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

Plus, it will not fit in the bump out itself as far as I know. There is a Sarantel PATCH antenna that has been used providing very good results (See CF29 Aftermarket GPS thread), but not as good as the LCD mounted Active antenna. As I recall, the antennas discussed on the boards here included:

JG Sarantel Active Geohelix LCD mounted (WWAN side and Right side)
JG Sarantel Active Patch antenna bump-out mounted
?Brand? mouse GPS antenna mounted under "Toughbook" logo on the lid
OEM GPS antenna bump-out mounted
SMA to rooftop mounted Antenna
USB GPS with rooftop mounted antenna

and these were all tried with:
Stock GPS engine
EM408 engine (modded to communicate with unit via CN18 direct, CDMA sled 12pin cable, or CN18 to sled connect (not sure if this ever got sorted out)
BT GPS engine
USB GPS engine

Anyone can chime in here if I am missing something. The best results that I remember hearing about are:

EM408 to LCD mounted Sarantel
USB/BT GPS engine to roof-mounted antenna

Hope this helps, and that I am correct...

 

O yea totally!!! just plug the JG Sarantel into the Geohelix, and take the Geohelix and retrofit it for the PATCH antenna, and hope that the USB GPS rooftop links to the EM408 engine correctly otherwise the CN18 direct will crash!!

WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!?!?!?

*Rob smash's his head against his Toughbook*

This is so over my head that even reading it make my brain hurt

 

OMG I LAUNCHED PEPSI OUTTA MY NOSE!! And to THINK I thought YOU were going to back me on this!! hahahahaha

 

Ok well at the moment my options are a completely external antenna or replacing the one in the bump. Mainly what I need to know is confirmation of what connector type is on the stock GPS engine board for the antenna connection, then I can try to locate replacement active antennas that will connect to it.

I like the idea of a Sarantel antenna mounted at the top of the LCD housing, but I'm devoid of any pass-through cables so that's an option for the future.

For the external antennas, I have seen patch cables on Ebay that run from the GPS engine board to an external socket, so that could be something to try out in the short term with a suitbable mating antenna, however a bump-mounted one seems the most sensible, then maybe later on an LCD-mounted Sarantel with appropriate pass-through cable.

Craig.

 

Well SunRK, I believe the connector you are looking for is going to be the U.fl connector or the H.fl connector. I'm pretty sure it was U.fl. The MMX connector is used by the EM408.

If I understand you correctly, you have the OEM gps board, but the antenna is bad? If that is the case, you have 4 options.

1. Replace the existing bump out antenna.
2. Buy an external antenna.
3. Install an aftermarket GPS solution (em408 w/antenna; usb GPS; BT GPS, etc)
4. Install a Sarantel antenna. **For this option, you can go with the patch antenna that has been showing recent success in the bump-out location; or with the LCD mounted Geohelix. I noticed you said you liked this idea but were devoid of any pass-thru cables. To make sure you understand, the pass-thru is not needed in any of these options. It is only used if you use a docking station with your laptop and want to have an antenna run from, say the top of your car to the docking station. The pass-thru provides the connection to the dock, to the antenna. And as far as I recall, this setup can be used for WWAN or GPS. But, it is NOT required. I have the Geohelix installed to my LCD (upper right corner opposite the WWAN) and the cable goes down inside the lid>under the keyboard>to a Female SMA connector>to a U.fl/SMA bulkhead pigtail. I chose this setup so that I can change GPS engines without running a new antenna. I have a second pigtail (they are about 6" in length) that goes from the SMA bulkhead to the MMX connector for the EM408 GPS engine. The Sarantel Geohelix will work with both the OEM GPS and the EM408 GPS engines. The difference is the OEM GPS uses U.Fl connections and the EM408 uses MMX connections (God I hope I got the connection names right!). But you get the idea. The antenna goes from the top of the lid>under the keyboard>through the guts and ends between where the sled and the CD Tray are (a perfect cubby hole for the SMA connection). On the end of the antenna is an SMA female(?) connection. Then I have 2 pigtails that will go from the GPS units to that connector. They are SMA Bulkhead male(?) on one end, and U.fl and MMX on the other. If I change to the EM408 engine, I simply change pigtails. The antenna setup stays the same. I hope all this makes sense to everyone.

As a side: I did this for testing purposes of the different engines and liked it so much I kept it. I used to have the antenna in the WWAN spot, but I recently re-installed the CDMA so needed the antenna there back. After conversing with Ohlip about how to install the Geohelix on the right side, I moved it there. Got it all locked down, siliconed, and bonded real good, and put everything back together.... and cut the antenna cord!!! DOH!! This is the only problem with my setup now. I am waiting for funds to order another antenna w/cable to SMA to fix it. :-( Also, I am in need of a new plug for the WWAN antenna side if anyone knows the part # for. I cannot find it. My mothers dog chewed mine up pretty good (But thankfully not the pull-out antenna. The part I'm referring to is the plug that the antenna comes out of, the oval piece. I can't find a number for the life of me.

Sorry this was so long, but hopefully it helps someone.

 

Yes animals can be rascals
My cat chewed and destroyed the flat connecter cable that was running from the bottom of a spare cf-m34 display that I had for parts
I guess that the cable sprung back when she was clawing at it and she decided to kill it, which she did


Alex

 

Love some. Hate some. Love to hate some.

