also used for weather as I usually just goto Noaa's high res. national radar loop. Plus surfing, youtubing, and playing the 'on a boat' video repeatedly.

Computer is connected wireless to the cradlepoint cell router at sea, or the radio at the boat club when at the dock. We have internet cards for work so I just drop it into a usb extension cable going to the cradlepoint that's positioned by the window for good access and reception. The ubiquity radios are used on as needed basis to either connect to a hotspot from far away or as an high power access point to give internet to folks around us when rafted up. I have a quad wan router that can control these interfaces to autosense and load balance, but it's not onboard due to space and just one more thing to consume power that I don't really need.

Jumping to power, I don't quite have everything working off DC yet, but I'm close. The damn display is AC ( i know, just need to take it apart, but I haven't yet) along with the DVD player and SD tuner, so I need to run the inverter for these. The 700w is quiet and is enough to power what I need plus a little, but still can run for hours of a bank of two batteries. There is an 8ga run from the enclosure to the batteries to power everything, it's about a 25' run.. It's protected by a 30amp fuse that I haven't blown yet under normal conditions (except when a friend tried to run the coffee maker off the 700w inverter). Having this additional run and a voltage display on the cap is handy because it can be compared to the boat wiring system for troubleshooting... Could go on for a while here, but that's another thread. ok, enough power, this is getting long fast..

The VGA display is connected to a VGA controller with remote control. When it's turned off, it passes VGA thru. When you turn it on, you can select between composite, component, and svideo. It does audio switching, but it sucks and I've yet to get another switch, so for the moment, I'm manually moving audio. it's quite handy and is DC powered.

Since the vga controller, dvd player, tv tuner, and winamp are all IR remote controlled and enclosed, I found a buffalo system for cheap and used that. DC powered and runs off one of the regulators (5v or 9v, can't remember). Run cat5 to both helm stations for remote control. it works well, just a little directional with the remotes.. Need to grab one more for the forward stateroom - if I close the door we lose remote control...

I'll have to take some pictures and get them up. It's fairly simply when you see it.

For the future:

need an audio AB switch bad or replace the VGA controller (it was like $50.. i'm cheap...and need money for fuel)

Mounting the monster inverter under the dinette and running 6' of 0ga to the batteries.. hahaha. I win.. we'll see if it runs the A/C.... other problem with this inverter is it's noisy both from the fan, but also makes the VGA goto crap. Improved grounding did not change anything, just couldn't make the noise go away... VGA works well off the 700w. the 2k/4k inverter is also from harbor freight....

DEPTH!! Anyone ever connected one to a serial device server???

wiring is provisioned fairly well for multiple cameras. Used to work with IR cameras lot more but I still get demo cams for evaluation and integration work. Going to do a mounted axis 241qa providing video and audio for next year so those with permission can see where we are, and I can make cool video's like this one: (sorry, it's big)

Point Pleasant Canal Video

I'll get some pics up soon. Let me know your thoughts!

short posts are evil ;)

wow, looks like a pretty neat install! i'll have to check in later to see some of those pics.

Grabbed some quick pics today:

http://www.castletonboatclub.com/doug/contessa/Amps.jpghttp://www.castletonboatclub.com/dou...ssa/closet.jpg

http://www.castletonboatclub.com/dou...ssa/Salon2.jpg

1/2 win with the pan..
http://www.castletonboatclub.com/dou...lonpanfail.jpg

nice ....

try this and fyiz

I am a little bit ahead of you ... but we are both on the same track. boater not car. congrads ...

whether you know it or not you have made a sound decision to go this seaclear route and not the blue water screen of death from garmin. blue water is RECALLED indefinatly. what over priced crapp

NOAA MAPS ARE THE ONLY LEGAL MAP FOR NAVIGATION IN THE US AND TERRITORIAL WATERS

here is where i am . sea clear with all the maps. you can also use google earth pictures and use the map cal app to add them in as alternate or prefered maps.
i found the cd of the maps on ebay for 5 bucks, put all maps in one directory.
make sure you get the comdisable.msi from microsoft. this keeps that fookin rat ball mouse trash that microsoft just has to support (egotists) from showing up.

i have a usb 2 hub on a 30 foot cord to a itx pc buried in the boat somewhere. a garmin 5 gps on a serial cable. all off of 12 volts. a nav station in the galley area with a 12 volt monitor and roll up key board(propalactic) a pen mouse .

on the deck at the tiller i have a sunlight touch screen i got from logic supply.
which is about where you are. kudos. if not further.

here is what i also did. i am a control engineer. so ...
my engine and drive system is under full etronic control. i use hydraulics instead of transmissions and so forth so a spool valve and pressure controler is a snap.
i actually used the PWM servos they use in R/C planes for the choke and throttle. (hobby engineering .com for the microprocessor controller. ) NOTE ONLY USE WIRE WOUND POTS for interfaceing and control never use thin film slide or turn pots. wire wound only. for critical marine applications

also a compass sensor board usb from sparkfun.com. i also have a wind speed and direction detector. usb as well.

i also have a sparkfun weather station pressure humidity temp and sunlight measurments. usb.
all engine sensors are hooked up to the system as well as the normal gauges. i also have a digital amp gauge.

i have a few extras on the chesapeake bay thunderstorms can appear almost out of no where. i have a lightening detector with alert..

the PC IMPORTANT. a hard drive will do ok but it can be replaced with a Solid state drive. i have the kingston SSD v5 65 gig. 160 from CDW.

the whole thing uses 9 watts and boots win XP in 4 seconds using the new intel atom processor from logic supply (69$)
a world wide tide current app is also available called WXTIDE. it is awsome and if you can program you can integrate it well with the seaclear application.
even by itself it is great to have. WX has another cool extra, the watch bell sounds play every 30 min.

and last but not least i have my humminbird tied in as well. it tells me the depth and randomly names fishes. sailing can be boring at times waiting for the big fan to start.

i also have a program called C3P0 ( i know i know) it uses Carrier phase precise positioning to get 2 mm accuracy. this is used to measure anchor drift.


toss in a dvd/cd player and a usb radio or usb sat receiver and your good to sit at the dock.

total cost $500 or so. the most expensive single component is the SSD followed by the weather station.

i can pilot and sail the boat from the stateroom or the bar using the video cameras i added. cheap web cams.

NEXT to add a FUBUTA R/C Trans Rec so i can send the boat to the fuel dock by it's self while i sit at the bar.