The cheapest and one of the best chartplotters around is a $200 quad core tablet with a GPS chip in it combined with the $20 Navionics download.

Keep it below decks until they come out with waterproof tablets ( I believe Samsung has one now.) and get the navigator to call the shots to the helmsman.

That worked for us crossing the Wide Bay Bar at midnight on a dead low tide. I doubt I will ever do that again and I do not recommend it. We were lucky.

With the rapid advances in technology and consumer demand I am sure us sailors will soon have all of our electronic navigation aids networked via blue tooth or WiFi so that if one unit fails we do not lose the whole system. I believe the technology has already been developed and not being presented until they have sold off the currently available but already outdated hardware.

Go over to "Shooting the Breeze" section of the forum and look at this thread. www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/General-Discussion/Chat/DJI-Phantom-3-any-thoughts/

These are another toy but because they have a mass market the ultimate in hardware and software is being applied to them. As it has always been, put the word "Marine" in front of anything and the retailers charge multiple times the normal price for the same thing.

Navionics seems to be the only outfit to have responded to our needs by putting out their charting system at a reasonable price. We as tax payers have already paid for the surveying by the Australian Hydrographic Service.

I reckon we should organise a demonstration march in front Parliament House Canberra for "Sailor's Rights".

Navionics is great but iPads and iPhones always seem to have problems charging. they just don't seem reliable enough for your primary navigation tool. I can't really speak with experience about android devices but I guess they would have the same issues because they are just not designed for the damp salty environment.

As a mate said to me some time ago, "The world of electronics has not yet fully embraced the marine environment."

Charging a mobile device, Android Tablet or iPad, on a yacht is no longer a problem. USB adaptors for 12 volt systems abound for cars and boats.

Admittedly, the marine environment will reduce the life span of anything. Just a simple fact of life that we learn to live with.

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cisco said..

Charging a mobile device, Android Tablet or iPad, on a yacht is no longer a problem. USB adaptors for 12 volt systems abound for cars and boats.

They are easily chargeable but are very slow with the 12V system.

I have a 1A & 2.5A USB sockets & my Samsung tablet takes a long time to charge - nowhere near the speed with a 240V charger

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Lazzarae said..

cisco said..

Charging a mobile device, Android Tablet or iPad, on a yacht is no longer a problem. USB adaptors for 12 volt systems abound for cars and boats.

They are easily chargeable but are very slow with the 12V system.

I have a 1A & 2.5A USB sockets & my Samsung tablet takes a long time to charge - nowhere near the speed with a 240V charger

that suggests that you aren't getting the specified current from your USB sockets...

Not at all. Many tablets charge slowest on USB. What it suggests is the ac charger is possibly higher than 5v. The other difference is USB can be 1 or 2 amps. New pH won't even charge on the old 1amp chargers.

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slammin said..
Not at all. Many tablets charge slowest on USB. What it suggests is the ac charger is possibly higher than 5v. The other difference is USB can be 1 or 2 amps. New pH won't even charge on the old 1amp chargers.

yes, but Lazzarae mentioned that he/she has a 2.5 A USB charging socket; that should nominally provide 12.5 W of power @ 5 V.

a properly working 12 V system should be able to charge a tablet just as quickly as a mains adaptor...

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HG02 said..

bayview said..

HG02 said..
Ive been looking at the raymarine a5
As a one instrument meaning
Ploter depth speed and wind plus it can do engine data
In stead of having any thing else
One instrument does every thing

but doesn't that also mean you end up losing everything IF that one instrument throws in the towel?

I also have an old lappy at the moment Ill set up as a back up and will be making a dedicated low power PC for the boat

Having an old laptop as a back-up for your chart plotter is an excellent idea. I run OpenCPN on an old Dell laptop for charts, and connected a serial GPS, so I have a fully redundant navigation system. Actually, it's triply redundant if you include the Navionics smart phone app.

Here's my write-up of hooking up the Globalsat MR-350 GPS to OpenCPN:
blog.arribasail.com/2013/10/tech-testing-globalsat-mr-350-gps-with-opencpn.html

Note that I chose a serial (RS-232) GPS that speaks NMEA 0183 so I can also connect it to my chart plotter (Raymarine e7D), which is useful if the internal GPS were ever to fail .

