Beelink Mini Computers as Ships Computer

[Dockhead]

No connection with the company except that I'm a very happy user of this gear for the last two years:

https://www.bee-link.com/

A very inexpensive, fanless, high performance, low power micro-computer with all the right ports and interfaces for ship's computer use.

It has a slot for a card-based SSD drive which allows you to put in a half terabyte or terabyte or whatever you need of hard drive storage and little cost.

Graphics part drives my 4k monitor with ease.

A plethora of USB3, USB-C, Ethernet ports allow you to hook up whatever kind of different gear you have. Card reader built in.

Two HDMI ports allow you to use dual monitors.


Very well made and well designed metal case.


I have mine mounted behind the instrument panel where it's protected from any kind of stray spray or knocks or bumps, with remote USB/audio/mic panel let into my nav table to connect wired mouse, keyboard, thumb drive, whatever (although I use wireless mouse and keyboard).


This kind of hardware makes using OpenCPN a real pleasure.

[hoolie]

I now have a Beelink Gemini M as the boat computer. Not as capable as your device but with 8Gb RAM and 256Gb SSD it's powerful enough and a lot more compact. With 4 USB3 connections, WiFi and dual HDMI full HD outputs it has all I need for our boat.

I know there's been a lot of discussion on here whether Windows is suitable on a boat but tbh it's what I'm used to and generally just works as it should. The Beelink products are modest cost - not much more than Raspberry Pi if you factor in all the add-ons the Pi needs for a viable boat system.

[Dockhead]

In theory Linux should be more stable and much lighter, but Windows works well enough that I have never felt the need to switch to Linux. I always have a few pages of boat jobs to do and never felt that any advantage of Linux would be worth adding something to that list. It would be fairly simple to dual boot, however. The Beelink boxes have plenty of disk space. You run the OS (or a couple of them) and the main programs from the main hardwired SSD drive, then you have a card SSD drive of whatever size for any amount of data you might need.

[Hartleyg]

How do you guys power your Beelinks aboard? I see they take 19V at a couple amps max.


Hartley
S/V Atsa

[Off Trail]

My beelink T45(?) runs on 12V. The monitor we use is 19V so we got a 12/19 dc/DC converter on Amazon to power that part. Pretty easy to wire. Of course you could always run off the inverter.

Dan

[noelex 77]

On Dockhead’s recommendation we purchased a unit a few years ago and it has been excellent.

It is mounted on the back of a monitor. The wooden structure on the left is to enable hard discs to be slotted in when these are needed. Below the perspex are two converters that supply power to the Beelink and the monitor direct from DC.

As the unit (computer, monitor and power converters) is self contained, it can be moved around the boat as required (it is clamped to stainless steel tubing via a RAM mount).

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Hartleyg

How do you guys power your Beelinks aboard? I see they take 19V at a couple amps max.

Hartley
S/V Atsa

Mine is 12v and I have been running it on 13.6v. Unfortunately this seems to have fried the internal clock, so not recommended!


So a DC-DC converter would be the thing, as others have recommended.