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Computers That Thrive in Salty, Humid Environments?
To start us out, frostman asks: "A friend of mine is living on a sailboat, and would like to set up a nifty computer system. It doesn't need to be too powerful, but it should be small, rugged, fairly quiet, and cheap. He has a standard PII/400 mid-tower system he can gut for parts (400Mhz would probably be enough). He wants to do normal internet stuff, watch DVD's, listen to MP3's (with good speakers)... and he needs it to run on 12 volts when he's sailing. Any suggestions from the hardware gurus on Slashdot?"
websensei continues with this query: "I am about to become a full-time live-aboard on my sailboat. I'm in the process of selling all my machines and plan to spend about $2000 on a new laptop for the boat. I'll use it for work and play (movies, gaming, TV via USB TV tuner?) etc. Please share any advice/experiences relating to computing on boats or other harsh/damp environs."
And last, but not least, Alioth asks about fishes, not boats: "How about computers in fish factories? Not only do we have to contend with the room being jetwashed, but the atmosphere is very salty. I've been looking at stainless steel enclosures - what's their salt water resistance like, not just the stainless parts, but the parts that fasten the stainless parts together, not to mention being able to keep the computer cool as well (meaning it's got to vent somewhere)?"
Yes. Imagine HP Vectra computers on shock-proof feet to protect them from engine vibrations. We often used to use these as part of our ISIS engine management systems in engine control rooms: hot, steamy, smelling of saltwater and diesel fuel.
The Vectras lasted just fine. I think any other quality computer would, too. The biggest killer is the vibrations; the heat, humidity and salt are no worse than if you lived in, say, Tampa, with no air conditioning.
Equipment specifically built for a marine environment is always very tough, but that's the same for almost anything sold to industry instead of consumers. Industry more often wants quality; consumers claim they want quality and then run out and buy Samsung TV sets.
Here's a radar system with a 68000-based computer doing the video processing. Here's a Great Lakes bulker, pretty small potatoes in the marine world, yet it still has a diesel engine approximately four stories tall.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
My time in Uncle Sam's canoe club was as a keypunch operator / computer operator on USS Midway, CV-41. The computer was a tape system (no disks) with card input. The tape drive had rubber seals around the doors and various parts, and (rumour had it) could operate under water. Now, since we were one deck under the flight deck, I always figured I didn't want to be around when that was necessary.
After the evacuation of Saigon (April 1975), Radio Hanoi called us pirates for not returning all the planes and helicopters flown out of country by the escapees. Our captain promptly broke out the Jolly Riger.
So I am a real high seas pirate, by no less an authority than Radio Hanoi, and we had a computer built to operate under water!
Infuriate left and right
I just returned from the Pacific Cup race from San Francisco, CA to Kaneohe, HI and was in charge of the computers. We carried two laptops primarily as backup and to use with the Iridium phone but the main computer was a Capuccino from Think Geek.
We mounted a Tote Vision monitor on an adjustable arm at the nav station and controlled it with a wireless keyboard and wireless mouse. The Tote also includes a TV receiver so you can eliminate one other piece of equipment.
For our use we needed more serial ports so we got a USB-serial converter box which gave us a total of one on the PC plus 4 external. For the race we collected HF weatherfax using mScan meteo software. The software controlled an ICOM PCR-1000 general coverage receiver via. the serial port and used the internal sound card to receive the weatherfax data.
Another serial port was dedicated to the B&G tactician software to B&G instrument connection.
The next port provided NMEA GPS input to the Nobletec navigation program and another provided general NMEA instrument data to Nobletec (the Nobletec software can display maps as well as a console with wind info, boat speed, heading, water temperature and whatever else your instruments collect).
Finally, another port sent NMEA navigation info back from Nobletec to the onboard instruments for display to the driver (range/bearing to waypoint, cross track error, etc.)
The whole thing worked great (we won our division!).
The advice is somewhat obvious - keep the computer dry. We mounted the PC and Icom behind the breaker panel as electrical areas are generally pretty dry on a boat. The whole thing runs on 12v so we didn't need to run the ship's inverter. (Capuccino uses a 12v-18v adapter, Tote is 12v native. The Canon printer is 13.6v and worked great only when the batteries were fully charged).
Heat build-up is a problem on hot days or in the tropics so we added a fan to pull air through the instrument/electrical compartments. This solved our heat-related crashes.
Access to the computer requred twisting two screw latches so it was pretty easy but not convenient if you need to access the CD a lot. It's likely that you could find a spot near your nav table to mount the mini-PC where you could access the disk easily.
I know many people who live and work on their boats. Most use laptops but one uses regular PCs with a huge LCD monitor. None have really had any trouble but they don't leave the computers where they are exposed to the elements. Usually a boat that is large enough to live on has some dry areas.
As to the other question, you need industrial electronic enclosures. I don't recall which companies make them but my former roommate worked on systems that were used in food packing and they used standard enclosures designed to withstand the 180 degree 1000psi pressure wash that they used to clean the processing equipment. Google??
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"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
Or I should say, it works too well. The system worked great initially, but pretty soon the oil got in between the connections of all the components that weren't soldered or printed on the mainboard, and thus rendered each of those components useless (CPU, memory, video card, and anything else in the PCI slots).
The only way to do a mineral cooled system would be to solder everything down. Of course, then you couldn't upgrade anything. I guess that might work for a laptop (how many people actually upgrade a CPU or a video card on a laptop?), but the memory would need to be maxed out, and then you have the extra weight of all the mineral oil in there to lug around. So maybe not.