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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)?"
Whoa, that was a tough ask slashdot.
A computer that can reside in my crotch!
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
The only people who want to compute in a saltwater environment are pirates.
... how much more expensive will it cost to make one? ...
Should we even go there?
In the factory, I'd look for something along these lines: http://www.industrial-computer-enclosure.co.uk/wat erproof_computer/waterproof_computer.htm
-- Mark Lyon http://www.marklyon.org
They make fish in factories now?
Every time I think we've reached the end of human progress, someone comes up with something new.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
what would you use as a display? LCD's dont use much, but I have not seen any 12 volt LCD screens out...
My potato gun was confiscated by the United Nations. They said I wasn't allowed to have weapons of mash destruction.
Seagull shit?
No, really. I've seen what nesting rodents (squirrels, etc.) can do to a machine in a rural environment--aren't there similar concerns while afloat?
~Idarubicin
I think for most geeks, their computing environments are always a bit more moist and salty than the average
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
Shrink wrapping?
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Hmm. I bet you take a normal computer, put the word "marine" in front of it, and charge 4x the normal price.
(note: this also works with the word "aviation").
I don't have an anger problem, I have an idiot problem
get a life! You're on a sailboat, why are you checking your email, etc?
Just as an opening thought, I'd remove as many fans as possible since they would be the first to go.
Maybe something based on the Cyrix 933 processor? They run a lot cooler, and would require only a heatsinc.
The less moving parts the better.
My friend lived on his boat for 2 years and used a Dell Laptop with no salt-water related problems. He treated it like he stole it too, not being very careful or anything.
M@
Krispy Cream is people
http://www.icpamerica.com/ace_916v.php
The V model ought to do well if the system is going to be a lightweight.
Well, not really, I love swimming and fishing in the stuff, but it ruins everything...
My advice: use an airtight stainless steel box in the general shape of a computer but a good bit larger. Cut 4 holes in it, two on each narrow end (or wherever air will be able to flow). Fill those holes with some sort of air filter. Seal the edges around the air filter. Get the computer in there somehow. Make sure you seal around the holes for the cables.
Seriously, if saltwater gets in your computer, the thing will rust in no time from the inside out.
~ now you know
I was going to suggest that it be water cooled instead of air cooled (via a vent), but the chances of the water becomming contaminated with salt is just too much of a risk in my books... Anyone care to guess which is safer? Water cooled or air cooled in a salt-air filled environment?
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
Or you could always use this Google page to find what you need.
Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
Haven't you been keeping up with the industry? Water cooling is all the rage.
Remember, Junis (from Afghanastan) was able to bury a Commodore in sand for years (and you know how the heat is out there), dig it up, run it, get on the internet, and download movies with it!
I bet he'd have GREAT advice for anyone that required running a computer in hot, humid environments (although he's more into the "desert" environment than the "water" environment).
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
would be cooling, because otherwise a metal case does just fine.
:)
A watercooling radiatior could be used to cool the system without exposing sensitive electronics to corrosion.
Of course, there's plenty of silicon on the beach if something breaks anyway.
are mostly slow revving 2 strokes (80~120 revs minute) and induce vibration.
There are tons of regular computers onboard sea vessels, the way they get around problems is to make the environment where the computers are NOT like a boat. Air conditioning, for managing humidity and temperature goes a long way to keeping electronics happy. If you want something that can get salt water splashed on it, you're talking something different.
Plastic is an obvious answer. It's resistant to water, salt, heat, etc.. Underwater camera housings are made out of plastic and work very well. For cooling, you can do a heatpipe arrangement with aluminum heatsinks on the inside and out.
The USGS has built entire PC's that are made to reside underwater for days logging data - they put them in watertight aluminum boxes and bind the heatsinks to the sides. Works great.
The Panasonic Toughbook web-pages are here. No mention of salt-water environments that I can find, tho.
SINKING maybe ;)
The US Navy generally uses ruggedized notebooks. In other electronics, the US Navy generally makes sure that they are hermetically sealed and test a few with a salt-water spray before deploying them.
Check out TNAC if you need computers which are resistant to harsh environmental situations. The computers are built into the displays for a single, tough unit, are available in pretty decent speeds (PII & PIII), and have good onboard components (USB, 10/100 ethernet, etc.) They also only use 5W in standby, which is good for houseboats, etc.
P.S. No, I don't work for them.
I remember that there's a common problem with the electrical systems on boats - Since the "ground" is just the hull of the boat, and it has to discharge through the salt water, there's an abnormally-significant problem with corrosion of metal electrical contacts on a lot of salt-water vessels. I have no idea what effect this would have on a computer, and don't have any intentions of finding out anytime soon. :)
.... um, i lost you after "0110100001101001".
What... You mean like a LAN party full of chubby, nacho-eating 15-year olds?
=-Jippy
... you've never heard of laptops (which run LCDs off of 12 volts, more often than not) or inverters.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
ENJOY BEING AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER!
It is possible to enjoy the ocean without mp3's or email access. Pack a laptop up in a duct tape sealed trash bag and leave it there for when you get to shore. When on shore check your email or download whatever ... then when you get back on the boat ... wrap the thing back up and enjoy where you are.
If someone were to ask me how to get a computer on a sail boat I would find reasons as to why I wouldn't want to have one.
1.) It's wet, electronics don't do well in wet.
2.) You can't use the laptop on the deck during the day, the glare will be horrible. (and why would you want to be below decks???)
3.) Power, enjoy being outside away from electronics and conserve what battery you have. If you're on a decent size sailboat there will be a generator, but who the hell wants to listen to a generator all day?
If those aren't reason enough for you then you have a really big problem. Enjoy being away from the computer ... slashdot is archived so you won't miss out ... The only thing I can see anyone missing out on is being able to be FIRST POST!.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
I used an older Sony Viao laptop (I think it is like a Pentium 150 or 200), and threw a bit more RAM in it. I then went out and picked up a universal 12V adapter, which can not only power the laptop but will charge cellphones and all sorts of things.
If the laptop is cheap enough, having it die doesn't matter as much.
The only other tip I would offer is to try to avoid a touchpad, as the one on my Viao really doesn't like wet hands. I would go for one of those nipple things or maybe a trackball (do they still even ship with those anymore?)
There is some real nice PC navigation software, like Visual Navigation Suite, which hasn't crashed on me once and supports just about all the electronic chart formats out there right now.
You might want to check out rec.boats.electronics, as they have a bunch of useful information there as well.
Twostep
There are 10 different types of people in this world... those who understand binary, and those who don't.
will oxidize relatively quickly. I've had apartments on the beach where a the stereo fried after a few months.
Best bet would probably be a laptop stored in a large freezer bag, along with a case of those little dehumidifying pouches.
I'm not really a web designer, I just play one on the Internet.
Does anyone remember the story a while back about the computer that was cooled by submersing the whole thing in mineral oil, then running the oil over air conditioner coils? Maybe something like that would work. With the whole system in mineral oil, there's no way water or salt could touch the system. The only problem is, how would you cool the mineral oil? Maybe drop a bucket of the stuff behind the boat in the cold ocean water. Then swap that with the stuff covering the computer when it starts to get too warm.
/. posting.
Someone must have a link to the old
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Do a search on Google for the words 'ruggedized' and 'computer'. Lots of companys doing what your looking for
All you need to do is get a power converter like what you put in your car to convert 12 volt DC to 110 volt AC. Then the only question is about power drain.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
I live in Hawaii, and I've never had a problem with any of my systems rusting. And I live about 5mins from the beach...
How do you take a picture of the best moment of your life?
Go here and see all the 12v tv's you could want. I'm sure they have DVD players as well, or will soon. Or just get an inverter or diesel generator.
With the fish plant.... Why do you have computers there? It's just more stuff for me to blow up when I return from 8-ball's shop with the garbage truck. Seriously, that's what offices are for. If you must have something, look at medical enclosures.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
It would probably be a bit more realistic to find a manufacturer of a box which is conductively cooled to the outer (sealed) casing. That takes care of corrosion issues in the computer itself; the keyboard, mouse and display will have to take care of themselves, and of course you're going to have to use something like a USB floppy/CD drive to avoid penetrations through the casing.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
I would put the computer into a fridge, put all the wiring through hole on a side, effectively sealing it from the harsh environment, and cooling at the same time. It may be very affordable option.
