Laptop Mounting

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Alaskan Sea-Duction

Alaskan Sea-Duction

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Just bought a laptop for my bridge. I need a mount it. What would you all recommend? I am thinking a GPS antenna from Best Buy?
 
I have always just placed the laptop on a piece of non-skid if you have the room.

As far as a GPS, if you are running Coastal Explorer, I'd recommend you use the GPS sold by Rosepoint, the maker of Coastal Explorer. I've some issues with other GPS's like the Microsoft one.
 
For my bridge iPad I started out with a Rammount arm with a Rammount suction base. The base sucked in that it did not suck enough :D (kept losing suction and would topple over due to weight of iPad). I replaced that base with a Seasucker mount. It strongly sucks (in the best sense). Should work okay with a laptop on a Rammount. Infinitely adjustable and removable.
 
At the beginning of the year I got a new laptop. Because I run a charting program, I bought a laptop that has a 18" (corner to corner diagonal) screen. This is quite a lot larger than the old one, so I had to consider redoing the mounting position. I eventually settled on placing the laptop exactly where the old one sat, on a rubber placemat stolen from the galley. It overhangs the companionway to the galley on one side and the chart table on the other, but it doesn't move in a seaway. The large screen is great. My old Garmin GPS 128 plugs into it through a serial to USB adapter and everything works well.
 
If you have room,.... I simply have a non skid mat under mine, and it stays put even in rough weather. The issue/challenge is having sufficient flat surface to place it on.

Cheers Chris D Liberty Australia
 
dwhatty said:
For my bridge iPad I started out with a Rammount arm with a Rammount suction base. The base sucked in that it did not suck enough :D (kept losing suction and would topple over due to weight of iPad). I replaced that base with a Seasucker mount. It strongly sucks (in the best sense). Should work okay with a laptop on a Rammount. Infinitely adjustable and removable.
Click to expand...
Great tip, I was just about to buy a Ram mount for my IPAD with the suction fitting. Did the rest of the ram mount work with your Seasucker?
 
Self-adhesive velcro works for me
 
Good ideas. I am placing it where the old Ratheon Radar was. This area is a little slanted, so a piece of teak at the bottom and some Velcro sounds like the way to go.


I plan to use Active Captain for planning and transferring route to the MFDs.


I went to Best Buy looking for a GPS antenna with a USB. Nope they didn't have it. What would you all recommend?


Is the antenna the only thing I need (plug and play) or is there a special computer board that needs to be installed?
 
just the usb antenna is all you need
 
Have you taken the laptop up there on a sunny day? And moved the boat around a bit, or the orientation of the laptop to the sunshine, and relative to the helm position you will view it from? The value I found in having a RAM mount was the ability to adjust the screen based on conditions. In my case "the screen" was a 19" matte finish monitor (hooked to a Furuno Black Box system), which though only 300 nits worked great given the ability to adjust. I found my MacBooks virtually useless up there due to the glossy screens regardless of light conditions or angle.
 
Last edited:
caltexflanc said:
Have you taken the laptop up there on a sunny day? And moved the boat around a bit, or the orientation of the laptop to the sunshine, and relative to the helm position you will view it from? The value I found in having a RAM mount was the ability to adjust the screen based on conditions. In my case "the screen" was a 19" matte finish monitor (hooked to a Furuno Black Box system), which though only 300 nits worked great given the ability to adjust. I found my MacBooks virtually useless up there due to the glossy screens regardless of light conditions or angle.
Click to expand...

Good point....
 
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