SailorPC, a true PC/MFD hybrid?
... written for Panbo by Ben Ellison and posted on Jun 10, 2010
Bless the Google (and the whole ever-improving info Web)! Minutes after I stumbled on this intriguing SailorPC tucked away on Avia Sail's purchase page, I'd found the manufacturer's product site with the high res promo photo above and downloadable brochure and manual, as well as pr about the "Engineers' Choice Award" it recently won and even what appears to a U.S. semi-wholesale distributor. This thing is very interesting, about as close to a modern multi-function navigation display as I've seen a PC get...
Mind you, we're talking about a device which lacks real marine electronics credentials, let alone sonar or radar options (yet), or a network of dealer/installers. Beyond Avia, that is, but that company is tiny, and owner Grahame Shannon was frank about the fact that he hasn't actually seen a SailorPC yet. But the brochure (or datasheet as IEI puts it, excerpt below) and manual are impressively complete and readable, and I like what I see. Like IP67 waterproof front and back; 1,000 nit touchscreen 12" display (on the SR model); choice of CF card or hard drive storage, and CE 6.0, XP embedded, or Linux operating systems; and even a CANbus input (though I'm sure it would take some work to make that even NMEA 2000 "compatible"). I won't go into the rest of the specs because they're all available at IEI.Come to think of it, there was a pretty nice touchscreen PC/MFD hybrid -- Maptech's i3/SRN series -- but it's gone, and I haven't heard much about its successor, the Faria Maestro, though I understand that it really is on the market (finally). But maybe SailorPC is the right hardware at the right time? Maybe combined with crack nav software, a NMEA 2000 network, and hopefully some good sonar and radar options, this could be an PC/MFD hybrid that has legs?
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Interesting note on the SailorPC specs: Though it's rated for a "9-28VDC" power supply, I've recently learned that that does not mean it will work well on a 24 volt system, because a number of modern 24 volt charging appliances will slightly exceed 28v at times. Which may cause the 9-28vdc device to shut down (story to come). What you want to see for true compatibility with 12 or 24 volt systems is a rating of 9-32vdc.