If you're looking at using a laptop INSIDE the boat (out of the weather, mist, etc.) Then I wouldn't bother spending the additional money on the 'marine grade' systems. They're much more bulky, and quite a bit more expensive.
Here's a little thought experiment:
Buy a laptop for $1200-1400 with a combo DVD/cdrw drive, make data backups to CD, store CD's in water tight container.
In two+ years when it starts to act flakey (corroding battery contacts) buy ANOTHER laptop for $1200 to $1400, rinse repeat.
It'll take a long time to add up to the $5000-ish you'll pay for your first marine grade laptop.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
As long as you keep the laptop/pc below deck, and not right out in the elements, you should be able to expect a life of about 4 years. My cousin captains a cargo freighter that sails from Chicago to England, and had asked me, in 1998, to help him find a rugged PC.
Well, we ended up going with a dell laptop due to the fact that he only needed it for e-mail, wordprocessing, and spreadsheets. After 4 years, it's still running fine, with no visible corosion on any metal. Last month we upgraded the hard drive in it, and everthing still looked fine.
DRINK DUFF (responsibly) DRINK DUFF (responsibly) DRINK DUFF
He specifically says hes living aboard the sailboat, so that the majority of the time, even when docked, he will be around sea water. Your computer may be trivial for you, but some people actually use it to communicate with other human beings, not just as a MP3 repository. So before you go assuming everyone is horribly addicted to this evil box, you might actually want to stop and look at the facts.
If you're a sailor check out the current issue of Lattitude and Attitudes Magazine
This months issue had a nice writeup comparing the Shuttle micros to laptops for use in sailbaots.
If you're just a geek, post endlessly about issues unrelated to really running a PC onboard.
Take a look at
this article. The author apparently did plenty of research on waterproof PCs for sailboats, and even lists some manufacturers and selling points.
"values of beta will give rise to dom!"
I set up a computer on the USS Ron Brown, a NOAA research ship. They had a bunch of computers on board. Some of them, I think, had been there 4-5 years. Nothing special was done for those computers. They seemed to do quite well there.
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.
google is your friend - there is a large number of companies that "harden" computers to perform in harsh environments - expect to pay two to three times as much as for the same specs non-hardened hardware. I suspect you'll end up with membrane keyboards and sealed ports, to keep the salt out of delicate and expensive components.
and guess what they sell...?
The boxes were neither airtight nor watertight, and there was no kind of dehumidification. The secret: conformal coating on the circuit boards.
These things were found all over the ship, on the bridge, in closets, in the engine room, and in the AUX rooms were the big air conditioners and distillation plants are found. They held up pretty well too when they were left alone.
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
I can't see humidity being an issue - most server rooms I've been in have had higher humidity to lessen static electricity.
a friend of mine had a bunch of hard drives die on his boat. The solution was simply to have the drive vertical parallel to the length of the boat. the problem was caused by the spinning drive platter behaving like a gyroscope and resisting the motion of the boat. with a lengthways vertical install, you remove most of the spin related gyroscopic effects
Ripped from the specs:
"The GoBook MAX exceeds military specs for drop, water resistance, dust and vibration. The GoBook MAX thrives in the most severe environments imaginable. Freezing cold. Searing heat. Pouring rain. Intrinsically safe,(Class 1, Division 2, Group D) the GoBook MAX enables operators to safely work in HazMat environments; on flightlines, near hazardous chemicals or explosive materials. With Itronix' innovative CRMA(TM) wireless communications, radios can be swapped or upgraded within each unit. Backed by a limited lifetime warranty and comprehensive services package, the Itronix GoBook MAX sets a new standard for ultra-rugged, wireless computing."
Specs
Website
MaximumPC review
"TK-421, why aren't you at your post?"
One possible concern I can think of is Sharks. But I believe some guy in Thailand wrote some software to repel bugs and vermin, I'm sure you could modify it for the pupose of getting rid of sharks.
I'm a submariner. We use numerous commercial off-the-shelf computers (mostly Dells), none of which are hardened against the elements. Except that we go to a lot of trouble to keep water out of the boat. And the whole thing is temperature controlled. And humidity controlled. Oh well.
-Gentry
Just get one of these.
Honestly, do I have to do everything around here?
You'll probaby want something from these people who seem to specialize in computing within harsh environments.
Do not read this
But they're not all that rugged. One LCD screen failed when a snowcat started just next to it. And I had to use my backup indoor machine outdoor; an old HP Vectra that had to sit outside for 4 hours while I uploaded firmwares into weather forecast systems. With gloves.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
I work at a neutral buoyancy facility at the University of Maryland -- neutral buoyancy is how NASA trains astronauts to perform EVAs. It uses water to simulate weightlessness. Instead of training astronauts, we design robots to repair broken satellites and to assist astronauts on orbit. As a consequence, we put quite a few computers in very moist environments, and they actually get doused from time to time. The environment isn't salty, but it is highly chlorinated and really warm (the water is kept at around 90 degrees, for reasons I won't get into).
We tend to use embedded machines - PC/104, CompactPCI, etc. These systems are essentially the same technology as desktop machines, the same processors, memory, etc, but have a smaller footprint and tend to use less power. They are remarkably robust. We've had CPU boards that are actually flooded, with the power on. You turn everything off, douse it with WD-40 to dry it out (WD-40 was originally developed to prevent water-based corrosion in electronics, *not* as a lubricant), let it sit for 24 hours, and more often than not it's just fine.
The lesson from this I think is that unless the machine is going to be actually in the spray from the boat, you're going to be okay with a quality out-of-the-box desktop machine. Put one of those rubber membranes over the keyboard - keyboards do tend to die when they get wet. If the machine gets significantly wet, dry it out and maybe hit it with WD-40 or some other water repellant. Other than that don't worry about it.
It's expensive and nominally rated to last up to 24 hours in a salt-spray environment. In reality they don't hold up so well, and are always crashing. Screens and keyboards are particularly vulnerable. The failure time on them probably isn't worth the additional cost. Plus they're kinda slow. Fast, cheap (disposable-cheap) and out of control would probably have been a better choice.
Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?
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
Just being around salt water will cause excessive corrosion of exposed metal parts. I can remember a situation where the metal contacts between the daughterboards and backplane of a system were getting corroded and causing problems, and that was inside an enclosure.
Putting a PC inside of a completely sealed enclosure is not always a good thing because you need to cool it down, and this is usually done with fans, so unless you also want to install an air conditioner in the side of the enclosure, you might want to find a ruggedized PC.
There are some very sturdy ruggedized laptops out there which can apparently be dunked in the ocean, pulled out and keep going, but I think they might be cost prohibitive for you.
Recently at a trade show I saw some industrial PCs that you could literally hose down with a garden hose and they would keep running. However, you're probably looking at $5000 even for a base model of one of those. Just look up "industrial PC" on the internet if you're interested.
Perhaps your best bet is to search the internet for oceanographic research groups. These guys go out to sea with tonnes of electronic equipment for months/years at a time, and they seem to make out alright, probably on restrictive budgets. If you write a nice email to one of these people, they might be kind enough to offer you some real advice.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
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??
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
I recently had a customer who needed a laptop for research use on a boat down in California's Salton Sea. I did a little research and found the GoBook MAX made by Itronix. It's ~$5,000, but man is it a neat little machine. Their site has a video where they hose the thing down and drop it a few times. When it finaly arrived at our office I wanted to set it on fire and throw it off the roof(for QA reasons ofcourse). Boss wouldn't have it though. The only issue we had was that there was no LPT port to connect this special hardware anti-piracy key that the users needed to run a specific app. I think they just got a USB adapter though, so no big deal. Check it out, it's a very sexy beast.
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.
I've been living on a sailboat for a few months now, with two systems, and neither show any signs of damage. My neighbor at the dock has an old laptop that he says has been on his boat for 6 years, and it's still working fine. He uses it to run some program that tracks fish.
Anyways, my point is that unless you want to put a system on the deck of the ship, you don't need any special hardware. Your system will become obsolete before it is damaged.
Arg.
