CF-28: How to retrofit a factory GPS kit?

Hi. My first post. I've looked in the FAQ's and done lots of searches on this site
for factory GPS installation information for the C-28. I can see an ocean of aftermarket stuff (which I will probably end up using anyway). Apologies if I've missed something obvious, but has anyone got an install guide for the board + antennae? Can anyone help/advise? Judging by the parts in front of me it doesn't look like a major job, but some guidance would be greatly appreciated.

 

I think the reason you'll find all the info about the aftermarket GPS, is because the factory GPS is inferior to it. If you're going to do all the work, you may as well end up with a better product. Why do you want to go with the factory unit?

 

Addisand,
I bought a factory gps unit from a member here who was kind enough to send me a whole slew of picture of the unit as installed, and throughout the removal process. If you'd like to 'pm me with you e-mail address I'd be happy to forward those photo's to you.

 

The stock GPS is pretty easy if you really want to go that route, and have all the pieces.

You connect the 50-pin ribbon cable to the motherboard, screw it down to the Toughbook case with 4 screws, and remove the blank side panel with the two screws that hold it in. If the antenna is already inside the plastic housing, you slide the cable in the opening on top of the GPS board, slide the plastic housing into place, and screw it down. Connect the cable's H.fl connector to the location on top of the GPS engine.

Make sure the #4 dip switch is set to on.

That should do the trick.

I highly suggest an aftermarket engine though...

 

Thanks for everyone's help. You guys are fast! In the first instance I'll have a go at putting the factory one in there, then no doubt I'll replace it shortly afterwards with the aftermarket one.

 

On the plus side, if you have the factory one, you've got the majority of the parts you'll need for our current aftermarket setup.

 

Thanks for your advice everyone. Installed it exactly as Modly described and it worked straight away in under 10 minutes. It was very easy to do. I fired it up and only managed to receive 3 satellites after about 5 minutes .... so I've now bought a new, more sensitive engine (EM408S, which has an MMCX style connector, It looks similar to the stock connector, but no doubt it won't fit) for about 33GBP. The aftermarket thread is excellent, and I can now see why it's so popular!

I do have one question though. What's the stock antennae like compared to the other 'experiments' you guys were doing? I'm hoping the answer is something like 'it is only a little bit better' (I'm guessing the stock antennae is rare), rather than 'you should bin the stock antennae' .... ?

 

Well, since the stock antenna does not work with the EM-408 (different connector, not worth it to crimp a new one on I don't think), we use different antennas. The active power antennas (Sarantel) work great, but a few people have tried out small square antennas with success inside the stock GPS hump.

That's just my dime, so spend it however you want. But by all means, try something else if you'd like, because it may end up being the best thing we have. Nothing is perfect.

 

I used this active patch antenna in a CF-28 in the stock location. (Dremeling required!) http://www.usglobalsat.com/p-250-at-65-portable-active-mmcx.aspx

The performance was okay... MUCH better than stock but not quite as good as the Sarantel antenna. You will need to shorten the cable and solder on a new MMCX connector... I'm not sure a splice would hack it here.

I was getting 6-7 satellites outside with avg signal and 3-4 inside... Barely....

 

I think Ohlip ran dual patch antennas, after dremeling out the metal above the GPS board (and mounting his EM-408 upside down), and got some fair results, but the end result was that passive antennas just don't cut the cake when your case is made out of magnesium.

 

I agree.... You MUST have an active antenna for any GPS to work well in the Toughbook. The patch antenna I linked was an active patch antenna that gave pretty good results in the stock bump-out location.

Now... If I could only find some bump-outs!

 

Hi. My engine has arrived. I'm going to splice the cable and solder up an mmcx with the stock antennae first (I happen to have a 12W miniature soldering iron with a 0.5mm and an eye glass, so I'll try that first). I've also ordered a patch (because it was very cheap, only it has a few metres of cable) and may end up dremeling the bump. I'll keep you informed. I'm keen on finding out if this can be done at all. Incidentally I was trying to find mmcx (male) to u.fl (female) connectors (well, pigtails,if you know what I mean). I've seen combinations of u.fl style (eg u.fl and ipax) with with other connectors, but firstly you get a least a 2db loss, and secondly there is a lack of combinations to make it work, at least in the UK (London) where I live.

 

Hi,

Well, I've finally ended doing it the way you all suggested in the first place, and it works perfect!

