S/V Deep Playa - Pearson 424

I read A LOT of news sites a lot of them technology related and via that I stumbled on the Shuttle PC X50 V2 All-In-One which recently came out. This is an Intel D510 Dual Core which is the next generation ATOM processors used in all those low power netbooks. It also happens to be just as powerful as the 14” laptop I use now (but which has a cracked screen) but the X50 can have 4GB of RAM and my laptop only 2GB. Basically its MORE than powerful enough to not only meet my navigational needs, but at 40W I’m not sure I could find a separate PC and touch screen Monitor to run more efficiently than it either. The SC/DC brick it uses outputs 19v @2.1A so I’ll need a DC regulator to take my 12V system and step it up to the 19V. I’m currently looking at the Carnetix CNX-P1900 PSU to do this. I have a question in to the Carnetix forum to make sure I’m understanding everything correctly. The P1900 can handle up to 140W and I only need 40W so maybe I could go with a better choice, not sure yet.

Another cool thing about the P1900 is it has two additional outputs one 12v and the other 5v. The 5v can be used to provide power to a USB HUB if I need that. The other 12v could be used to power an additional monitor or maybe an external storage drive in the future.

Here’s a quick step by step on how to use the Maretron field installable connectors. These are useful when you want to run a wire in a mast or through the deck and you don’t want to use a bulkhead fitting but you’d rather use something like a Blue Sea cable clam. There are NO instructions with these fittings so I hope you find this useful.

Here’s a shot of the disassembled connector and the raw end of the bulk wire. The white fitting and it’s rubber gasket give this fitting a snug water resistant (proof?) fit.

This is a shot of the little tiny holes and screws you’re going to be using to attach the wires to the connector. Everything it very well designed; the color coding makes this a snap. Note that the blue connection is stands approximately 1/4” proud of the other fittings.

You need to strip back the outer insulation and the foil around the wires. The blue wire should be a bit shorter than the others since it doesn’t have to reach as far as the other wires.

Here’s a shot with all of the wires attached to the connector.

Notice in the that previous picture none of these other pieces are visible. they all need to be placed on the wire BEFORE you spend 10 minutes getting the wires attached and all the screws tightened. If you’re lucky and you don’t have a connector on the other end, you can slide them all the way along the wire like I did. DOH!

I started by tightening the body to the very end of the connector (the left side in this pic). I then worked on the final end fitting where the wire extends out. When you got to tighten everything up it will be a tad difficult to get the end fitting to tighten against the white cone and rubber bushing. I used the small screw driver to work the cone down as far as a I could. be careful, you can break the cone if you push too hard. You will figure it out though. I then used a Knipex Pliers Wrenches (which I LOVE but a crescent wrench would work) to hold the connector body while I bottomed all of the threads.

It’s obviously a lot easier to work with the factory installed connectors but where necessary the field installable connectors are pretty easy to work with and they look solid to me.

Here’s a shot of the Signet System 4000 instruments package which I finally removed. I can’t find anything out about this on the internet. The big black box was mounted on the electrical panel, the remaining hole is approximately 12”x8”! Did I mention the “display” feature on this 12”x8” are those four red single digit displays (about 1”x2”). At one time there were depth, wind and knot meters. When I purchased the boat only the wind and knot meters were operational. I pulled out all of the wiring and the head unit. I also think at some point there was a pedestal mounted display of some kind because I also pulled a wire labeled display out from under the cockpit that ran up into the pedestal.

I’m going to jury rig the Maretron DSM250 into that huge hole and at some point replace the entire wood panel holding all of the electrical and electronics.

There’s a shot of my Maretron DSM250 (in red on block mode) displaying data from my NMEA 200 network I finished roughing in last night (or I guess this morning) about 0200. I’m calling it a rough-in because I still need to go back and secure all the wiring, mount the display and the GPS, etc. but I was to plug it all together, fire it up and it worked right out of the gate!

Here’s a shot of the a “T” installed showing the backbone in blue and the drop cable in grey. The black fitting is a field installed fitting whereas the other two are factory pre-installed fittings. The field installable connector has some pretty small screws and was a tad tricky to line everything up, but that is probably due to my large meat hooks. I was able to do it just fine. The waterproof fitting that goes over it all was very tight and I’m sure it has a great seal.

right now I have the following in my system:

• Color Display DSM250
• Weather Station WSO100
• Compass SSC200 (installed)
• GPS Antenna GPS200

I plan to add a depth\speed\temperature gauge to replace my Standard Horizon DS50 depth only unit, but I’m waiting for Airmar’s DST900 to come out (it’s a year late according to rumor) which has the D/S/T and no moving parts! That will be awesome! For now, I’m going to Magruber the DS50 onto the network and maybe if that works fine I’ll just live with that (hurry up Airmar!). We also want to add a rudder angle indicator. I just haven’t gotten to that yet.

Tonight I’ll secure all the wiring and figure out where the GPS will be placed.

I’ve mostly been working on the rigging lately, but tonight I’m thinking about the NEMA 2000 powertap installation. The Maretron powertap looks like a normal NMEA 2000 T but it has MID\Micro cord coming out of T which you wire up to the DC power system in your boat along with a 4amp fuse (See yellow powertap in the picture). Maretron has a good knowledgebase article on how to do the install but in summary you wire a couple of wires to the 4amp fuse and DC +and the rest to DC –.

I have some other DC wiring I need to clean up that is wired directly off the batteries with no fuses and I don’t want to use a bunch of inline fuses, so I’m going to use a Blue Sea Fuse Block to fuse all these individual items, but do so in a way where I have a single spot to do troubleshooting and add-on future circuits.

I’m hoping to pick up the fuse block tomorrow so I can put in the T which is the first step to getting my NMEA2000 instruments online.