Do you think that the conditions on a boat 1 mile from shore are that much different than someone at home at their beach front house (the house may not have the AC on, or vice versa, the boat may have AC) Secondly, how long does a computer last. Is rust really a factor for those people who are replacing components yearly becuase they are no longer the best on the market?
"Times may change, but standards must remain the same." - George Carlin.
You have any idea of what pricing is like?
One of these things - especially if the display is really bright - would be great for the race car.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
For example, there is a special RF emissions curve that you need to meet to be sure that you are not preventing your radios from hearing weak emergency calls. Also, power on ships is VERY problematic. Just what does "Ground" really mean on a ship? I saw 100 V potiental between Ground and Neutral on a US carrier. And you do not want to know what all of this does to RF shielding. While RF may be no big deal on shore, remember that you are using radar and all kinds of radio communications on board ship. One thing that kept surprising me was the levels of ESD on board. I assumed that the moist marine air and metal decks would kill any ESD, but I had to keephaving to over building ESD protection for our keyboard. The other kicker is that the ship has to be kept in electrical "balance" with the sea to keep the metal from coroding into the sea.
Another area of the spec that surprised us was vibration. The shake and vibe spec on IEC-945 is a bear to pass. We started with a standard industrial chassis resting on shock mounts in the base of our console. We put that on the shake table and it killed the PC dead. The vibration was so bad that it caused the fingers of the backplane connectors to cut through the daughter cards. I was seeing fiber glass poking through the gold fingers when I did a post mortum. As an EE I learned that intuative answers are not good enough for the "real-world" mechanicals and that you need to hire a shake and vibe ME to make it work. (As an asside I had a friend who had his 36 ft sail boat out in the ocean and hit a standing wave that rattled his boat so hard that it shattered his ceraic head. Gotta wonder what the impulse was on that hit)
There are also a host of other issues such as fungus that will grow inside warm enclosures and choke-off ventalation
You should be able to buy IEC 945 PCs if that's all you need (HP used to sell some). If you really need this hardware to survive buy real IEC 945 hardware if you can live without it (and I do mean live) then go buy some laptop and assume that it is disposable. You'll pay through the nose for this level of hardware, but it will be cheaper and much quicker than doing it yourself.
-s
You could always go this route. I think it would solve the watertight/vibration sensitivity issues, plus i'd be willing to bet it floats too!
There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
In the auto industry we have a thing called a conformal coating. Once the component is assembled its dipped in a kind of goo. That coats its components and protects it. However, this renders the components non-changeable so all-in-one boards would fair much better. Plus I doubt these heat factories would like the coating that much either.
Panasonic ToughBook These are commercial ruggized notebooks. They look useful, but I don't know anyone who has any real-life experience with them.
"You need a license to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp." - Red Green
IP 65 is some european standard for equipment sealing that, I believe, specifies water jets in all directions. There's another spec (maybe IP64? I forget) that specifies salt fog.
Googling IP65 brought up a number of manufacturers of sealed PCs. Probably fairly expensive, though.
I also saw sealed keyboards and LCDs. Perhaps a better (cheaper) idea is to keep the PC belowboards with only a selaed keyboard and display.
This same damn question was asked here and I'll give you the same answer here. IMHO the "Ask Slashdot" question thing should more than just filler for a slow news day, I would like it to be more of a once a week feature that you can look forward to reading and responding too. But I understand, I get lazy at work too sometimes.
"Get them before they get....
No, people go sailing on a boat to get away from all that. There is a difference between LIVING on a boat and USING/OWNING one.
Over the summer I decided to pack up for CA and live on a boat over the summer... with a TV, Radio, Computer, and Phone.
If you think any laptop will handle this, remember that he's going to be on the water 24/7, including rainstorms. If you think your laptop can handle that well, take it into your bathroom, open it and fire it up, then take a nice, long, hot shower. Repeat this every day. If your machine takes more than four days of this without getting condensation behind the screen and developing crudly goo on all of the internals, let us know what brand it is.
Virg
Computer bukkake!
That'd certainly be a way to test your computer in the above-cited type of salty environment.
I had a computer in a very humid beach environment (southern carribean coast of Mexico). Salty air, lots of humidity, no A/C. I had a tower case P200 at the time. It held up just fine for the entire 2 years I was there. My CD player died at one point, but who knows what caused that. Besides, in a salty humid environment, CDs and DVDs are more at risk of CD eating fungus.
A laptop would probably work just fine. Just keep it dry. That's usually easy to do on a sailboat. Use it in the cabin.
You're going to need a lot of 12 volt batteries though, if you plan on being disconnected from land power for any extended period. It's cheap enough to get a DC to AC inverter, but it's going to suck the batteries dry pretty quick.
The salt air will eventually corrode the machine, but I don't think you're going to find a way around that. I think if you have an expectation of a 2-3 year life, your expectations will be met. Otherwise you're really talking about a fairly expensive or difficult to build rig to keep it isolated and protected.
For those that mentioned water colling, remember, water cooling requires a hell of a lot more power than a CPU fan. This guy's running off of car batteries. Water cooling requires a water pump. Air pumps (also known as fans) are much more energy efficient.
Here's a link
I used to work for an industrial controls company that put lots of these types of systems in food plants and other nasty-environments.
Ive done a lil work with some of the police departments here, and we have the nifty laptops in the patrol cars. well those get beat to crap pretty well, so we bought some panasonic "toughbooks". (laptops of course)
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they are built for one purpose, to last.
built to be dropped, and kick around, and sitting in the sun, and even around dust and moisture.
so id suggest them totally.
http://www.panasonic.com/computer/notebook/html
"an eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind"
"I bet I'll get blamed for this." --Mayor Quimby
Panasonic make a range of nootbooks that are very well made. They work in really hot conditions, which is what I needed but they are IPxx sealed and so could deal with the salt air as well.
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http://www.panasonic.com/computer/notebook/html
No I have no association with the company.
We have not inherited the earth from our parents. We have borrowed it from our children.
How about this monster
Are there other issues to worry about aside from the salt and the humidity?
You should be concerned about pirates!
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
Just so happened to have a pirate flag handy?
Hmmmmmmmm
I was looking at using an Advantech specialized panel PC system for a harsh environment application a while back, but I can't remember what the model number was. Anyway, here's a breakdown of its specs:
Operating Temperatures: -20C to +60C
Their catalog had a picture of this thing running underwater, I'd take that with a very large grain of salt. Hope this helps!Storage Temperatures: -40C to +75C
Relative Humidity: 99% condensing
Salt Spray Tolerance: 5% at 38C for 48 hours
Chemical Splash Tolerance: diesel fuel, oil, other automotive/machinery chemicals
Vibration Tolerance: any axis, 24-2 kHz at 8G RMS (non-shock isolated)
Shock Tolerance: 10G, fixtured
Waterproofing: sealed to ±35kPa (±5 psi) vs. water/water vapor
Electrostatic Tolerance: 15 kV discharge on any pin, air gap and conductive
I don't know about you guys, but my standard desktop PC survives a wet and salty environment daily. :P
At the last company I worked for we toyed around with some of these From ProMark Technologies. It had a "shower-proof" Keyboard that survived at least one of My soda spills, was low power, had PCMCIA, built in sound, and room for PCI or ISA cards. Something like this would be great in a boat where space and power were limited.
If something I said can be interpreted two ways, and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, I meant the other one.
The GoBook MAX notebooks work great. We use them at Team Dennis Conner on the deck of our boats where they constantly get hit with spray. You can literally hose them off. Read about them in a Marine Environment here: http://itronix.com/News/News_Article.asp?id=156 Definitely a good solution for the guy in the fish factory. However if the computer is below deck its probably a lot cheaper to buy normal equipment and throw it overboard after it stops working (if that even happens before the next windows makes it too slow to run a web browser).
Also, google produces many results for "rugged(ized) computers" if you want to buy something particularly hardcore straight out of the box.
Barnacles
If you've never seen them, they're little critters that attach to everything, and grow, with very hard shells. All oceangoing ships have to be dry-docked every so often and have the barnacles (and other ocean critters) sandblasted, ground, dissolved, and photo-flashed off the hull. This is done to improve speed and fuel efficiency. If you get into the 3rd world, sometimes you can see boats that have a good foot of ocean critter crust attached to the hull.
