Adding Aftermarket Internal GPS to the CF-28

i flipped the switches (they were all messed up. now the bios says gps !!! i will let you know. I set the gps to Auto.

 

caddy
Thanks the utility from global sat Now says gps reciever on com 4!! now comes the fun part. I wish i had an antenna to try

 

To quote Toughbook

"bada bing bada boom" I literally had to hold the laptop upside-down with the battery cover and battery out to get a fix but its working!!!

Thank you all very much!!
I just hope i can pass along help to you all as you have done for me. Now i can get dinner started for the wife!! She was getting takeout but I have an hour to make somthing nice now that I can put this to bed for a bit LOL

 

Did you order one of the antennas that we are using?

 

Modly
I called the preferd vendor in TX spoke to him, he had me soo scared of melting the antenna by poorly soldering it that i asked to have the cable put on for me, well the price was Soo steep that i held off untill I got this far. Now that I know that the gps works within the laptop I will either order the antenna with the wire or do it myself.

 

Geek

I still need to order myself an antenna and have not decided if I want to spend the extra $$ on the rugged one or not.
Anyway I could order an extra and solder and test it for you at no charge if this would help.

PM me and we can work out the details.
Jim

 

radiogeek... Don't worry about the soldering.. Tis EASY! Just tin the ground pad first... Let it cool. Then tin the center for the signal... Then let it cool. Then tin your wires. Then solder them all together. The braided part goes to the ground and the center conductor goes to the center of the antenna. Just MAKE SURE that you don't keep the soldering iron on the antenna longer than 1 second longer than it takes to melt the solder... And you'll do fine! Where people screw up is that they hold the soldering iron on the pad so long it heats up the PCB and the parts inside float off their spots. Just make sure that you cool it as quickly as you can after you solder... Just blow on it a little and you're set!

I have spent the past 2 hours trying to hook up to the mobo directly... No joy so far. I am still waiting for my soldering station so in the meantime I put one of my old soldering iron tips into my metal lathe and turned it down to a pinpoint. Then using a jewelers loupe I soldered all the leads per the posted pinout by Stan. I used 10k resistors on both power leads and didn't use any caps. I'm not sure if I have a cold solder joint somewhere... I'm getting ready to pull out the multimeter and have a look. I really wanted to get it working sans the daughterboard.

Actually... I think I'll have a Jack Daniels and let it go for a while...

I'll keep you posted.

 

I just got my new soldering iron today. No sign of the CF-50 that was supposed to arrive at my door step... (FedEx... you suck. It's been in Ohio for two days!!! Estimated delivery still hasn't changed and it just "left" some place 7 hours away)...

I did just win two keyboards on eBay.. the backlit rubber ones. I'm not sure if I'll like them or not, but it'll make my 600 worth more, and my 800 needs something because it's annoying with my A-S-Z problem.

Either way, I'll shut up, and let my soldering iron warm up.

 

Toughbook, try it without no caps or resistors. If your putting some in they should be around 1k and on the on/off (not the power) and on the tx and rx.
The 10k on the power line will be killing everything, its only letting through around 0.0005 amps, it will need around 0.075 amps. A 50ohm will let it have 0.1 amps, should be enough to allow for peaks on startup.
cheers

 

Hey guys.. I'm gonna call globalsat tomorrow and place my order. Can't wait any longer! So far I'm ordering the following:

1: me
2: ohlip
1: scared1

I'm not sure I'll get any discount at all for 4 pieces, but it can't hurt to ask! If anyone else wants to get in on this, I might have a little more negotiating power.

 

Hey Gravitar. I posted earlier in the thread about one for me as well. I suppose you didn't see that. Let me know what you need me to do.

 

Stan... Thanks for the heads up... I'll try it in a little while and let you know!

 

To much on the brain, it keeps re-setting to 5v. That should have been 33ohm for a resistor on the power line, 50 will only give it 0.066 amps and it might not start up at that. 1k is still fine for the tx, rx and on/off though. 3.3v, I'll write it on the back of my hand
sorry 'bout that.

 

Made the changes... It's booting up.... Uninstalling the Com Ports... And.... No dice still... I have a few things to check..

 

Sorry 'bout that. We're up to 5!

 

Make it 6 Gravitar. Im a little leary to hook it up as I am not as near technical as you guys (Don't even own a soldering iron) but I will get it hooked up eventually so if it helps in the quantity discount, might as well get the unit now.

~Paul

 

Well... I took out all resistors, deleted Com Ports, checked for continuity (good)... Still no dice. I'm thinking the wiring isn't going to the right pins.

I show GPS in the BIOS but that is because pin 37 is grounded. Correct?

EDIT And I am gettine 3.3V at pins 1 & 5...

 

I used 30 Gauge, single conductor wire for the hookups.... That can't be it can it? I would think it would be good enough for this application.

 

I'll try this again when I get my soldering station. I was playing around with the wires and two of them came off. I think it may be a bad solder joint. I'll post again when I know for sure.