I've got a 'stock' gps (with the bump), took out the patch antennae in there and replaced it with a (somewhat larger) holux patch antennae (10GBP). I had to splice the cable because it was about 6ft long. I then resoldered it (it was rather easy to do) significantly shorter than before, using heat shrink to keep it all neat. I then wrapped the connection itself with a bit of bacofoil to minimise interference for that section, and cased it in a tiny bit of duck tape (yes, I know that sounds weird, but trial and error showed it worked). The wiring diagram was perfect (thanks to caddy, toughbook and co for that).

... so there you have it. I don't seem to be able to pick up satellites indoors, but I live in a house with very thick brick walls (up to a meter thick in places). Outside I pick up about 8 satellites almost straight away. My 'memory map' software got a lock almost straight away. Hurray!

As for the 'bump', a new patch antennae seems to fit in there absolutely fine. I hollowed out the bump (it's simply a piece of what appears to be ABS plastic) and shoved the patch in there with a sticky pad. even though about 25% of it is occluded I still get very good reception, nearly as good as if it is in the open. Has anyone considered taking a moulding of the bump and cnc'ing or making an epoxy (or equivalent) version? I appreciate the tricky bit is really the acquisition of the RIM/daughter/gps board, but that bump doesn't look too hard to fabricate.

... and now that 800x600 touchscreen is looking rather dim. Any hints on 'freshening' one of those up?

Thankyou to everyone for being so supportive. I would never had embarked on this journey without the information from this forum. ... And yes, the stock GPS isn't very good!

 

We have wanted to make one, but none of us work in plastic injection or CNC shops (I work in a machine shop with all manual tools, and it would take hours to make each one).

I think that is the hardest part of the whole thing is to get a lump on the side...

 

what is this bump? I work for a plastics fabircator. I have acess to vacuum-forming and CNC routers. I have 20 year experience in a 37 year old company. Give me some details.

 

Some bad photos, but these are what it looks like when it's screwed to the Toughbook.

I'll see if one of us has a spare bump to send over to you to see what you can do!

 

Will that be on all Gps models? Do people prefer this to the antenna on top?

 

Well, the LCD mounted antenna is stronger (It's hard to mount a good active antenna in the lump), but the lump allows us to have a more rugged computer.

 

I have had very good results with a GPS Global 33 Blue Tooth unit. I love it. I have two, one in my work SUV and one mounted in the Jeep over the rollbar but inside the top. It works within 50 feet of the BT. I know that I'll get alot of TB puriset who want GPS internally but BT works great, uses less power(laptop) and cost very little.

Modly I'd be glad to look at the "bump" however i would need to have several folks want to pursue this to justify the time to design and build the tool. Is there a better way to do this than just reproduce the old one?

 

I'm sure it could be redesigned to work even better. I know Toughbook would be interested for sure, so when he gets back from vacation, we'll have to see what we can make.

 

I have a factory GPS kit that I just tried installing in my CF28 but the driver installation went wrong. The OS tried to install some wierd Microsoft pointing device driver which makes the touchpad cursor snap back to the bottom-right corner of the screen every second...

The hardware installation was simple though. Got pics in my flickr photostream which is http://www.flickr.com/photos/navarzo for those interested, including a few showing the factory 'bump' style GPS antenna.

I posted details of the device driver problem to two Toughbook groups on facebook.com recently.

Craig.

 

Try installing the driver again
Disable the gps in the bios to take control of the mouse back if you need to
If you can somehow get into the device manager and disable the microsoft serial ballpoint, in mice properties (thats the issue as the o/s thinks that the gps is a mouse )



Alex

 

You need to make sure that the GPS driver is installed correctly and uninstall the Serial Ballpoint in the Device Manager. I think it is Serial Ballpoint... If it's not... It is close enough so that you'll know which one to uninstall. The stock GPS in the CF-28 was originally made to work with MS 2000 from what I have read and will work fine with that OS.... With XP it can get a little jerky and the mouse pointer shifts all over the screen.

 

Ok thanks for the tips. I had no problem re-starting the system to get into the BIOS and disable the GPS, which sorted out the problem of spurious Microsoft input device drivers being enabled to do wierd stuff with the cursor.

Is the GPS driver installed via firmware on the GPS board? I couldn't find any reference to GPS drivers on the Panasonic ftp site in the CF28 section however I'm going to see what I can find out. Will have to see if I can track down some non-factory GPS hardware for the machine assuming there's something which will directly replace the stock GPS board and connect to the same place. I won't have any compact PCI slots free when I installed an 802.11 wireless card and a combo ethernet card.

