Bridge PC - A 5 year look and a new upgrade

Should've gone Mac. Then there would be no need for...you.
 
Sure does.
 
Wow! You're right. I ran out and bought a Mac and now this doesn't bother me anymore...

silverware.jpg
 
I don't know why you just didn't get an ipad and mount the sucker instead of all the fans and power supplies and master switches. Would have been much easier.
 
Turtlesboat said:
I don't know why you just didn't get an ipad and mount the sucker instead of all the fans and power supplies and master switches. Would have been much easier.
Click to expand...

Since you have it in your signature... How's that Active Captain access working out on your iPad?
 
Sweet as chocolate peanut butter ice cream.

chartstidessell.jpg
 
As quick as you whipped that out, you've been waiting for that question to be asked.

How come I can't find it on the web?
 
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You still have to have most of the stuff I'm putting in (sans CPU) to truly integrate the iPad with the nav network.... Also, I really like sat weather (WxWorx)... I do lose cell coverage out on the water from time to time. And I like the Airmar weather station... and I like the integration of the PC with the bridge sound system with no wires dangling...

I have an iPad as well... and I love it on the boat. But it's just a display system for the bridge network and you still need to set up stuff to talk to the nav network properly.

At any given time, I have multiple iPads, iPhones, mac laptops, etc etc with the kids, guests, wife, etc... and having the core GB network on the boat that is on the Internet and now can broadcast helm data is *really* nice.

Plus I like to mess around with electronic stuff... so there.
 
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Did you create a Barry Manilow station?
 
I think you are missing the point. Or you are just messing with me...

The Baron WxWorx transmitter is great... but you still have to have all the crap mounted somewhere... right? Or you going to just stuff it all in a closet?

There is a real issue with all these vendors coming out with "wifi for iPad" stuff. Note that the new Raymarine chartplotters are wifi enabled so you can connect your iPad:

http://www.raymarine.com/default.aspx?site=1&section=2&page=2016

and now companies like Brookhouse have multiplexers so you can have a wifi hotspot to connect to for helm data:

http://brookhouseonline.com/imux.htm

(the iMux)

and the WxWorx one you mention...

So you have to mount all this stuff and power it up... like me... and none of it works together and you'll have 8 wifi hotspots on your boat you'll have to connect and disconnect on the iPad...

I too have Pandora... and I put PandoraJam on the Mac so it has recorded half the songs known to man and I can replay them when out of cell coverage... at better quality...
 
I'm messing with you. But you have to admit that the ipad has come a long way in a year. I don't have all the stuff you have so I don't have to worry about all the peripherals, so your computer setup is needed, and it's a nice setup. Heck i'm still nursing a 15 year old CRT radar system.
 
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I do love the iPad... but I think you need a good foundation to plug into... outside the cell network... The PC is just a piece of it.
 
Four Suns said:
I think you are missing the point. Or you are just messing with me...

The Baron WxWorx transmitter is great... but you still have to have all the crap mounted somewhere... right? Or you going to just stuff it all in a closet?
Click to expand...

Looks like Mike has that all figured out. This is his air conditioned helm. He steers the boat by twisting the toilet seat. Very cool mod.
2721ea44.jpg
 
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Ok, here's a question. You have all of this stuff pumping into the pc, weather, NMEA, wind maybe, radar?, depth?, system monitors?. All of this is streaming in via ethernet? What program picks all of this information out, bundles it in a nice wifi signal and transmits it in a usable form for other devices to pick it up, pick out the stuff it can use and ignore the stuff it can't?
 
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Turtlesboat said:
Ok, here's a question. You have all of this stuff pumping into the pc, weather, NMEA, wind maybe, radar?, depth?, system monitors?. All of this is streaming in via ethernet? What program pics all of this information out, bundles it in a nice wifi signal and transmits it in a usable form for other devices to pick it up, pick out the stuff it can use and ignore the stuff it can't?
Click to expand...

So... that's what this thread is really about.

First, I'm not doing radar on the network. Not even sure how to do that yet.

I already have a wifi network (virus) and so I don't need another wifi hotspot. What I am installing is an Ethernet <-> RS-422 server/gateway. The one I bought is by Aaxeon (STE-601C):

http://aaxeon.com/s.nl/it.A/id.213/.f

The Aaxeon RS-422 server basically has 4 ports for the NMEA +/- recieve and +/- send wires (the green thing on the box). It also has an Ethernet port. You configure it with a fixed IP address on the local network (and a DNS entry if you have a PC or Mac running DNS so you can type helm.local). So now any app on any iPad can ask this Aaxeon server for data and stream it. I think the Navionics iPad app has a setting for this... Coastal Explorer does on the PC... MacENC does on the Mac... etc... and the App determines what it wants and doesn't want from the server... but the Aaxeon server can send anything in real time to the client the app asks for... and it doesn't matter if it's wifi or hard wired Ethernet.

Make sense?

So it's not about the PC... or Mac... or iPad... but about the network on the boat and all the black boxes at the helm talking to each other and this little RS-422 server sending out streams of data clients and their apps ask for.

As a side note... many of the "black boxes" need a PC to configure them and have a USB port. And the PC may talk to some of them over the USB port.. but they don't have to. For example, my Mac Mini in the salon is on the Ethernet network so MacENC points to the Aaxeon server over the network and gets helm data from it...

Glad I have a Gb network though.

Also, with this setup, one is not limited to NMEA either... WxWorx is a good example. If they are sending out a proprietary stream from the box on the Ethernet/wifi network, any app on any client should be able to get it and render it.

And if you go NMEA 2K, you can have a NMEA 2K <-> Ethernet TCP/IP gateway/server and do the same thing... so engine data, etc etc is available to any device running an appropriate app...
 
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