 

Thanks man! I highly appreciated, I just finished my dummy cf-m34 with gps internally and now on ebay. I listed that without gps 4 days ago and now i revised it with only 30hrs. left with gps. I don't know whats gonna happen. Lets see!!



Note: i gonna send you an email for a cost, Thanks



Well! no luck doesn't work, not sold; maybe i need more notebook makeover.





Listed again: Sold right away.

 

Ok just a thought for you guys.

If we buy these – 18.98 http://www.mobilegpsonline.com/mgpsstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=417

And use these ends – 5 each for $10.00 http://www.mobilegpsonline.com/mgps...ducts_id=576:7a159d92cb1154e7173cb7e3de70d520

Then we could use one of these for just the cable - (16 feet) for $12.98 http://www.mobilegpsonline.com/mgpsstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=444

After shipping that would make eight antennas for about $30.00 each give or take.

I hear Jim Gray wants $84.00 for the antenna and a 24" pigtail with the mmcx connector all put together and tested.
I’ll just buy the Jim Gray antenna and most likely buy the heavy duty one that he still doesn’t have yet but I would help with this other option if needed or you guys could just have them shipped to who ever has the coolest new soldering station to make them up and divide them out from there.

Anyway I know a few of you are trying to save a few bucks or trying to provide a service and fix these up for resale and this might be a good option for you.
I did talk to Mobile GPS online about this and although English is not their first language they where very helpful and had all items in stock.

 

I will probably try the antenna you showed the link for when I run out of Jim Gray antennas. I just bought 5 of them. I'm not sure if the cable on the one antenna is thin enough for what we need. It really should be pretty small to fit into the LCD bezel... But would be worth a try!

Good find!

 

Is the thin type of cable we want to use RG-174? If not is there a standardized name/size.

 

yeah, RG-174 is what we're looking for.

 

The guy I talked to said he thought the model I listed had RG-174 cable but I would reconfirm before you order.

 

Cable isn't to hard to find, the mmcx connectors are a pain though.
EDIT. Doh..cheers for the link caddy, 5 for 10 is just what I needed
Toughbook, yes, power to 1 (on/off) and 5 (power) and cn18 (37) to earth to turn on the port.
I should have a quick way of prototyping PCB's in around a month, making up a breakout board for cn18 and cn40 will be the first job
Couldn't find the ribbon cable on radioshack's site but radiospares and farnell have it:
http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/search/br...Ntt=50+way+0.5mm+ribbon&Ntx=&_requestid=92107
Just in case anyone is dropping into this thread here, ignore me. I'm rambling on about something else entirely that may be a danger to the health of your toughbook. Go back around 5 pages and read Cadillac's instructions on wiring up the gps unit to the daughterboard.
Putting my comments on this thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=2739298#post2739298
to avoid causing any more confusion.
cheers

 

Yea, Jim Gray sent me a quote for $80 plus $15 for the pigtail. I don’t think so.

Just a heads up, make sure that you all dremel out enough space for the antenna. I was off just a bit and when I screwed on the top cover I heard a crack and that is exactly what it was. I had cracked the upper left hand corner of my screen. Son of a B!#$%! Good thing I have quite a few extra in the bone yard.

Regards,

Robert

 

I did a lot of fitting when I did my second one. I used the stock RIM location. It was MUCH easier. Not that much to Dremel away. I knew it was going to be a tight fit but I was able to slide the antenna into place and it fits perfectly. I figure this way... I can use the stock plastic plug, trimmed to shape to fill the extra space needed. I've been doing that with my LCD mounted antennas and it looks like a stock install.

 

Pics...........???

 

toughbook
since the gps on the second machine uses the rim location, what are you doing for a wifi ant on that machine? Side mount?
To jump on caddys request Pics would be great, I have my wifi where the rim ant was (looks stock) and I was planning on using the opposite corner and dremmeling the lid for the gps.

 

The GPS fits in SOOOO neatly in the RIM location with minimal drilling and dremeling. I am using two different antennas on the Toughbook this go-around. One is a regular laptop antenna mounted on the side. (Pics will need to be shown to explain what I mean... I'll post tomorrow.) And the other one is a bulkhead mounted SMA right beside the antenna. The last time I tried this combo it worked VERY well. It just that the GPS didn't work when I plugged it in. I have company this weekend so it will be hard for me to break away to work on it this weekend but I should be able to get to it and take pics tomorrow afternoon.

 

As I posted before the wi-fi antena can be mounted to the top side of lcd where it can be hided beneath the the plastic covering.But you need a bet of filling.And as per your guys advice the patch antena can't be mounted on that area,it must be face up. You can find an antena with a small pcb board at the other end with a size of 1.5cmLx0.5cmWx1mmThick. Your only problem here is when the lcd is open the signal at the front side is block by magnesium alloy but the back side where the best signal you can get.The solution is: why don't you face where the signal strenght commin case to case basis, right?

 

I'm new to all this. I have been reading all the pages. Do you think that you could post pictures to everthing that was done.
I copied the pictures that cadalac posted. Notebook, could you post pictures on what you did starting from the wiring and card thru antenna?
All the posting were great

 

Toughbook I apolgise for making a mistake and calling you notebook.I am just so overwhelmed by all the info. Sorry.

