Electronics in the Outback

aaronb · 25-02-2008, 06:38 PM

done a trip to birdsville and back throught the roughest tracks, sat my laptop and gps on the back seat, with an external antenna. Never had a problem, just a little dust as the old patrol leaks a little.

aaronb · 26-02-2008, 06:14 PM

I was gone for 2 weeks, i had a bit of gal sheet for the laptop to sit on, i had the sides bent up 10-15mm so it wouldnt slip off, barely moved with the rubbers under the laptop, plenty of ventilation because it was sitting on a flat surface. Like i said, it was sitting on the back seat the whole trip, it was turned on when I was moving because I was tracking with ozi explorer and saving my tracks daily. Turned off at night, never a problem. Would have done 2000-2500kms of dirt track. Anymore info required just let me know.
Cheers, Azza

BUSHNUT · 28-02-2008, 12:34 PM

If your door seals are in good order and the bodywork instraight order, a goodway to minimise dust getting into your vehicleis to pressurise your vehicle as much as you can by having your windows all the way up and run your aircon on for about 30 seconds even if you are not going to have it running the rest of the time.

If you are going into some serious areas like over dunes everything must be secured down otherwise it becomes a missile .

Happy Trails - Bushnut

aaronb · 16-03-2008, 10:42 AM

Up at Mt Blue Rag last week, heading down the other side to the river, hit a very steep section of the track when the old laptop took a dive from the front seat onto the floor. I thought "shit, there goes 3000 odd photos of the kids and other miscellaneous photos we have taken the past 5 years."
It still fired up when I got to the bottom, but it just goes to show that maybe a back up of files every now and then might be on the agenda.
What does everyone else do, I was thinking maybe an external hard drive to back up the important stuff, or maybe DVD's?

Peter Pritchard · 25-03-2008, 05:43 PM

Need smart ideas in setting up laptop and GPS in my 4B...who does what??

aaronb · 26-03-2008, 08:32 PM

dont sit the laptop on the front seat

MickO · 23-08-2008, 09:54 PM

Had a custom made mount and use a laptop table from Ram mounts with a screen brace. Just done 9,500 km over the roughest terrain and it performed exceptioonally well. No movement at all

billolga · 07-08-2009, 07:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ashmist

Hi All

How do you all go about protecting your laptop & GPS gear from the elements? I can imagine the environment would get pretty harsh in the outback and would wonder how long my laptop would last with heat, dust & vibration.

Carried a Laptop for years (Updated from time to time) Never had a problem - I carry mine on a 55 ltr WATER BLADDER behind our set - It rides BETTER THAN US! - Dust? - WHAT DUST? (We do seem to have a special SUN TAN until it's washed off however).

Grumpy · 07-08-2009, 08:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MickO

Had a custom made mount and use a laptop table from Ram mounts with a screen brace. Just done 9,500 km over the roughest terrain and it performed exceptioonally well. No movement at all

Hi there just wondering how much for the mount for the laptop and where did u get it, CHEERS

bmurray2250 · 08-08-2009, 01:26 PM

I only use the laptop at night so the drive isn't in use while driving. The best way is to have a SSD installed into the laptop instead of the standard spinning disk design if you intend to use it while driving. This will give better reliability. Laptops are designed to be moved but not hammers on poor quality roads.

My laptop has lasted over 5 years on our trips. We use it to copy and burn photos to DVD and GPS plots.