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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)?"
The only people who want to compute in a saltwater environment are pirates.
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)
Doh, got caught up in making the obvious joke I didn't even read past the headline :P
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
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.
Kontron Mobile Computing. Manufacturers of rugged portable systems. www.kontron.com seems to be the overall companies homepage. Follow the KMC link. Their Revolution, an upcoming product, looks especially nice. Their 8000 series is designed for crazy environments.
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
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
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!
Envy my 5 digit Slashdot User ID!
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.
A computer that can reside in my crotch!
...
Are you referring to the "keep the computer cool" part?
If so, then yes, we have a winner
Life isn't like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapenos. What you do today, might burn your ass tomorrow.
SINKING maybe ;)
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".
... 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.
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
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
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
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.
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.
and guess what they sell...?
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.
Just get one of these.
Honestly, do I have to do everything around here?
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
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.
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
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.
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....
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.
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.,
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
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.
I've got a pair of Cornea MP800's on my desk, 18.1 inch LCDs. Each is powered from an AC->DC adaptor that outputs 12v, 5A, at about 60W. Each one sports hardware mounting capabilities on the rear, which would lend well to a sturdy wall mount.
More info here: http://www.cctvproducts.com/cormplcdtft1.html
- billn
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
Two words: Heat exchanger
This is often done for the cooling systems on marine engines: closed loop of fresh water running through the engine itself, sea water circulated just through the heat exchanger. This keeps salt water out of the engine and helps prevent the engine from corroding inside. In theory there's no reason the same technique couldn't be used to cool a computer, but it might be overkill or too expensive in practice.
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.
There is a wide range between "static preventing" humid and "water condensing all over everything" humid.
Brick Computers
I haven't used them myself, but I know several people who swear by their laptops for use on sailboats.
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.
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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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.
There's another way of getting weather forecasts on a boat - it's known as the "radio".
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
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.
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
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 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.