I haven't located any electronic documentation for the factory GPS engine at present, but would you or anyone else know what the correct DIP switch settings should be so I can check against my board?

Craig.

 

There is a GPS driver... PM me your email address and I'll email it to you.

The DIP switches should be set to 1, 2 & 3 set to off... 4 set to on!

 

Ok thanks re the DIP switches - I'll check and confirm how they're set before I have another go at sorting out the device driver issues.

Someone posted a link to a zip file with the device driver (at modly.org) and I downloaded/extracted that however clicking on the GPS filter driver installation utility icon produces a drive install window that sits there doing nothing, so perhaps it won't do anything without the GPS module connected. Seems like a chicken/egg situation.

Strange too is that with Device Manager running right now, there's nothing showing up for a MS serial ballpoint mouse - only the regular PS/2 mouse (nothing plugged into the mouse port though) in the 'mice and other pointing devices' section. Under the 'modems' section the Huawei device and the modem card appear, and in the Com port section com 1 is there, as are com4 and 5 (used by the Huawei device).

Craig.

 

The gps when enabled will use a com port
If you can see that the gps is using a com port and the microsoft mouse is not showing up , right click scan for hardware changes, and when you find the microsoft mouse , quickly disable



Alex

 

Dumb question... But have you doubled checked in the BIOS to make sure that it is enabled?

Also... If the file is what I think it is (I haven't done a stock GPS in a CF-28 in a while.) you have to double click on each file and it installs into the Registry...

 

Ok well I have the zip file that modly kindly provided via a link, and have extracted the files. The GPS engine board is currently not connected. When I double-click on the installation file, it starts, asks me if I want to run the program since it's unverified, and then sits there with an installation progress box doing nothing at all. Does the GPS engine board have to be connected before the device driver installation will work?

If I use the com port blocking utility, will that cause problems for the Huawei USB wireless modem (since it's using two com port devices)?

Someone mentioned manually installing files into the Windows registry - which files would need to be added and how is that done? I tried double-clicking on some of the files (the sys file, etc.) and I got given warnings about the file type and asked if I wanted to open the file (presumably as a text file to view), or cancel the operation.

When I did have the GPS engine connected the first time, there was a little 'net' icon on the taskbar at the bottom right of the screen but I don't know if that was something related to the GPS or an artefact of the device driver for a MS serial trackball mouse thingy that Win Xp had started up.

Craig.

 

Don't mess around manualy installing files in the reg
You need to install the hardware , and then do the troubleshooting




Alex

 

Ok after a few hours of swearing, cursing, and trying to become more co-ordinated than the 1-second tic resetting of the cursor to the bottom-right corner of the screen (and going away to have dinner and several coffees!) I was able to beat the cursor postition resets and finally bring up device manager to disable the MS serial ballpoint mouse driver using my Sun USB mouse instead of the touchpad which is totally useless for rapid-response input control.

Never thought I'd get dev manager to open and be able to get the clicks in at the right times to do what it needed to do but I did.... lots of four-letter words were expleted (and excreted!)... What a right royal pain! I tried changing the IRQ setting between 10 and 11 a few times and that still didn't help.

Anyway, interestingly, the com port blocker utility is no good as it still only shows com 1 (normal serial port) and com 4 (com port utilised by the Huawei wireless modem), and nothing else. I'll keep it installed though just in case it might be useful.

Righto I worked out that I'd extracted the stuff out of the zip file wrongly so that's all fixed up and I have been able to get the device driver to install. I'm not getting any extra icon appearing in the taskbar so I'm not sure if the system is actually doing anything with the GPS however I'll try an application or two and see what happens.

What software packages work best with the factory GPS engine?

Craig.

 

Winfast Navigator
ftp://ftp1.leadtek.com/gps/Tools/WinFastGPS-Install.zip
In the com ports in device manager , whats the com port for the gps?
Uninstall the com port blocker if it did not work




Alex

 

Device manager doesn't show a com port for the GPS - only com1 for the normal serial port, the printer port, and com4 and com5 which are used by the Huawei wireless modem.

I'll see what installing WinFast navigator does... Ok installs and runs fine, but doesn't see any other com ports... Only com 1 and com 4. Might have a second go at the GPS filter driver installation... Nope nothing happening.