Now imagine your PC water cooling hose becoming slowly clogged with critters. Plus you'd likely suction up something else, like kelp or seaweed.
If you just want to embed a metal plate in the hull, and weld a heat transfer unit to it on the inside of the boat, that'd work nicely. A closed-loop water cooler. That'd allow you to use other fluids, like adding some glycol, so that the thing didn't freeze up, expand, and break, if you didn't use the computer some icy day.
water.
The hardest part of the specifications given is the "watch DVDs". That would probably require changing the DVDs - ie. opening up the drive bay.
Everything else could be done with a sealed machine.
I recommend - strongly - to make a compelely sealed computer and put the DVD reader outside the box - if the DVD player breaks - so be it.
In order to make a completely sealed computer - put the whole thing in a box and make sure there's a way to get the heat out of the box.
Then throw some dessicant (color indicating is nice) bags in the box and seal it all up. You'll need to make feedthrough's for the power cables - keyboard - and mouse. Put some external connectors on the box so you can replace the keyboard and mouse.
A previous poster mentioned this - but when there are open computers on ships (NOAA, America's cup... they're in a sealed Air Conditioned room)
The ocean is a rough place - its fun to put computers in it!
If this is a critical computer - backup the hardware
Just make sure the equipment is inside a case that's painted waterproof yellow;-)
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
There's a surprising lack of moderated up comments about salty, humid environments in people's pants.
Come ON people!
Hell, it was a carrier, 5000 crew, they could tailor uniforms, so a simple jolly roger flag was a piece of cake.
Infuriate left and right
if you used an old computer that didnt require active cooling, you could just make a quick mold and set the entire mobo in a block of silicon. you can buy this stuff at home depot for a few bucks a tube, you shouldnt need more than 4/5 tubes. if you use a board with on board video/ethernet or modem/sound your in luck cause you wont have to cover any pci cards. it would also reduce shock to the system since silicon absorbs energy. if you plug in all of your needed cables, their connections will be sealed as well. leave the heatsink partially exposed and you should have no problem. the only thing youll need to worry about are the power supply, disks, or anything else with moving parts.
its the ultimate embedded solution
I want 2D games back.
They're not cheap, but they're pretty indestructible. The Panasonic Toughbook is a pretty solid piece of equipment. It's got waterproofing, a built-in handle, it's got integrated GSM, and it's shock resistant.
You should definitely check it out.
-haledon
i want to live life, not just go through the motions
I assume that in the fish factory you want something for factory-related tasks, that isn't going to move much, like automation and control, for example. What stuff are your walls made out of? Of concrete or similar, cut a large chunk out of the wall someplace, put a normal PC in it, and then bolt on a plate of stainless to cover the hole. Seal the compartment with silicone of similar.
Yeah, I know that's crazy.
As for ventilation, you could run an air duct from the outside (how thick are your walls?), and put a fan or an AC unit in it. Would an ionizing filter take salt out of the air? Is the outside air salty at all?
As for connections, make a small hole for your wires, pull the wires through it, and then use rubber cement or silicone or something like that to seal around the wires so that no air can get through.
In the end, you hve a machine embedded into the wall of the building, in a sealed box with filtered air coming into it.
A few years back we had to build a small septic tank control system right on the coast of Monterrey, CA. You could literally throw a rock across highway-1 and hit the Pacific Ocean. We were using a monorail p166 all-in-one computer to run this septic tank control system. We really bit off more poop than we could chew on this project. To keep a long painfully stinky story short, we had no experience dealing with corrosive environments (i.e.- the ocean mist and raw sewage) and our standard methods for AC wiring and standard plumbing tactics were all compromised by these harsh conditions. I had the monorail and a 1000W UPS in a 4'x 4' NEMA 4/5? approved enclosure to withstand the moisture. After a year the monorails' power supply failed and there was a lot of fuzzy build-up on quite a few of electrical components in the computer and the control system electronics. We thought about using a small fan and a off-the-shelf automotive air filter (so replacement would be cheap and easy) to help circulate the air, but everytime you put a hole in the enclosure, you increase you chances of problems. At the end of the project, the only two lessons we learned was that even when we planned ahead, we still ran into unforeseen problems and secondly we should stay out of working in other peoples shit.
Check carefully into the power supply for on-ship electronics. One of the interesting things with computers on US Navy ships is the power supplies they have. Navy ships do things slightly differently for supplying electricity.
The guarantee for shipbaord power is very different from your standard land-based poewr company. Shipboard power is (or at least was 15 years ago) guaranteed as "the difference between these 2 wires is 120Volts, at 60Hz". Note that carefully. No reference to what the actual voltage levels will be, just the voltage difference between the 2 wires.
Most computer power supplies assume "the difference between these 2 wires is 120Volts (actually 116volts, I think) AND the actual voltage levels will be approximately 0volts and 120volts".
The Navy burned out a lot of computer power supplies before some bright boy realized this. Having voltage levels of -80volts and +40volts did bad things.
There's a reason MILSPEC costs as much as it does.
Of course, if you're looking to power it off a 12VDC line, this isn't really a concern, is it?
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is... Oops. Frank, I've got your sig again! Where's mine?
The current (july/august 2002) issue of Latitudes & Attitudes magazine has an in-depth article (sorry, no direct link) on selecting desktop computers for use on boats. The author makes a pretty good case for using a desktop system instead of a laptop (easier to upgrade, easier to service, less expensive, etc.). His choice was a Shuttle SV 25 with a big LCD monitor for watching DVDs and a good sound card for listening to MP3s. This guy is cruising (as opposed to living at a dock) so power consumption and the availability of parts and service overseas were factors in his choices. The article is very detailed with lots of suggestions and well worth checking out if you are planing on installing a computer on a boat.
This issue also contains the news that you no longer need to go to all the way Caracas for LASIK surgery in Venezuela. I know I feel better knowing that!
"I would go for one of those nipple things ..."
Actually, if you are going to be on a boat for a long period of time you might want to bring a pair of those nipple things.
I worked on the software for one of the first onboard PC systems in the US navy (and no, not the crappy CAE NT system that BSOD-ed and required the ship to be towed). There's a blurb about the overall project at http://198.65.138.161/military/systems/ship/ddg-51 -flt2a.htm , but it doesn't mention my stuff (and does mention that they will eventually be using the CAE system mentioned above. They call it "smart ship". :-)
In general, the requirements for these systems are unreal. Among other things, they have to be able to handle 100G's of shock and vibration (I'm not a Mechanical Engineer, but that sounds damn extreme to me). This pretty much means no moving parts, so hard drives have to be solid-state. We went with a solid-state PCMCIA card that looks like a hard-drive to the system for our boot drive. A trackball was used instead of a mouse for the control device, the keyboard was built into the cabinet, and the whole cabinet was fitted huge shock absorbers under it and inside it.
One GUI vendor was disqualified on the sole basis that they required a dongle which would have needed all sorts of extra bracing to keep it from snapping off. That's about the best example I've ever seen of copy-protection costing someone sales.
I mean they put their computers next to a hot, wet, humid, salty environment too.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
According to Slashdot, Tandys Never Die.
I used to work for a Naval research lab. At one point it was stylish for the guys working on submarines to carry a stainless steel, waterproof briefcase out to the boats they were working on. One guy I worked with was particularly fond of his briefcase, mainly because he was a bit of a flake and the case did a good job in keeping essential documents (like the library card he once used to gain access to a restricted site, but that is another story) well protected and dry.
Then one day, while making a small jump from the dock to the deck, he dropped his briefcase in the drink. All of those documents sank to the bottom of the harbor, safely tucked away in a stanless steel, waterproof tomb.
The middle mind speaks!
Normal computers work for me...
"Dogs and cats, living together...it's mass hysteria!"
Good machines very durable - gel pack around hard drive to protect against shock (handy in rough seas) spill proof (lots of water around might be handy) - lots of other anti shock & durability features as well.
;)
higher end models meet us military ruggedability requirements as well.
The 3 year 48 hour turnaround warranty and simply have to make a phone call to recieve international warranty coverage - handy since you'll probably be going places on your boat
Toughbook Homepage.
I am sure that this was a major issue for HavenCo....
