Urania - Kirkland, WA

The prudent mariner
does not type while underway...

Equipment on board:

JRC DGPS212 DGPS Receiver
Simrad IS15 depth/water speed sensor
Raymarine GPS
Raymarine RADAR
Raymarine Autopilot
Raymarine Fish Finder
Raymarine Seatalk/NMEA Converter
NoLand NM-42 NMEA multiplexer
Two MicroATX desktop PCs, each with AMD Athalon XP 1600 Processor, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB hard drive

2000 Bayliner 5788

This is the Rose Point Navigation Systems test boat!

The Computers

Urania has two "built-in" computers. Originally, the idea was to have one for the pilothouse and the other for the fly bridge, but I found a neat way to use one computer for both stations, so now the second PC is around for a backup.

The PCs were going to stay nice and dry inside the pilothouse, so I just used standard desktop computer parts. Space was a bit limited and I wanted two computers, so I chose the MicroATX form factor which is one of the few standard motherboard and case sizes. I chose a desktop style case because it would be less-likely to tip over than a tower. The two computers were stacked and attached to each other with plastic equipment straps by Trevco which available at most hardware stores and sold to protect stereo, TV, and computer equipment during earthquakes.

The PCs were built using "all-in-one" motherboards which include all the normal stuff that would be on any motherboard plus all of the the video, sound, network features that are sometimes on separate cards. This way, there is very little inside the PC that might rattle loose due to the movement of the boat.

The Pilothouse

A high-brightness LCD monitor was mounted in the pilothouse where an old chart-plotter used to be and a cheap small keyboard is mounted right behind the wheel. For mousing around, I go back and forth between a portable touchpad and a trackball; to me, nothing is as good as a real mouse, but I just don't have the space for one.

The Upper Helm

On the upper helm, I have a fairly expensive waterproof super-high-brightness LCD monitor that can easily be disconnected and taken inside when not in use and an incredibly cheap waterproof keyboard that can be rolled up and stuck in a locker when not being used. Unfortunately, nobody makes incredibly cheap waterproof high-bright LCD monitors... The monitor I have is a SeaView, which are no longer available, but the keyboard, called the "Virtually Indestructible Keyboard," is made by GrandTec USA and is available at computer stores just about everywhere.

The device I used to connect two monitors, mice, and keyboards to one computer is made by ATEN and is a "CAT-5 KVM Extender." It is made to allow a keyboard, video monitor, and a mouse to be attached to a computer through up to 500 feet of "CAT-5" network cable. Normally, using more than 15 feet of cable to connect a video monitor results in a poor quality video signal unless you use amplifiers. Video cable is also relatively thick and difficult to run through the tight channels usually found in boats. This device used CAT-5 cable which, being small and pliable, is much easier to run. Plus it had signal amplifiers built-in and took care of the video signal as well as the keyboard and mouuse signals, all on one piece of CAT-5 cable!

I frequently get excited about a new gadget which seems to be exactly what I need when I read about it, but then get disappointed when I try to use the product and find that it almost does what I want. Well, I had expected to use this device to connect one of the computers to the upper-helm station and just use normal cables to connect the other computer to the lower station. Imagine my surprise when I received the KVM Extender and found that it would not only connect the remote upper station, but I could also plug in the keyboard, video, and mouse for the lower station! Not only that, but it always drives both monitors and automatically senses which keyboard and mouse I'm using so I don't have to press any buttons to switch from one station to the other. Not only did this product exceed my expectations, it probably paid for itself just in the reduced labor costs of running the wires, and it lowered my system requirements by an entire computer!

Other Electronics

Urania came pre-loaded with a lot of RayMarine equipment which meant that it was primarily a SeaTalk boat rather than an NMEA 0183 boat. SeaTalk is a proprietary system that only works with RayMarine equipment, but RayMarine sells a "SeaTalk to NMEA 0183" converter so I plugged one of those into the system. I've also enhanced Urania's electronics with a new DGPS from JRC and a depth sounder/water speed/water temp sensor from Simrad. The new equipment uses NMEA 0183, so to connect that up, I added an "NMEA Multiplexer" from NoLand Engineering.

Of course nothing is as simple as it should be; the Simrad IS15 actually uses yet another proprietary protocol called "RobLink" but each of the two "IS15 Combi instrument heads" that I installed has one NMEA 0183 interface which can be either a talker or a listener. One Combi was mounted in the pilothouse near the PC, so it was easy to connect, but the other was on the fly bridge so more cables had to be routed. Tip: if you're pulling cables, try to pull more than you think you need!

I could have just used the instrument head in the pilothouse as an NMEA 0183 talker so that the PC could receive the depth, speed, and temperature provided by the IS15, but by hooking up the IS15 as a listener too, I get to see waypoint information from Coastal Explorer on the instrument heads!

The JRC DGPS212 is one of those really simple GPS antennas that you feed power to and it sends NMEA 0183 data back. These things are great! Similar devices are made by Furuno and Garmin and probably a few others, and I'm sure they are all basically the same.