S/V Deep Playa - Pearson 424

From the creative genius of Tawn and CB of s/v Palarran.

I read A LOT of news sites a lot of them technology related and via that I stumbled on the Shuttle PC X50 V2 All-In-One which recently came out. This is an Intel D510 Dual Core which is the next generation ATOM processors used in all those low power netbooks. It also happens to be just as powerful as the 14” laptop I use now (but which has a cracked screen) but the X50 can have 4GB of RAM and my laptop only 2GB. Basically its MORE than powerful enough to not only meet my navigational needs, but at 40W I’m not sure I could find a separate PC and touch screen Monitor to run more efficiently than it either. The SC/DC brick it uses outputs 19v @2.1A so I’ll need a DC regulator to take my 12V system and step it up to the 19V. I’m currently looking at the Carnetix CNX-P1900 PSU to do this. I have a question in to the Carnetix forum to make sure I’m understanding everything correctly. The P1900 can handle up to 140W and I only need 40W so maybe I could go with a better choice, not sure yet.

Another cool thing about the P1900 is it has two additional outputs one 12v and the other 5v. The 5v can be used to provide power to a USB HUB if I need that. The other 12v could be used to power an additional monitor or maybe an external storage drive in the future.

Here’s a quick step by step on how to use the Maretron field installable connectors. These are useful when you want to run a wire in a mast or through the deck and you don’t want to use a bulkhead fitting but you’d rather use something like a Blue Sea cable clam. There are NO instructions with these fittings so I hope you find this useful.

Here’s a shot of the disassembled connector and the raw end of the bulk wire. The white fitting and it’s rubber gasket give this fitting a snug water resistant (proof?) fit.

This is a shot of the little tiny holes and screws you’re going to be using to attach the wires to the connector. Everything it very well designed; the color coding makes this a snap. Note that the blue connection is stands approximately 1/4” proud of the other fittings.

You need to strip back the outer insulation and the foil around the wires. The blue wire should be a bit shorter than the others since it doesn’t have to reach as far as the other wires.

Here’s a shot with all of the wires attached to the connector.

Notice in the that previous picture none of these other pieces are visible. they all need to be placed on the wire BEFORE you spend 10 minutes getting the wires attached and all the screws tightened. If you’re lucky and you don’t have a connector on the other end, you can slide them all the way along the wire like I did. DOH!

I started by tightening the body to the very end of the connector (the left side in this pic). I then worked on the final end fitting where the wire extends out. When you got to tighten everything up it will be a tad difficult to get the end fitting to tighten against the white cone and rubber bushing. I used the small screw driver to work the cone down as far as a I could. be careful, you can break the cone if you push too hard. You will figure it out though. I then used a Knipex Pliers Wrenches (which I LOVE but a crescent wrench would work) to hold the connector body while I bottomed all of the threads.

It’s obviously a lot easier to work with the factory installed connectors but where necessary the field installable connectors are pretty easy to work with and they look solid to me.

I’ve been thinking about the blog, sailing reports, weather reports and all kinds of information I’d like to collect and share. Principally, I’ve been thinking about the data that will soon be running around my NMEA 2000 network. Some of the data will include course, speed, depth, air temperature, water temperature, humidity, barometer, etc. all of kinds of great info and all of it will have location as well. Has anyone out there taken the full output off their NMEA 2000 network and converted it to time\location sorted KML entries as Custom Data? If I could get to that then I’d at least able to view the data in Google Maps, or easily convert it to a variety of formats.

I’ll have to ping Kurt at UNH and Nomadness about this.

Last week I went to a talk on Rose Point Navigation Coastal Explorer (CE) which was hosted by Armchair Sailor here in Seattle, WA. The crowd was about 60 strong and there were a handful of folks in the under 50 crew.

The talk was lead by Jeff Hummel who does all these talks at the Boat Shows. He previously worked for Nobeltec and has been around the industry for awhile specifically with RADAR and software based chart plotters.

He basically went through all the core functionality in Coastal Explorer 2009 and then gave a good overview of the improvements in Coastal Explorer 2010 which is now in beta. Here’s a brief run down of some cool things Jeff demoed independent of version:

• Active Captain Data viewable in CE2010
  This basically supplies local knowledge that you can see in the live map view around you and then click to read information on anchorages, tricky entrances, anything really.
• RADAR
  They’ve had this for a while a now. Basically they OEM Koden RADARs which with CE. There is so much press about HD and Broadband RADARs though they they appear a bit behind the times. For offshore cruisers I think they’d be fine.
• See other features on the Coastal Explorer site.
• The new UI in Coastal Explorer 2010 Beta is much improved.
  • Navigating the charts feels more like using standard web mapping software.
  • The menuing system which looks like the Office Ribbon shows you more of what’s available instead of digging through lists.

A solid good talk and if you have a chance to attend one of these I’d go for it.