- If This Peace Is Fictious, I Shall Destroy It
We usually have scuba divers go in with the robots, for a variety of reasons. Often we're testing how to use humans and robots together, so we need divers as test subjects. Also, it's difficult to get high bandwidth comm underwater, so we run fiberoptic cables to the robots, and the cables tend to get tangled on stuff and you need divers to tend them. And with the big robots, we put them in a take them out with an overhead crane, and you need divers in the water just to hook and unhook the lift straps. Plus we want a diver available to retrieve a robot if it fails for some reason.
It's a lot easier to get hypothermic when diving than when swimming because mostly you're just sitting there watching the robots. Consequently, you need either warm water or a wetsuit. And our lab director doesn't like diving with a wetsuit. It turns out the 90 degree water has approximately the same thermal conductivity properties as 70 degree air, so it feels like room temperature. That's why we keep it that warm.
My parents live on a Mac65. They have had several laptops, cell phones, GPS units, autopilots (and AutoHelms are NOT cheap!!) cooked by lightning hits.
It doesn't even have to be plugged in, the emp or induced current will get you. Just hard to deal with that big tall lightning rod called the mast.
They have finally ended up only using cheap laptops and keeping extra hand held nav gear in a small metal box. Seems to work so far.
"There's no secret. You just press the accelerator to the floor and keep turning left." -- Bill Vukovich
Lots of liquid crystal displays freeze up or get sluggish at low but humanly bearable temperatures. If you're exposed to wet elements, I'll bet you're exposed to cold wet elements, too.
I won't go research the chemical makeup of silicone. Though, I have read, that dielectric properties for silicone are good...? Here's a link:
db
Cig:
ôô
There are a lot of interesting conformal coatings out there....I was doing some research on it for one of my employer's products. Lots of military applications are documented....look on Google. I seem to remember some US Army truck radio board that was rated for something like 7 years in corrosive environment without damage to the electronics. Cooling of the componants could be difficult though, the coating would gum up the fans you know....All cooling would have to be passive, or perhaps liquid cooled processor?
Or for those with a really low budget, simply dunk your PC tower in a really high temp. wax! (of course, not above the damage point for IC's...perhaps 150 deg. C).....
Last but not least....I've had really good luck with using hot-glue as a potting compound. You can melt it off if you need to get at stuff, but at room temp, it acts like a hard rubber.
Theseguys on Sealand should be able to tell you.
In any case, the stupid box has an internal heater -- Like anybody out there is going to need a heater for a P3. A couple of P4s can make a pretty good (but damned expensive) space heater!
More seriously, though.. these boxes are made for food processing (inc. freezer buildings) environments -- although there aren't many computer components that would mind being kept at -35c (disk drives come to mind as possible exceptions).
For a marine envirnemt, Possibly more valuable would be a closed-loop cooling system (like is often used by over-clockers.
Off the top of my head, you might try and hunt down a marine refrigerator.. Drill holes for the cables, then grout around them with silicon.
An external (scsi?) CD/DVD drive in it's own enclosure (smaller, easer to get to , not as likely to need cooling).
An LCD display is probably the best idea (smaller, cooler, less power).
As for power, you can use 24/12V->110V power inverters by people like StatPower (or whoever bought them). They range from 50W units that are good for laptops to gargantuan (KiloWatt range) monsters. A 250W unit is about the size of a 5" drive, but gets reasonably hot by itself.
Companies do make units specifically for marine operations.
That having been said, though... You may want to look for power supplies specifically for marine operations.. You're already starting with 12 or 24VDC. No real need to punch up to 110AC and then back down again.. All you really need are some medium-amperage voltage regulators (especially if you're starting at 24V). A two-stage regulator (24V->16V, 16V->12/5V) should give you the cleanest power you could ask for.and FAR simpler too. You could probably arrange to have the PS cooled by a sea-water sluice. (less heat to worry about inside the CPU enclosure). There are probably all sorts of people capable of building on for you (if absolutely necessary).
Gotta run now.. off to the beach :-)
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Since your didn't really give any details on the size/type/power of the boat I can't be too specific. But, your friend will need enough batteries to power all onboard systems plus the computer for the average time he expects to use it. They will also need an inverter. I would recommend one from the Heart Freedom line. Sizing of the inverter depends on if they want to run any other AC devices and the amount of room available to mount it.
FooGoo
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
Another vendor I ahven't ssen here yo can find unter http://www.realworld.cc/
A local ISP in midcoast Maine has an underwater lobster trap-mounted webcam, the Lobstah Cam. The page is somewhat sparing in technical details, only that the camera itself is all that's submerged, the computer itself sitting 60' away on the dock in probably a slightly climate-controlled room. Also uses Midcoast's famous (locally, at least) wireless internet connections for internet connectivity (mentioned here), as well. Still interesting to look at from time to time though. At least for a Mainer, maybe...
This stuff may help keep the salt and water out of the contacts. There web page is a bit retro, but the stuff seems to work on all the connections I have tried it on.
http://www.stabilant.com/
Donate it to someone who can put it to good use, but don't expose it to this treatment. It will turn to junk pretty quickly. We had major problems with this when I was in college, and the computer lab sat fairly close to the furnaces (and steam pipes; this is Rutgers, which has some fairly old buildings) and would regularly get doused with very humid air when the pressure valves on the boilers would open (almost all winter long). The systems would have to be cleaned with board wash every week, and they still failed yearly, but since they were controlled by the Economics department, and I was the only one who understood what was going wrong (I know, Econs. and a geek; it's a wonder I ever got a date...) my pleas fell on deaf ears. For all I know, they're still junking computers left and right.
Virg
The web shop I work for was once based on a house boad. We had two iMacs, a Motorolla StarMax, and a laptop running with no problems. The idea is to keep the computers dry.
My friend had a graphic design setup on her boat (which was moored in the bay) complete with scanner, and two or three printers. Again, the idea is to keep your hardware dry. She used to cover her equipment with canvas when not in use. Her machines were on shelves in a storage locker, so she also closed the locker doors when she wasn't using them.
t'nera semordnilap
This is probably a good start...
http://www.g-news.ch/articles/nhp200nc/
Any spoon would be too big.
It's not Intrinsically Safe so the laptop survives, it's Intrinsically Safe so that it does not cause the dangerous chemicals, gasses whatever to explode and hence destroy Dell and Operator. That is why the Dell laptop is not as good as the GoBook for dragging around, say, a Hydrogen production facility.
I can tell you that there are plenty of computers on seagoing vessels. They aren't "hardened" except in the sense that they may be a secure box in the CIC. The small boat operators that maintain the Aids to Navigation (ATON) system on our Nation's waterways often carry 'hardened' laptops - right next the the waterproof GPS. I believe most are in waterproof or -resistant cases and not specially built for dropping over the side. However; I know a few that have and have been dug up out of the mud only to work just fine - I've been on the cell phone with a few of these guys when they've told me they'll call back in a few minutes because someone just dropped it. "OK, pick it up." "No, I mean in the water we have to fish it out."
If you're keeping a computer in the cabin; you really don't need an elaborate protection scheme; a plastic cover for the parts when you're not using them should suffice.
You may want to ask your local Coastie station what brand of computer their IT people sent to them for work on the open water. It is a specific brand name and it's not classified or anything. They are also generally very, very glad to help with any maritime issue and you may already well know that they are active in their communities in more than a law-enforcement role.
I think with the interesting people, their lives can't possibly be wrapped up into a nice little package.
There are some specialized resin-ceramic coats that have this property, and some of them aren't brittle at all, adding to the shock-absorption of the coated components.
How about nonelectrically-conductive, nonbrittle, heat conductive, and transparent; has that been achieved yet?
How about lucite with only heat sink surfaces exposed? If the heat sink and the lucite had the same thermal expansion properties, then the thing would be likely to stay sealed. Otherwise you would need some gasketing compound at their boundaries.
> I've been at sea with laptops and desktop machines. The only thing we've ever had to worry about is securing the machines so that they aren't tossed about (especially the monitors). Of course, if you have them on deck and there is a chance of spray, then I guess you'd have to waterproof them.
Precisely my point, and no fair comparing this guy's sailboat to a navy ship 8). In a small boat the system will get a lot more exposure to damp conditions than your computers saw, since you'll have to admit the amount of sea spray is rather more limited on a big ship than on his little boat. Granted, if he's got a US$500,000+ yacht, it's likely to be sealed up tight, but let's be honest. If he's planning on living on the boat full time I can only guess he's not Donald Trump.
