2020 Was A Slow Year

As with a lot of people 2020 gave us time to sit back and reflect.

How could we make Rockit better and more importantly easier to use ?

What about if we packaged the whole thing into a neat little box with a screen, loaded the software onto the box and just sold the box. People would just buy the box connect it to their boats network and away they would go collecting data left right and centre.

In the immortal words of a certain TV Presenter “How hard can it be ?”

After much back and forth and a lot of discarded 3D prints we arrived at the gadget that appears on these pages.

We should have given it a better name but Rockit Server Device has stuck (plus its all over these web pages now)

What Does A Rockit Server do exactly?

To put it simply we created a rugged computing device that can be used as the platform for the data collection service.

The device acts as a control head allowing the user to configure/start/stop collection of data and review the basic information being collected. The device runs a cut down subset of the Rockit functionality on a reduced screen real estate.

It can also be connected to via the full Desktop version of Rockit. So you can run the Rockit Analytics on a separate laptop with a full size screen connecting over WiFi to the Rockit Server Device.

We have been testing these devices for the last 2 years on Jengu our test boat.

The ability to start recording by hitting a big green button on the touchscreen was a bit of a revelation.

A very early prototype ….

Case

Lightweight black plastic case.

With a metal frame for attachment … though all our test units ended up stuck to bulk heads with Velcro….. we will put a Velcro strip in the box.

Build on demand model uses a 3D printed case that utilises Nylon with carbon fibre reinforcement. So its lightweight and relatively robust.

Operating System

Rasperberry Pi OS aka Raspberrian Linux

The operating system is open so end users can add their own additional software to the device. For instance Open CPN.

Display

7-inch Touchscreen Display

Screen Dimensions: 194mm x 110mm

Viewable screen size: 155mm x 86mm

Screen Resolution 800 x 480 pixels

10 finger capacitive touch.

CPU and Memory

Raspberry Pi 4B CPU with 4GByte RAM.

For additional cost we can build with a Raspberry Pi 4B 8GByte CPU.

Broadcom BCM2711, Quad core Cortex-A72 (ARM v8) 64-bit SoC @ 1.5GHz

4GB or 8GB LPDDR4-3200 SDRAM

Storage Capacity

32 Gyte Micro SD Card Memory internally.

The cases are sealed to keep the water out so the SD card is not accessible

Network

Wifi and Bluetooth network enabled

2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz IEEE 802.11ac wireless, Bluetooth 5.0

Ports

2x USB Port (can be switched for 1x USB plus 1x HDMI at additional cost)

Power Requirement

12-volt DC connection to the boats network

12-volt DC power supply

The units are supplied with two means of powering. The unit has a waterproof 12v power connector. That in turn can either be connected to a standard mains power adapter12V DC or the boats 12V DC supply using the drop cable supplied with the device.

Pointing Device

Supplied with Logitech Bluetooth Trackball Mouse

This connects to the Logitech Bluetooth Unifying receiver installed internally within the case

Connection To NMEA

Device connects to the NMEA 2000 network on the boat either via Wifi or USB port.

We currently support the following connections;

Actisense N2K - Wifi - NMEA 2000 and 0183

Actisense NGW - USB - NMEA 0183

Actisense NGX - USB - NMEA 2000 and 0183 (device is yet to be released so this has not completed our testing cycle)

Yacht Devices USB Gateway - USB - NMEA 2000 and 0183

Marine Standards Applied

Self certified to IP 65; IP65 rating means that the enclosure can only provide protection against low pressure (6.3mm) water jets. Protected from total dust ingress. Protected from low-pressure water jets from any direction.

Self certified EMC Tested to EN 60945. We have been to the lab and tested the units so we believe they will comply with EN 60945