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fishmonkey said..

slammin said..
Not at all. Many tablets charge slowest on USB. What it suggests is the ac charger is possibly higher than 5v. The other difference is USB can be 1 or 2 amps. New pH won't even charge on the old 1amp chargers.

yes, but Lazzarae mentioned that he/she has a 2.5 A USB charging socket; that should nominally provide 12.5 W of power @ 5 V.

a properly working 12 V system should be able to charge a tablet just as quickly as a mains adaptor...

I have used a 2.1 amp USB adapter in my car cig lighter socket to charge an 8" tablet and it seemed to do it just as quick as an AC adapter.

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fishmonkey said..

slammin said..
Not at all. Many tablets charge slowest on USB. What it suggests is the ac charger is possibly higher than 5v. The other difference is USB can be 1 or 2 amps. New pH won't even charge on the old 1amp chargers.

yes, but Lazzarae mentioned that he/she has a 2.5 A USB charging socket; that should nominally provide 12.5 W of power @ 5 V.

a properly working 12 V system should be able to charge a tablet just as quickly as a mains adaptor...

I only have a cheap charging socket (2.1A not 2.5A) ATM so I'll check what it actually reads when I get a chance - my intention was to get a 5A socket "one day" but haven't got around to it yet. It hasn't bothered me so far but it's on the list.

I had an old lappy on the last boat with OpenCPN & worked great. I used to have the chartplotter, the lappy & the tablet all running together sometimes just to compare. The boat made it to Cairns from Lake Macquarie with a novice at the helm so the info must have been OK.

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fishmonkey said..
Lazzarae mentioned that he/she

He :)

Cheers,
Larry

Thanks for everyones advice, finally went with the raymarine E7d, i50 speed and depth and i60 wind all at the boatshow special prices which ended up saving a motza.

The speed and depth have to wait until she comes out of the water.

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andy59 said..
Thanks for everyones advice, finally went with the raymarine E7d, i50 speed and depth and i60 wind all at the boatshow special prices which ended up saving a motza.

The speed and depth have to wait until she comes out of the water.

Very nice set up Andy

Question Andy
Did you use a combo sender for the depth and speed sensor?
My old boat has a depth sounder housing glassed into the hull plus a hole in the hull for the old log for the paddle wheel sensor.

My Lowrance Elite 5 is not so fondly known as Beelzebub.

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HG02 said..

andy59 said..
Thanks for everyones advice, finally went with the raymarine E7d, i50 speed and depth and i60 wind all at the boatshow special prices which ended up saving a motza.

The speed and depth have to wait until she comes out of the water.

Very nice set up Andy

Question Andy
Did you use a combo sender for the depth and speed sensor?
My old boat has a depth sounder housing glassed into the hull plus a hole in the hull for the old log for the paddle wheel sensor.

Hi Hg
I used seperate sensors for speed and depth which I haven't fitted yet. My existing depth sensor is a glessed in unit as well so it will be a bit of a job to fit the sensor.
The paddle wheel should fit OK.
The E7 MFD came with a transom mount depth and speed sensor, not really much use for my boat.

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andy59 said..

HG02 said..

andy59 said..
Thanks for everyones advice, finally went with the raymarine E7d, i50 speed and depth and i60 wind all at the boatshow special prices which ended up saving a motza.

The speed and depth have to wait until she comes out of the water.

Very nice set up Andy

Question Andy
Did you use a combo sender for the depth and speed sensor?
My old boat has a depth sounder housing glassed into the hull plus a hole in the hull for the old log for the paddle wheel sensor.

Hi Hg
I used seperate sensors for speed and depth which I haven't fitted yet. My existing depth sensor is a glessed in unit as well so it will be a bit of a job to fit the sensor.
The paddle wheel should fit OK.
The E7 MFD came with a transom mount depth and speed sensor, not really much use for my boat.

Your old boat starting to shine nicely Andy she looks great

Thanks HG

There a sweet boat Andy