Posts Tagged “Electronics”
One of the challenges with the smaller electrical systems found on most boats is managing the power load. Whenever electrical loads are running on a boat, they are delivered by some power source. It might be the generator, it could be shore power, or it could be the inverter. But, whatever the power source, it…
Sometime back we bought a WeBost Cell Signal Booster and tested it carefully on the boat. We tried putting the phones in a low corner of the engine room to degrade the signal as much as possible and then tested the cell booster off and on. The signal booster made absolutely no difference across a…
When we ordered Dirona back in 2009, we replaced the standard port-side settee with a custom TV lift sized to handle a 46-inch flat-screen. And during commissioning in Seattle, we installed a Samsung LN46B750 46-inch TV, which was reasonably state-of-the-art at the time. While we’ve had some troubles with the TV lift, the Samsung TV…
Readers of our blog know we’re heavy Maretron users and big fans. The products are well-priced and easy-to-use, with great customer service. Read more about our Maretron usage at Maretron N2KView on Dirona. Firmware upgrades to any company’s devices are always risky, so we typically try to avoid them. But firmware upgrades sometimes are necessary,…
We love generator auto-start. It ensures a kicked-out power plug or power failure doesn’t take $6,000 worth of batteries through a deep discharge cycle and put thousands of dollars in frozen foods at risk. If a two-hour tender trip stretches out to the entire day, auto-start prevents damage to the battery bank. And auto-start avoid…
The Marine Automatic Identification System is a simple yet effective means of reducing the risk of collision at sea. These systems work on a reserved VHF frequency and each boat using the system has an AIS transceiver on board that transmits the vessel’s position, speed, and course, and other data including the vessel size and…
We have an Inca TV Lift on Dirona and we’re generally very happy with it. The lift is powerful, so it doesn’t get stuck when friction on the slide surfaces increases over time, as it invariably does. It’s built from heavy parts, so it keeps working even in the high vibration environment of a boat….
Frequent readers of this blog know we like NMEA2000 and have become very dependent upon Maretron N2KView at the core of our monitoring and control system on Dirona. The screens above are our underway and at rest monitoring displays for Dirona. They are repeated in the pilot house, salon, and master stateroom. Knowing how much…
We run Dirona like a small apartment with little regard for power consumption, power load or power source. Right now we are moored at St. Katharine Docks in London plugged into 32A/50Hz power. But we run the same way whether we are plugged into 50A/60Hz power in the US or if we were anchored off…
Frequent readers of this blog know we have become very dependent upon satellite communications. In fact, we have three different satellite technologies on board Dirona, as described in Communications at Sea. Here, we complete a quick survey of the satellite systems on Dirona, our experience with them, and why we upgraded to the KVH V7-HTS system four months ago. Our…
When we go to sea in Dirona there are usually only two people on the boat. That means automation and reliability are super important to us, and we want early warning of problems or unusual conditions. Maretron N2kView is a good-value display system that has worked very well for us and allowed us to incrementally expand what…
Our NavNet 3D black box began showing screen anomalies the night before we arrived in Reunion and blue-screened as we neared the dock, reporting an nv4_disp device driver problem. This is an Nvidia device driver–almost certainly we have a hardware problem. NavNet 3D is a Windows XP Embedded device, so we don’t have direct access…
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We live in a connected world and yet, on a boat, connectivity remains a real challenge. Since I work full time while cruising often unpopulated parts of the world, connectivity is particularly challenging. Our approach is a hierarchy of options. Depending upon what is available, the top of the hierarchy is the highest bandwidth and,…
Dirona has a KVH M7 satellite TV system installed. When we left Hawaii, we cancelled our satellite TV subscription with Dish Network and haven’t used the system since. We knew we had some work to do to get the system running outside the US, and it hadn’t been a priority. It also wasn’t even a…
Most autopilots have NAV mode, which essentially asks the pilot to steer to a plotted route rather than just in a specific direction. It’s particularly useful in cross-currents and strong winds, or when travelling longer distances. NAV mode has not worked on our system since day one, and now that we’re doing longer trips it…
We purchased our first digital camera, a Canon PowerShot Pro90 IS, in 2002. Many of our pictures are taken from a boat, with the subject often at a distance. So we wanted a long lens to successfully get those distant shots. Since light conditions in the Pacific Northwest can be poor, and we’d often be…
This year at the Miami Boat Show, Northern Lights announced their new Wavenet generator digital monitoring system. Wavenet was installed on Dirona a couple of months prior to the announcement in Miami to test out the gear on a busy NMEA 2000 network in real boating conditions. I was pretty impressed with Wavenet from the…
When near land, 802.11 is the cheapest and fastest form of communications there is. Around the Pacific North West, BroadBandXpress offers a fast, reliable service. BBXpress has a point of presence in 104 marinas in the area from Portland, Oregon to Sitka, Alaska (coverage map). We spend most of our time at Bell Harbor Marina…