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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
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
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!
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.
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 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.
They make fish in factories now?
...
I believe they mean factories ran by fish
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.
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."
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.
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?"
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??
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"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
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
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
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.