Australian CF-18 GPS install

Hi Guys,

I am the owner of a CF-29 and a CF-18 that I have bought to use primarily in my Humvee as a GPS unit as well as keeping the trucks Tech Manuals on them for field reference.

MY CF-18 is a CF-18KHHQXBA that I bought locally here in Melbourne. So it came with no factory GPS installed.
After lurking on this site for awhile and reading posts on GPS retrofitting, I elected to get an "after market GPS from Vincent at Custom Toughbooks.

The Unit arrived today, so I popped off the rear cover to start the install only to find the GPS mounting location occupied by another board.....

Can one of you more knowledgeable guys tell me this is:


Can I remove it and install the GPS?
What will I loose by removing it?
Will my existing BIOS handle GPS? (GPS is not there as an option when I press F2 on Boot)

Thanks in advance for answering a newbie's question

Cheers

 

not sure what the board is looks almost as if a gps is there, but im a newby to. any way your bios will support gps fine it will show when the board is installed some of these other master's of mod will be able to tell you what that board is. after looking agin im thinking its a mobile card and if it is it should show in your device manager, good luck

-john-

 

That board is your WWAN where the DIY gps from Vicent is also the same location for the installation. If you are not using the WWAN, its no problem but If you do have an OEM bluetooth. You will also loose the BT. If I remember correctly Vincent has a GPS that coexist with that board. You must ask him first before you bought it.

Edit: the coexist one is for cf-19. Sorry! but still you can use those type by changing the cable ribbon coz they have the same pin out. The only difference is the cable ribbon on Cf-18 must be in reverse. But I don't know If the mounting hole for the duaghterboard is the same. Its been a long time since I handed this one.


ohlip

 

Hi ohlip,

The CF-18 board from Vincent does include a USB Bluetooth dongle, so that's OK.
I guess now I've got to figure out if the WWAN is still relevant to me, or whether I simply "bin" it and put in the GPS module.

Any comments?

Cheers
Brad

 

OK, so I bit the bullet and removed the WWAN.
I've installed the GPS antenna and card, closed up the unit and rebooted it.
I went into Bios and GPS was there (phew) and it is set to [AUTO].
I continued the boot sequence the USB Bluetooth was detected and drivers auto installed. So the card is connected OK.

BUT.... I can't find the GPS.
I still only have COM1 and COM2. I was expecting to now see a COM5 available.
WinFast Navigator can't find anything, nor MiniGPS, nor VisualGPS.
The card I have has a 66 channel Mediatek MT3329 engine and Quectel L10 GPS chip on it.
(I'm thinking I should have got the Ublock one now...)

Am I missing some drivers here?

Any help/guidance would be appreciated

Cheers

Brad

 

Instead of AUTO try setting the GPS Bios to ON and see what that does.

Jason

 

WHAT?!?!? They let you have a HumVee in Australia? I thought you were like required by law to drive a Range Rover down there... preferably converted to run on Vegemite.

mnem
Vegemite: Neither animal nor vegetable.

 

Nope, we don't all drive British cars here!

Here's a pic of the old girl:



She's a Gulf War 1 veteran that was left behind in a junk yard after the war.

I did have to convert it to Right Hand Drive though.

Now if I can just get the CF-18 mounted in the truck like this and the GPS running I'll be happy.



Cheers

Brad

 

Hey Brad,
Nice ride -- particularly the Ma-Duce on top! Last I heard Australia wouldn't trust its citizens with rifles or pistols. How did you rate the .50 cal???
Brian

 

I've got to start shopping the boneyards you shop in! I've been wishing for exactly what you have there since before the Governator! My dream weekend beast!

Suh-Weet!

mnem
Pretty is as pretty does.

 

Hi Brian,

I made the Ma Deuce from a block of Oregon timber, some aluminium sheet and PVC plumbing pipe! I think it came up pretty good
It was used in a movie shoot down here so it was good enough for them.


But you are right, we aren't allowed to have fully auto or semi auto long guns and the barriers to own a semi auto hand gun are formidable...

I do all my shooting on my frequent visits to the US

Mnem, there are always project Humvee's for sale in the US if you know where to look. A "fixer-upper" will run to about $7k and a good runner about $25k. Some of the rare armoured variants with low miles can be over $100k!

Cheers

 

But we digress...

Does anyone have any ideas about getting my GPS on line?

Cheers

 

Yeah, I know... what chaps my scales is the salvage contractors picking up literally trainloads of them for the price of scrap; same as the thousands of Corsairs they hauled out of the Nevada desert when I was a kid. I missed out on one Humvee that needed wheels to be towable for $1000 by hours when I was still living near Romulus, I still wish I'd just headed out instead of waiting til I could get my buddy's rolloff to pick it up.

Nice job on the .50 cal; of course here in the States they'd make you put the fluorescent orange clown's nose on it or probably impound yer vehicle.

mnem
Wheels? We donn' need no steenkeeng wheels...

 

Hi Guys,

I just received this email from Vincent at custom-toughbooks:

Hi,

We have recently become aware that the Mediatek version of our GPS board for the CF-18 is not compatible with all BIOS versions of the mk 4 & mk 5 CF-18's.

It will work fine in all mk 1, mk 2, & mk 3 CF-18.
Our Ublox 5 version of the CF-18 GPS will work in all mk's..

You have a mk4 CF-18, right?
And you purchased the MT3329 based GPS board for your CF-18 from us.

We will send you a replacement Ublox 5 version for you to try instead.

The antenna and all other parts are the same, so we are sending the board only.
Once you have received and installed it, and verified it works, please return the MT3329 board to us.

We apologize for any inconvenience inflicted upon you.


Thank you!

So hopefully, my issue will be resolved soon!

Cheers

Brad