By the way, very cool boat in the link.
Virg
Lots of suggestions about just keeping a computer somewhere dry but in a small sailboat, bare minimum for one person to live aboard for an extended period? Good luck finding anywhere that doesnt accumulate salt deposits over time if its open to the atmosphere. Problem is, once those deposits are there (even if they are not visible to the eye) that surface will never be truly dry, even on the hottest day. Nowhere is safe. The best deckheads develop persistent small leaks over time, particularly near the gunwales or worse still by the foot of a deck-stepped mast. Most "watertight" hatches on sailboats only qualify for that name on the grounds that if you get a wave over the deck most of it will drain off rather than go through. Assuming the craft goes anywhere other than the occasional brief trip around the harbour the phrase "dry stowage" on a boat this size is at best a relative term.
Now look at larger vessels. In general if they are large enough to have a genuine superstructure (ie you can be "indoors" with your feet no lower then deck level) then you stand a chance of keeping dry stowage dry and might get away with trying to protect a regular machine.
The harder you sail the worse it is of course. The engineers that have posted are absolutely right about the impacts and vibes and again the larger vessels have it easier (If your deckhead doesnt leak now, dont worry. After a couple of seasons pounding like this, it will.) At one point I saw the same piece of (genuine marine-quality) electronics installed on 2 craft. One was the 24-footer that my dad & I sailed all over the Irish Sea, the other was 42-foot motor-sailer that a friend had. My dad & I raced in ours, our friend took leisurely coastal cruises, so long as the weather forecast was perfect. Guess which piece of electronics died first?
I had a
I can't believe that this story's been around this long and nobody's made a CowboyNeal joke yet. C'mon, "Salty"? "Humid"?
It practically writes itself!
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
HERE
My naval experience is more recent. I have a vivid memory of checking out the computers that drove the operations room (the Canadian term fo what the Americans call the CIC). The computers consisted of a half-dozen circuit boards, most with discrete components, and were mounted in big, heavy iron boxes in large racks. On the floor, securely mounted, was an object the size and shape of a standard business safe, which I was told was an 80 megabyte hard drive (at the time the standard in a desktop was around 1 GB). The ship had just come out of refit, so this stuff was allegedly "new". The mil-spec stuff that is intended to survive floods, missile hits, etc. etc. tends to be expensive, heavy, and obsolete.
However, our ship also had any number of PC's and laptops which were used for various non-critical, administrative uses. As far as I could see, these were all standard, off-the-shelf equipment, and they held up pretty well. As long as you buy decent equipment, and don't expect it to survive immersion in salt water, it should be fine.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
There's one major problem with running the PC at all times. While your machine gets juice from the power company, he's got to run it off of batteries or locally generated power. Running it all out may not be an option, considering he's got to carry his electricity with him.
This might work, though, at the factory. Would be worth a shot with a cheap PC.
Virg
My dad sells chemicals to the automotive industry and their suppliers, one time he needed a pc to attach to some instrumentation to read ph and other readings and ajust some pumping rates accordingly. This was in a pickling house, eg sulfuric acid treatment of metals. The environment is so corrosive that it would have literally eaten the motherboard and any other printed ciruit boards in a matter of hours. He ended up buying some kind of uber environment container from cole-palmer that was designed for holding pc's in hostile environments. I remember the price of the container being about an order of magnitude more than the industrial pc he placed it in.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
We are also surrounded by 2,500 miles of ocean in all directions.
So yes... we get more moisture, salt air and humidity than just about any other place in the nation. To top it off, our houses are designed to allow for massive amounts of air flow (we don't use air conditioning in Hawaii because of our wonderful trade winds) so that means our houses are very very open to the elements.
My computer room has windows open on all sides, and the computers sit near the window. So far... not much in failures in the computers themselves. I've had one floppy drive go out due to corrosion... and one hard drive due to corrosion. But the insides of the computers appear corrosion free for the most part. What we HAVE lost is lots and lots and lots of monitors. I was blowing out at least one monitor a year (brand new ones). So after the last one went, I replaced it with LCD and will see how it holds up (I suspect it will hold up very very well, it has so far).
I understand from the local DELL service rep, that houses ON THE OCEAN have a HUGE hard drive failure rate, versus houses a bit off the ocean.
So my take on it is this... first... ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS leave your computers turned on - the internal heat helps prevent moisture inside the case. Component add-ons, and monitors, seem to be the most prone to problems (I chalk this up to them being near the holes in the front of the case, so less exposure to dry heat and more exposure to the elements) - so go as solid state as possible and think about cases/connectors that avoid corrosion (e.g. ,plastic/stainless etc). BTW... My MACs (apple) seem to handle the elements a bit better than the PC's. That may have to do with the plastic enclosure and perhaps a bit better design of the internals as far as air flow and heat.
On the good side... I gave a Sparc 1 box to a friend of mine, with monitor, that had not been turned on in 5 years. He powered it up and said... smoke came out of the monitor... but everything came up and the monitor turned on. So it can't be THAT bad :)
Aloha
A couple of the techs here have maintained computer systems for trawlers, and apparently it was cheaper to replace a PC than to initially buy a system hardened against the elements. (Keep in mind we're on the Great Barrier Reef and a lot of the water is sheltered).
Your boat may have a 2 stroke, but anything I would consider living on would have to have a 4 stroke. For instance my friends boat has 2 Volvo V-8 Marine engines.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
This won't help when you're actually using the equipment, but for storage nothing beats Pelican Cases. They are watertight, tend to float if not packed too heavily, and most come with customizable foam padding inside. They're also nearly indestructible, and come with w lifetime guarantee (doesn't cover shark bite, bear attack, or children under the age of five).
Thought Hardened PCs are expensive, our company has had very good luck with Panasonic's Toughbook. The vendor said we could run over them even, so to his surprise, we did, they have been dropped out of moving vehicles and continued to operate for long periods of time. In fact my only complaints regarding these are the wimpy powerplug, and the touchscreen. The touchscreens burn out a rapid rate, while the normal ones last forever. No idea on humidity or salt, I live in a desert.
I think you should put a Cappuccino mini-PC inside of a nice small refridgerator that runs on 12v, and drill a hole through the side and run the cables through, and then seal the opening with some expanding foam or something.
You would want to use some sort of external CD-Rom/DVD drive rather than the internal one, though, that you could replace when the salt water eats it. And of course seal your keyboard in a plastic bag or something to keep the salt water out.
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
I live in Hawaii and anything metal rusts immediately. I see a lot of computers with the inside horizontal surfaces rusted badly. I would suggest a pc that does not have forced air moving around inside. Blowing caustic air inside your pc is not good.
Here's something for all you techies to drool about. I can't believe I haven't seen a link for this already, but there's a guy who has spent the better part of his life travelling with computers (first on bicycles, now on a trimaran!).
Check out The Microship if you'd like to dream about being a tecnho-geek without a leash. There's a massive amount of information about making electronics systems sea-worthy; not as in "put in on a big enough boat in air conditioning and it will do fine", but "shit, my computer system needs to be able to withstand immersion in salt-water!"
All pass beyond reach of medicine. None pass beyond the reach of love.
When I had done a couple of PC installations on ships the desktop PC bases were mounted on four very soft shock absorbers to minimise hard disk damage from continuous engine vibration. You might want to take that into consideration since vibaration from the engine (when used) of a sailing boat would be more pronounced given the smaller distance between engine room and your machine. You won't have that problem if you're limited to wind power only tho'.
Several years ago, back when Comdex was still cool, I remember a Panasonic booth set up with ToughBook demonstrations. It looks like the product still exists, and they have a page dedicated to its MIL-STD-810F testing. It's not a marine standard per se, but it does cover shock, vibration, and exposure to both liquid water and excessive humidity.
Its not the saltwater that is the problem.
The problem is that the hook prosthetic is always pinching in the trackball mouse.
Sailboats large enough to live on are not likely to have a two-stroke engine (outboard), but rather 4+ cylinder inboard. Properly mounted, these do not cause noticeable vibration throughout the boat; certainly not enough to affect the drives. Furthermore, someone living aboard their sailboat is probably going to be sailing most of the time and using the engine only occasionally, i.e. to dock.
