[antipole]

I have a white plastic MacBook running Lion and MacENC etc. and at home an ageing iMac G5 stuck on Leopard.

I am planning to replace both and want to avoid being split across two machines. I am considering a MacBook with a solid state drive for reasons of speed, reliability with movement at sea and power efficiency. I am drawn to a MacBook Air with a Thunderbolt display at home. I tried this combination out in an Apple Store recently and it was excellent. I had the MacBook Air closed and a separate keyboard and trackpad. I was very impressed.

On board I would like to have a larger screen than my present 13" one. I have been looking at the possibility of a separate monitor. For power considerations I would want to avoid running a mains-powered one through an inverter . Does anyone have experience or suggestions regarding a 12V-powered monitor? The only ones I have located so far are actually 12V TVs and, as well as having lots of unwanted functionality (like tuners and storage for recording), the screen resolution in dots/inch is quite poor - I would just get a coarser enlarged copy of my screen, not more information.

In the absence of a separate monitor I would want to go for at least a 15" MacBook, which rules out an Air model for now. May be a larger screen Air will appear in due course.

Any thoughts, advice or experience would be welcome.

Tony

[fish2live]

There is a whole world of 12V monitors out there, though you may not recognize them as such. In fact, when I figured out this secret I found that most if not all monitors are actually 12V. That could have changed since it has been about 7 or 8 years, but I doubt it.

Some years back I noticed that certain monitors have a power supply brick. The power delivered from the brick to the monitor is 12V. I went shopping for such a monitor to put on a small boat, intending to cut the cord and hook it directly to battery power. I went to a CompUSA and looked at the back of each monitor, then selected one with a brick. The feature was so important that I felt compelled to rip open the box and look at my own monitor before purchasing it. This being a CompUSA, I was being loudly berated for opening the box at the sales counter before I had purchased it. I yelled right back, saying that I was going to be 1000 miles away and there was no way in hell I was paying for it sight unseen. Lo and behold, the monitor in the box did not have a brick! Otherwise identical monitors may have 120VAC or 12VDC power inputs. The greater insight is that most if not all monitors are actually 12VDC at operating voltage. I am still using yet another of those identical monitors on my boat. I am using a Carnetix power supply to give it a steady 12VDC rather than fluctuating boat power. If I need a new monitor and I can't find one with a 12V brick I won't hesitate to find what I want and simply take it apart and bypass the internal power supply (after checking voltage). It's really easy, especially if you are disassembling an LCD screen.

Get yourself the cheapest LCD monitor you can find and take it apart. It should be very easy to trace the incoming 120VAC wires to a small power supply. You can almost certainly unplug that power supply and test outgoing voltage without cutting any wires. If the first monitor surgery goes well, tear into the monitor of your dreams. Good luck.

[Geoff]

Does this mean I could use my small MBAir below and have a monitor at the helm?

Geoff

[antipole]

Geoff...

A monitor at the helm would be tricky. Much better - use an iPad. I have just bought one for that purpose. You can run iNavX fed from MacENC on your MacBook Air below, and, should the Air fail it can do its own thing. You can also use it as a separate screen for your Air.

Tony

[bobetter]

Not sure what would be "tricky" about a monitor in the cockpit. I've had one for years.

http://www.panbo.com/archives/2007/09/co...chpad.html

It's not terribly cheap but it is a fairly straight forward installation, you've just got to run 12v and a signal from whatever machine you want to use as a source down below.

I run my iPad on the boat both as a standalone device running iNavX and as a slave to the MacENC system but rarely if ever in the cockpit as I've had both readability and heat issues with it topside.

There are numerous 12V monitor solutions available now from a variety of manufacturers.