I wonder if changing the IRQ setting from 10 to 11 will do it? Going to try that shortly.

Craig.

 

If in device manager the serial mouse was there, the gps is sending signals,and it's tricking xp that there is a new device
Changing irq's is good , but you might have to redo the crazy mouse fix again



Alex

 

I do recall someone else posting in another thread that they had to change the IRQ setting from 10 to 11, but yes I do not want to try and do that mouse device disable trick again. Another few hours of cussing won't be very productive use of my time/energy.

Thinking about this a bit more, and noticing that WinFast kept insisting on wanting to use com 4, I decided to uninstall the wireless broadband software that comes in the USB memory stick section of the wireless modem since it was using com 4 and 5.

Lo and behold, once I did this, Winfast correctly set itself up to talk to the GPS engine (using com 4) at 4800 bps, and is now happily displaying continuous flows of NMEA formatted GPS data! Only trouble is that it's looking for satellites that I don't think are positioned over Australia - namely 6 3 7 25 8 27 26 - and it's reporting no signal received from all of those. Is there a way to tell Winfast to actually look and see what satellites are visible in from my section of the planet? I double-checked to make sure the GPS antenna cable was plugged in correctly to the GPS engine itself.

As for the USB wireless modem, I let it re-install the software it comes with that's now using com 5 and 6, so the it's no longer conflicting with the GPS engine for a com port to use.

Looking a bit more into the software side of things, packages like Navigator 6/7/8, Copilot, etc. all only support either Europe and/or north america. Memory Map appears to support Australia but so far the only free downloadable version I've located is from the US (version 5.27) so I'll try that out and see what it does.

Craig.

 

I believe you have an antenna problem. To test, remove the battery cover and battery from your 28 and position your laptop upside down with a clear view of the sky and let it run for about 30 minutes and see what you get. Let us know the results.

 

Doobi... I believe that he is trying to fix a STOCK GPS unit... Not a modded EM-408... So holding it upside-down won't do anything.

It shouldn't matter where you are on Earth... If you have a working GPS... It will pick up Satellites! Sometime, especially with the stock unit, you need to let it sit outside with a CLEAR view of the sky and just let it run for a few minutes... 10-30 isn't uncommon for it to get its first fix.

Make sure that you have your antenna connected properly. When you clamp the u.fl connector onto the GPS board... swing the connector back and forth to mate it to the connector! This helps me.. It may help you. Also... There is sometime a little metallic cloth to separate the two areas. You don't want interference from the mobo affecting the GPS antenna. If you are getting a data stream... You have the GPS hooked up correctly... You just need to get the antenna fixed and let it run to get a fix.

When you see programs for a specific region/country... I believe that it is because it has map data to use with the GPS. This shouldn't have anything to do with the satellites and you getting a fix on lat. & long.

 

I've seen a lot of ebay listings for cf28's that have a wi-fi antenna in the LCD housing, but none with a GPS antenna of any sort there.. So far I want to see what I can get the stock bump antenna to do so in a while I'll do what Toughbook suggested and get the machine outside... Not sure how long the battery will last as it's heading towards being kaputski!

What sort of connector is on the little GPS sub-module on the GPS engine board? And for that matter, what is all the unused circuit space on the GPS engine board all about? I presume that's a generic board Panasonic developed for other uses besides just running a GPS sub-module? For the amount of componentry actually fitted directly to the main GPS engine board, there's a heck of a lot of unused area which is clearly intended for something...

And for something different, has anyone configured a stock GPS engine to use both an internal antenna and have a connection for an external one? The bump looks like it would be fairly possible to mod to have a socket for an external antenna.

Craig.

 

Craig,
Rick (TB) is right, the gps should find itself any where in the world. The distance from its last fix might slow down a cold start, but only by a little. SirfIII gps should take well under 5 minutes for a cold start with a decent view of the sky. My good GPS which has to dither locations from 2 recievers and acquire a DGPS signal takes about 5 to 10 minutes to get a HDOP it will accept on a cold start. Recently a user posted a screen shot of WinFast which showed lots of satellites none of which had any signal, must be a WinFast thing. Try this app. I like it way more than WinFast.
http://www.visualgps.net/VisualGPS/default.htm
Visual GPS is much more useful to me and has a lot of options that WinFast lacks for professional use. It is also FREE!
You either don't have a good enough signal-bad antenna/connection or inadequate view of the sky. Keep in mind that, although I have never used a OEM CF-28, they are reputed to be dreck.
CAP

