Current or Potential SeaClear or OpenCPN Users . . .

[Sumner]

First I need to catch up a little as I haven't been on here for a while. Ruth and I bought an Endeavour 37 early last summer and hope to be able to cruise on her for 2-5 months out of the year. We have kept our 26' MacGregor Classic as we still love that boat and did two longer cruises on her this past year which you can find here.....

Macgregor Trips-1 Index

I'm still not finished with the trip report for the 400 mile spring trip around the south end of Florida and realize that we aren't cruisers in the sense of the spirit that a lot of you are. Ok now on to the reason for this post....

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If you are a current or potential user of SeaClear, Open CPN or another computer based chart plotter and have regretted that you didn't have a cockpit display what follows might be a solution for you and one that costs just a little over $100. It gives you a 7" daylight display that with SeaClear will display up to about a 7 mile wide chart area with detail good enough to see water depths and other needed detail. If you zoom the chart all of the way in you can see sharp detail at SeaClear's maximum chart resolution. Running SeaClear in the "AUTOMATIC" mode SeaClear will keep your boat centered on the screen and move the chart under it.

You don't have to be a computer guru to make this work and you just need 12 volts to the display along with a cheap coax cable that can be run over almost any distance. If this interests you then here is the mod...

Computer-Chartplotter Build Page-5

...and a picture....



.... of SeaClear running on the display out in full sun and ....



....one outside, but just in the shade similar to under the Bimini.

I think this is going to be a good deal for us and make SeaClear just that much better,

Sum

[dacust]

Nice write-up. I think this is actually a viable alternative for some people. At that price, you could replace the TV, power supply and coax once a year and still come out cheap.

-dan

[phiggins]

Yes a nice writeup. I guess they only drawback I can see is how water proof the TV is. I use to have a small linux pc mounted in the cockpit running SeaClear but it got hit by a wave and that was the end of it.

[Sumner]

Originally Posted by phiggins

Yes a nice writeup. I guess they only drawback I can see is how water proof the TV is. I use to have a small linux pc mounted in the cockpit running SeaClear but it got hit by a wave and that was the end of it.

Thanks for the feedback guys .

I'm going to make a small box for it that will stay at the helm and and TV will slide in and out. With the slip-on coax cable and the 12 volt mini plug that will be quick.

I think TV can stay out in the box at the helm probably 90% of the time and the box should protect it from most issues including spray coming in.

One nice thing is that Walmart sells the TV on line for about $60, so it isn't a huge loss if it had to be replaced. They are currently out of stock on-line. Also there are a number of these TV's out there, RCA isn't the only one, so there are options.

If we loss the TV we would just be back where we were with SeaClear running below and attached to the hand-held GPS in the cockpit and we will still keep that combination running as backup. With the day's waypoints in the hand-held even if the...



... main computer below went out we would still have the handheld until we could get one of the laptops up and running. I have SeaClear and all of the charts on two of them and a USB to serial cable also to connect them to the hand-held. In addition we have large paper charts at all times.

The main point in doing this was finding a way to have a display in the cockpit that was readable in daylight conditions that cost under $100.

Here is a link to my computer, long distance WiFi, and other Nav stuff....

Compurer-Chart Plotter-Navigation Index

... that might be of use to someone,


Sum