As far as vibration is concerned, I'd be more worried about the tossing experienced when crossing waves and powerboat wakes: a several-ton boat coming down a a large wake or wave can come down with quite a crash. This might be enough to affect modern hard drives (while active, that is - powered-off drives can withstand several Gs).
The heater is in there for a very good purpose: condensation. The theory (and it work well) is that the case (and every thing inside it) slightly warmer than room temp, idealy 85F to 115F. This will prevent any condensation from forming inside the case. This and increased air-flow is all that is needed to use standard PC equipment in sailboats. I've built a wooden case that uses a strip heater controled by a normal house thermostat to maintain the temperature inside the case. The wooden case has single-cell foam layered on the bottom and supporting the monitor for shock absorbtion. Works great, lasts a long time.
Why not build the system and when you have it just right, spray hot parafin wax to coat the mobo and cards? That leaves the cpu, which I would think should be protected by it's heatsink, and memory which is fairly cheap to replace if it goes bad. Or use slower memory that might not get hot enough to melt off the wax?
I wonder if the wax would insulate things enough to cause enough heat to melt itself off, or damage the components? It might be conductive too, I don't farkin know.
As for protecting the drives, use cheap ones that won't hurt too much to replace?
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Brick Computers
I haven't used them myself, but I know several people who swear by their laptops for use on sailboats.
One of the original posters (frostman) mentions his friend wants to use the internet, I presume he's talking about the times he's not on the sea, or is there currently affordable solution to get an internet connections available for people working on the sea (apart from using morse-code modems ;) ?
"Naughty, naughty, naughty, you filthy old soomka !"
I'd suggest using a VIA Eden board. The 533Mhz one runs without a fan on the heatsink.
You can get very small cases for it on Caseoutlet.com and barebone systems there using it as well.
Using the case with an external (a la laptop) AC power adapter, you could have a system with no moving parts other than the drives. If you splurged and don't need lots of storage, you could even get a 512MB ATA Flash disk.
Put a filter on the fan on the back and that'll greatly reduce the likelihood of salt water getting in.
I plan on building myself something like this in the near future for a PC Set-top box. I hope that helps!
If you've settled on a notebook PC, many have two-prong A/C adapters. These would be (mostly) immune to isolated neutral problems as TFloore described above. You might still want to run a safety ground from the laptop's chassis to the hull, though, just in case.
OK, so you coat the boards involved to prevent the solder from corroding. I would use polyurethane conformal coating applied with a brush. Once you isolate the boards mechanically with rubber bushings and do something like watercooling (since fans won't like the grit from salt air), I would think you would be fine with an off the shelf desktop. I would think an LCD screen would be acceptable only if you sealed it off somehow from the moisture. As far as vibrations are concerned, we can look to our past and see solutions like springmounting the case to the ship in all three axes. A laptop would be ideal since there are fewer interboard connections due to the fact that most everything is on the mainboard. Desktops are intriguing only because they're generally faster and can use things like the rollable keyboard from http://www.thinkgeek.com.
I'm no expert so I could very well be wrong but this sounds like a job for a solid-state computer. No moving parts? I know NASA used solid-state computers with the Apollo missions do they still prefer them?
Bryant (Carrier) sells a line of A/C's known as the Coast Guard unit. It was developed strictly for use in salt water environments. The aluminum coil is coated with a special compaund (TuffCoat) that protects them from corrosion. Coast Guard Unit A normal A/C unit's coil lasts 2-4 years on the beaches of the Gulf of Mexico but these garuntee 3-5 times that life span. I have seen them in action and they kick ASS! The picture of the damaged coil on Bryant's page is no exaggeration, you can poke your fingers through the coil and it's fins. I'm sure if this technology/concept were applied to the aluminum cases and heatsinks it would help greatly, especially if Steve at Hypothermia decides to water cool a computer on his boat. lol btw, the unit mentioned does cost a little more, but it'll outlast ANYTHING you put in at the beach, Trange, American Std, Janitrol, even other Bryants, Carriers and Paynes (Payne is owned by Bryant, made in same factory).
When I first got 802.11 at home, I had it on an Acer TravelMate 342T (provided by work). Occasionally I'd take it into the bathroom to play MP3s while I showered.
:P
I certainly did it more than 4 times, and I didn't notice any condensation behind the screen or 'cruddy goo' anywhere. It did eventually develop a keyboard fault after I leant out of the shower to answer an ICQ message, without first drying my hands
Granted, we don't work on sailboat and usually use bigger ships, but we also work on 30-foot boats. Sorry to disappoint anyone, but we use plain laptops on the smaller boats, and even desktop on larger ships. Nothing too special about them. (Have a backup scheme).
We just purchased three of these (as well as two of their less rugged GoBook). The Max has a slightly smaller keyboard than a typical full size laptop. One thing to remember is that this is a single spindle device, so if you want CD/CDRW/Floppy capabilities, they will have to be USB or PC Card. Itronix sells them with USB devices and the BIOS supports USB boot devices, so no big deal there. They exceed MIL spec on drop test and are able to have up to 4 inches of water flow through the case per hour. I recently spent some time talking to the principal mechanical engineer on this product and they worked really hard to over-engineer as much as they could. Parts are manufactured in Taiwan and assembled in Washington State! Let me know if you have specific questions and I'll pass them on to the Itronix people I know.
Rob "Welcome to Lifestyles of the Dull and Nearsighted."
Puget Sound, salt water;
some asshole in engineering is using the f*cking water to cool the circuit boards.
I kid yee not.
(I was a bit shocked when I first found that one out myself)
Their solution? Just replace shit, all the time. Same thing with various engine parts, also salt water cooled, doh.
Mind you there is a perfectly good fresh water cooling system also in the ferries, but as stated above, some dipso decided to for apparently random no good reasons, use salt water cooling on valuable and vulnerable parts.
Oh Joy.
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The solution is simple immerse the entire system in 3M Fluorinert cooling fluid. I'ts dielectric and inert and an excellent coolant if a tad pricey.
Of course the optimal solution is to oxygenate the Fluorinert and immerse the entire room in it (you can breath the stuff when it's oxygenated).
I don't really have any suggestions for disk drives and monitors. But conformal coating will get you started in putting a standard desktop computer on a yacht
-James Jefferson Amateur Radio Station KB0THN
The solution is ACF-50 (Lear Chemical Research Corporation), it was made for Avionics'. We used to build computers for Fish and Feathers in Alaska for remote sights for fish counts and fishing boats, we never had a problem with salt water even if it got drenched. Amazing stuff! The videotape that they used to give, as a demo was they sprayed a TV and put it in tank with Saltwater and it would run for months submerged in saltwater.
locate a plastics firm or defence contractor that can encase your system and a network of cooling tubes (thru which we'll run 50ish degree ocean saltwater) and encase the whole deal in LUCITE.
not only will you have a nearly indestructable system, it will also look REALLY cool.
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I used to put together computers for industrial applications in Steel Mills, an environment that I think is even harsher in terms of heat, corosives and vibration that most of what's been talked about so far. Anyway, our approach was to purchase what is called a NEMA enclosure and put all the hardware inside. NEMA is a standard (followed by a number) that indicates how sealed it is. Depending on the amount of stuff in the box, you can get heat exchangers or actual active air conditioning units that keep the inside of the box cool without letting in ANY outside air at all. Stick on a clear plastic front so you can see the monitor inside, and you're pretty much set for the harshest environment.
The only real hook is what to do for a keyboard and mouse which must be outside the box. You can get rugged keyboards and sealed joystick/mouse devices but they tend to be VERY pricy. I would only go for one of these if you think the keyboard is likely to be immersed or pressure-washed regularly. In a lot of cases we just used a cheap standard keyboard, possiblly inside a plastic bag, and kept a few spares around for when they finally broke.
I was constantly surprised by how much abuse a keyboard would take wihtout breaking. I once saw one in a mill, covered with (conductive) carbon black so thick you couldn't see the letters on the keys...but the darned thing still worked!
There are actually several grades of NEMA enclosures, some more protective, some less. They vary from a simple dust-tight box to one that's indoor/outdoor water, dust, oil and corrosion proof. They come in all sizes from lunchbox-size to full 19" racks.