 

I would post pictures of mine, but my camera is fuzzier than my teddy bear that I had when I was 2. If I try to focus in on stuff, it is impossible to see what is happening. You might make out that there is a toughbook, but everything else is out of the question.

If you look through this thread carefully, you'll find the necessary pictures to install a module, and solder the antenna leads.

 

That's why they have the "edit" button!

I'll take pics in the next few days...

 

no need to apologize, that was pretty funny

 

You made a mistake again, its cadillac not cadalac, hehe!!

 

At least you didn’t call him Inspiron………….:laugh:

Mr. Cadalac to you.

 

I accept all criticism for my spelling. Never strong on that point.

 

No problem Snaglepop! Welcome and let me know if I can help you with your project

 

This is a bit off topic but I'm new here and just read through this entire thread; it seems like I've been missing out on a lot of fun--Let's see what kind of catch-up I can do...

...By the way you guys were uber helpful with the drive issue I had earlier (had to throw that in there, might be the bacardi talking)

 

thats the good thing here on the forum sometimes were having fun and at the same time you've learned.

 

Fellas
since getting my gps module working I have been going crazy to get an antenna to try it out, for some reason jim gay cant process my card~ so i have been nearly 2 weeks waiting!! Well wait no more i was at a local Circuit City doing xmas shoping and I ran across a mag mount antenna by garmin for $32.00 it was about 1.75" square and about .5" high it had the wrong connector on it but i figured i could make it work to test.
http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Garmin-Low-Profile-Remote-Antenna-GA25MCX/sem/rpsm/oid/151589/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do
I took it home cut off the mmcx connector from the "blue rim modem coax" ( i wont ever need it) and solderd that connector to the garmin antenna. To attach it for my test I removed the side cover opposite the rj45 fax modem bay and snaked the wire thru. As much as i tryied looking online about the need to ground this antenna i could not find much, so what i did was get a piece of metal about 1.75" square and place it on the antenna and then tested it out with grounding it to the chasis and without and I could see a visible improvement when it was grounded so thats what i did.
For my test I hot glued (sparingly) the piece of metal to the outside of the 28 where the side cover would be. I solderd a small wire from the plate i made and the other end i attached to a chasis ground. For the test I coiled up the 8' of wire and taped it to the side. I drove around for 8 hours last night at work in downtown boston and i had an average lock of 7 out of 10 satelites with good signal streignth. I am sure the jim gray antenna would work better, but how much would we really need ? The mounting of this type of unit While not as "stock looking" as a rim antenna may work for those of us who may not want to rip appart their units grind and mount one of the geohelix antennas. I am still on the fence about getting the rim antenna I plan on keeping this laptop and i dont think the way it looks is all that bad, but I always want it to work better
For thise of you using the rim antennas inside a vehicle what are you getting for average satelites and streignths driving around. on a side note I took the antenna appart and it looks like the exact antenna that is stock mounted to the em408 but with circuitry atttached.

 

What you could do for a cleaner look it to get a MMCX to SMA bulkhead connector and run it to the side of the laptop. Then you could have a much cleaner look.

The antenna from Jim Gray is an active (powered) one. I'm not sure what your is as the description doesn't really say whether it is passive or active. (Sounds like passive)

Hey... A lock is a lock. If it works... Go for it. I would want the stock look for several reasons. The most important is to maintain the portability of the laptop. I want to try to keep everything in one package so I can grab and go if needed.

If we could get the part number for the bumped out side piece that the stock Panasonic CF-28 uses we could then use an internal antenna and not have to worry about running wires. However... I have found that unless you give Heartlndsi.com the exact model number and part number that they can't do much for you. Though they will try to track some part numbers down.

The active antenna we are using is grounded. I haven't soldered a ground from the antenna to the case but it is grounded via the antenna lead and the GPS engine is grounded.

Glad yo hear that you have it working.

I resoldered my wiring and got my second one working great.

 

Toughbook:

That using the daughterboard?
cheers

 

I looked my plastic bump over and I didn't see a mold number on it anything that would help identify it. Maybe I'll get sent back over to the Ford plant over by heartlands sometime soon and I'll be able to physically walk it in and show it to someone.

 

Toughbook
The thing must be powerd because on the back it gives me a working voltage of 2.5-6vdc. The antenna seemed to work better with the ground attached by my non scientific test. I think i can still use a mobile mount with this small bump-out. I will try it for a few days and will probably put it on the rim anyway LOL

 

I found this while searching for antennas. It seems like it might provide a more streamlined install if there is enough room. I have used this chipset SiRF Star III in a GlobalSat BT-338 Bluetooth version for two years now and found it to be reliable in thick foliage as well as tall buildings. It can be in my pocket and it works well inside a building. Here is a link
http://www.spkecl.com/detail/65425/65425.html

 

Yup... Using the daughterboard. I need more of them now!

Randy... Using that antenna... There would be too many wires running back to the motherboard. IMHO...