 

By the way Craig,
Those aint classic Saabs. Classic Saabs have two cycle engines and column shifts like the ones I used to ice race in the '60s. If you don't pour oil into the gas tank its not an old Saab. Those are what we used to call "new style" Saabs.
CAP

 

Right I mentioned I had some pics of the GPS installation... Here they are:

Close-up's of the GPS engine and bump antenna:



photo page



photo page



photo page

The installation itself:



photo page



photo page



photo page



photo page

Hope these are useful for others. There are a few more pics that sort of doubled-up on these so I didn't include the links here.

Craig.

 

Craig,

Looks like a clean install. The ONLY thing I would suggest is to wiggle the antena back and forth to make sure it is seated... Also there should be a metallic cloth that is applied to the side of the back of the antenna assembly to keep the stray electronic stuff from interfering with the signal.

Run an extension cord out to the backyard if you have to.... It should still pick up a signal the wy you have it....

Also... To make sure that you have the DIP switches set correctly... THe one closest to the edge of the board should be to the right... ALL others shuld be to the left!

 

And... Uh... Not to get you down... But there have been people here, years ago, that could never get their stock GPS working in the CF-28... At best you'll get 5-6 satellites on a good day.... On a bad day... Maybe 1-3 with no fix or periodic... The ONLY way to get a 100% working GS in your CF-28 is to mod in your own. The GOOD news is that you can sell the GPS kit you have and buy the needed parts and have money left over! You just need to mod it in yourself!

 

THanks re the pics... I've got the system sitting on a plastic rubbish wheelie bin just outside the window of my room now to see what difference it makes. What you said about the shielding for the antenna could certainly be the thing that I need to prevent EMI/RFI from the GPS engine board itself.

I've grabbed Visual GPS and it certianly is much better than WinFast! Then again WinFast is old (file date is about 2003!). Now to see how long it takes to see some satellites... One thing I will definitely try before deciding to can the factory setup is to get a different antenna and locate it outside with the system running inside (most of them have long cables so can chop/adapt later if needed).

BTW I'm getting little zaps from the metal casing of the CF-28 sometimes... I know the power supply itself doesn't use the mains earth pin but that should make no difference to the computer as it's taking a low voltage input. Little bit bothersome to get a tiny zap whenever I touch the metal of the casing though. Perhaps that's an 'inbuilt security feature'.. lol

Craig.

 

The only voltage thats high enough to cause Zaps is from the ccf/lcd inverter
I have noticed it before on the toughbooks as the titanum conducts better that the plastic found on most laptops




What ever does not kill you makes you stronger



Alex

 

Ok well I need to try and either get the internal bump antenna shielded and/or try a different antenna. Had the system outside with good view of the sky for a few hours and no satellite signals with Winfast or Visual GPS.

At least I know the GPS engine is outputting NMEA data which is a decent start. I suppose a USB GPS would be one way to go as an alternative but I like the idea of neat internal solution... Would be handy to have a second known-good GPS engine board to try out just in case it's the board, but that's not an option at present so I'll pursue the antenna side of things.

What is the connector called on the GPS engine board for the antenna so I know what to look out for? Got a few good radio/GPS equipment places here in Oz that I can try out. I think it's an MMCX type but not sure. Also to replace the internal antenna, it would need to be a non-magnetic one so that would rule out a lot of the cheap active antennas on Ebay, etc.

Craig.

 

I believe it is a U.fl connector, but wait to hear from TB to be sure.

@TB, I knew it was an OEM install, I just incorrectly remembered the stock setup to still have a built-in antenna as well as the bump-out. After seeing the pics, I remembered it is only the external antenna on the bump-out. Good catch.

 

Ok.

While we're on the subject, is there a semi-definitive list of active GPS antennas that people have tried in the stock bump location which will as good as or better than the stock antenna? I was having a look at the Sarantel antennas and they look good, but I think the better location for one of those would be in the LCD housing, but there seems to be no reason why one of them can't go into the bump location instead with the right cabling setup.

Craig.

 

Craig,
Remember that the Sarantel active antenna is directional and mounting it horizontally could degrade its performance.
CAP

 

BAM: http://www.robsnetworks.com/toughbook/NR Contributing Members/sunrk/