Milo from Kangaroo Koncepts
For my money, I'd get a laptop, mainly so that most of the components would be be soldered in and you wouldn't get problems with things like PCI card connectors corroding. We had a server room flood once, and had flakey connection related problems for about a year after (re-seat card, problem goes away). It would also probably be easier to power, how about one of the many "MilSpec" ruggedised laptops?
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
I worked on a missile tracking ship 1968-1970. It was built on a C-5 cargo hull, about 560 feet overall, and had a very dependable Univac computer mounted in one room. About 1980 I heard from a visitor to the ship that the Univac had been replaced by a much smaller computer bolted to a table. This ship operated all over the world in whatever the weather happened to be, and computers were not a problem. The computer was removed when the ship became a fish reef off of Florida.
...is Laversab (http://www.laversab.com). Very rugged, waterproof, etc, and lives up to the specs. It is basically a fully fuctioning machine well-mounted in a serious box. I was working on a research platform getting doused by waves and experienced no issues (with the computer... plenty of problems with our other hardware, but that's another story. Suffice to say that if you are going to pot electronics in epoxy to waterproof them, do it right and test them hard before you get out in the field). But while the Laversab is well-suited for research or industry, they are a little costly and unwieldy for a small sailboats. I'd agree with the "get a laptop and be really careful with it" approach for personal use.
How about the panasonic tough book series. They have Waterproof Keyboard, Magnesium Alloy Case and Shock-mounted hard drives. [www.panasonic-toughbook.com]
Hi, I'm schizophrenic - and so am I
i don't know about that. im a little..."rusty".
-apg
Okay, So I'm a commercial Diver in the Gulf of Mexico, and we go out on boats that are anywhere from 8ft to 210ft, and we have laptops AND desktops. The only time salt is going to kill your system is if it falls overboard, or you dump a bucket on it. Otherwise it's fine. Even in high humidity and salt in the air, it doesn't do much to it, if at all. btw put an electronics board in saltwater and watch it melt in your hand, take it out, and watch it foam as it oxidizes.
You need a NEMA 4X enclosure, like those used in industrial settings. They're fully sealed and can withstand such incidents as being drenched in hydraulic fluid, and being dunked in water.
- corp.com
The main problem you're going to have is possibly overheating, as there is no ventilation since you want to keep the salt out of the system. Cooling is done by raidating heat through the surface of the box, which may not be sufficient for a high power PC. The systems that I've placed in factories and test facilities have typically been much lower power than your average PC, and the individual components were engineered to withstand the harsh environment as well.
Links to companies that build said enclosures:
http://www.hoffmanonline.com
http://www.rittal
I've used both Rittal and Hoffman in the past and been quite pleased with their enclosures and their support. Other companies may be as good, of course, but I haven't worked with them.
The one thing you will probably want to avoid, depending on your environment, is a NEMA 4X keyboard. PC keyboards are cheap, and you will not enjoy using a membrane keyboard for an extended period of time. A salt water environment on a sail boat is nowhere near as harsh as a hydraulic test lab, so your PC keyboard will probably last at least a few months. i think $20-$50 every three months is a cheap price to pay for the comfort of a real keyboard.
Check out www.anitech.com which is the Canadian leader in livestock computing. I met them when they came to Japan. There is a PDF on the site which will give you the idea of a spec, basically IIRC you have hoseable enclosed LCD touch screens on a network (not sure if wireless or not) with main computer somewhere not being hosed down. Meat packers push the screen or use software keyboard as needed. The way they connect the lcd to the network might be useful.
In a past life, I was the service (manager, HMFIC, first geek, whatever) for Pacific Power Source Corporation, counting among our customers the Naval Air Development Center, the folks who brought us Naval Oceanographic Research Vessels. I've been aboard every NavOceano (Naval Oceanographic) vessel built prior to 1992, and every one of 'em used common conformal coat to keep their stuff happy.
;-)
Yep, every one of 'em.
This shit is easy. Just spray 'em in conformal coat, and be done with it. Just be sure that your components are appropriately rated... this ain't rocket science, boys.
Any customers unhappy with PPSC's quality of service oughta tell 'em, "Art would have handled this properly the first time!" and let it go at that. I don't want the job back, I just want to poke 'em in the ass a time or two.
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One you are in internatonal waters, you do basically whatever you want. No more DMCA and all the other crap.
Well, the Cray 2 worked immersed in fluorocarbons. Full speed ahead and damn the ozone layer!
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
One problem that nobody has mentioned is gyroscopic effects on the disk drive. Small boats do some fairly crazy twisting in heavy weather (big boats, such as the navy, do less and do it slower when they do).
Waaay back when, I worked for a company which supplied computers to the Royal Navy. They couldn't use the disk technology of the time because as soon as the ship rolled, the platters twisted on their spindle and the heads dug into the surface.
Now, disks have come a long way since then, and the smaller the disk the smaller the effect. But disks are spinning faster and flying heights are lower, which may cancel some of that out.
Laptop drives have great specs for non-spinning shock etc, but they are much lower for spinning use, because the manufacturers assume that, whatever you may do while lugging the thing around, you'll be sitting reasonably quietly before you start work. But afloat, you don't want to wait for the storm to subside before booting up the nav system.
I accept that point made by others for workstation rather than laptop class computers - every laptop I have encountered has died within two years without event being taken to sea. But I would be tempted to fit laptop-style 2.5 in drives not workstation-style 3.5 in drives (none of my laptop failures was drive-based). But then, make sure you spin down - laptop drives are not designed to spin 24/7.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
good stuff...needs to be more than a 1
While I haven't had to do this myself, some things that come to mind...
With some basic metalworking skills/tools you can make a decent case out of stainless. It may not look all too pretty, but it can be functional. Careful what grade of stainless you use. Not all stainless is created equal, and different grades have different levels of resistance to different things. I'm not sure which would be the right one for this application, but google will know.
Second, while it may not make the PC's guts last forever, an air purifier should help. Maybe some sort of plexiglass enclosure with the purifier in some sort of airlock compartment, the airlock ventilating to the outside world, and the main enclosure (where the PC is) ventilating to the airlock.
-Hal
voltage regulators are not a good plan for this purpose - if i'm not mistaken, a modern pc will draw something around 20A at 5V - now, apart from the waste of energy (you come in with 12V*20A=240W and out with 5V*20A=100W), the waste energy has to go somewhere - that's a lot of heat. DC to DC converters are a far better idea, even if they cost a little more, they are far more efficient and produce much less heat.
how about this... one zip lock bag one nokia 9210
Try here:
http://www.gobookmax.co.uk/
Okay, so it's a day after the topic was listed and no one will probably see my comment, but Toshiba Toughbooks are designed to deal with just this kind of environment. Well, actually, they're designed to deal with worse, but...
You can find them on eBay still (and, no, I'm not selling one there, though I am watching a couple).
Cheers!
Jim
Oh, the trials and tribulations of a network geek! Read about them at: http://www.ryumaou.com/hoffman/netgeek/
Lots of sailing boats have heat-exchanger pipes built into the keel. This lets them run a non-corrosive coolant through the engine and still cool it with water, while largely eliminating the barnacle problem (and of course, the keel can't clog). If you just tossed a copper loop over the side and ran coolant through it you'd accomplish more or less the same thing, though I would suggest running the loop under pressure (pump inlet is connected to header tank, pump outlet to seawater coil, seawater coil feeds computer and back to header tank) to avoid the possibility of seawater getting into the system through leaks.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
I'll pay shipping to CT - just email eggleston@postmater.co.uk if you really wanna get rid of it!
Thanks,
-Ejegg
The Rugged Laptops can handle up to 4 inches of rainfall per hour and can withstand up to 30g shock or 3 feet drop on concrete floor. These laptops are resistant and sealed from dust and sand.
:)
http://www.ruggednotebooks.com/
They even have a picture of a laptop in the kitchen sink.
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I know you will probably be keeping your cabin dry, but I would definately recommend picking up one of the flexible keyboards. You could pick up the FlexBoard which is a nice but expensive ($130) keyboard. There are plenty of other cheap knock offs that you could pick up for less than $50. I've used one before and it certainly isn't prefect, but it was definately better than using a sticky keyboard.