 

Is this a new toy?

 

Sounds like the kind of toy that runs on "AA" batteries...

*SNERK*

mnem
I could swear my arse was here somewhere...

 

As an aside...

That active Sarantel Patch might be the bomb for mounting horizontally under the TB logo. Now before y'all go ballistic on the ol' dwagon, remember - 95% of the windshield mount GPS units being sold today use exactly that configuration, and their antennas are passive... and they're STILL pulling 30m accuracy on an uncalibrated system...

Just a notion...

mnem
*Uses BOTH hands* Ahhh... THERE it is.

 

I said se x toy but apparently it removed the "se x" from "se x toy"

 

I am still for Sarantel geo....antena. For comparison, any antena out there still can't beat its performance specially the one mounted on the top of LCD.



ohlip

 

Anyone used one of the Sarantel antennas in the stock bump location?

Craig.

 

Pls. read the latest discussion on the Afterm....gps to cf-29 above and it will answer your question.

Edit: sorry not that. Aftermarket ..gps to cf-28.




ohlip

 

Teo -

Agreed - for the ULTIMATE PERFORMANCE, the Sarantel Geohelix antenna is TEH WINNAH!

But it IS inherently difficult to locate safely on your laptop, and some of us have OTHER use for that RIM antenna location (I am right now considering which antenna I will relegate to WiFi use if I start using that CFVDW07 handheld).

If the Sarantel active patch can provide GOOD results in a horizontal install (as is evidenced by both my Garmin & TomTom Stick-Em-up GPS models) then that just opens up MORE flexibility in the configuration of the Toughbooks; and isn't it the whole "MacGyver Knife of Laptops" thing that's what we all love about these machines?

mnem
Ooooh... shiny... ZZZZAAAP!

 

You should see what it does to Matsush!ta (Panasonic's parent company)...

*SnickerSnort*

Woops... you might wanna throw some water on that smoldering curtain over there...

mnem
Hey, wanna try some sandalwood incense? Made it outta my own sandals... No, No, No... Let me light it for ya... *FWOOOM*

 

There is one solution that I'm thinking about for last couple of days the small size patch antena like on th 28 and 29 to install at the top of LCD like the cf-30 leaving the rim antena untouch. Its only a matter of moulding a crner piece for it.


ohlip

 

Teo -

Yeah, we've talked about that too - but under those rubber corners seems to be the best ALTERNATE location for mounting a couple of those thin strip type WiFi antennas. That's kindof my sticky wicket right now - I'll need BOTH - A good PAIR of those strips to get decent WiFi reception, plus a THIRD antenna dedicated to my CFVDW07 handheld.

I'm also seriously considering running a USB CKT into the LCD housing; I've done my USB2.0 short PCMCIA/hidden slot hack, and I have an unused port. I think I could skin a mini-usb hub & stash it in with the LCD, then have USB ports for a SIRF3 USB GPS AND maybe a USB Wireless Broadband card... thinking I could bond the tiny antenna "flag" from the card to the outside of the LCD...

mnem
THAT was a wicket googley!

 

mnem,

Its a good idea, theres lot of space and clearance inside the lcd as i can imagine without interferring any component.

teo

 

EHHHH, that bit me in the arse once too... Rick is their anyway you can tell the moderators to put "Matsush!ta" on the okay word list? Or can you do it?

Thanks!

 

I put on a copper ground plane (sort of) into my CF-28 with factory GPS and it picked up a few more satellites! I just used a little sticky-backed copper (copper flashing) and cut a piece about 1.5" wide and 2.5" long and covered the area on the side. (Where the mettalic cloth normally goes.) An it works a little better. You may want to try this if you are adding stock GPS to a CF-28!

 

Could you grab a pic or two of this please? I don't have any sort of shielding cloth or tape here at present (though I have some back in Sydney where all my electronics/computing parts and tools still are!).

Seems very likely that there's something awry with the factory GPS setup I have but anything I can try to ensure it has the best possible chance of working is a good start before I grab another of those main boards and graft an aftermarket GPS engine to it. My good soldering iron, etc. is also still in Sydney. going back there for leave in April though... Looks like I'll have a fair bit of intensive work to do on this machine then!

Craig.

 

As I referred to in the other thread about com4 being taken by another device...

Well believe it or not, the seller of the GPS kit just phoned me from the UK and we chatted for about 30 minutes! He assured me the kit was fully working and tested before being sent to me.

He said that Panasonic's official advice on getting the factory GPS engine to work in a CF-28 is to disable the irda driver, even though the general experience of people here is that the microsoft serial ballpoint mouse driver is the problem. Anyone have some experience with this advice? I'll definitely give it a go and see what happens. Might be something specific to Win 2000 as I'm running Xp on the machine, though any new advice is worth exploring!

Craig.

 

Is the irda enabled in the bios?
If so disable it as its not used anymore
And unistall software related to it
It ties up a com port

Alex

 

Irda was enabled in the BIOS - not any more. No software installed that uses it. The IR device no longer appears in Device Manager.

GPS engine still behaves the same. Visual GPS shows valid NMEA data when it's set to use 4800 bps with com4 but it's not reporting any satellite information (no satellite numbers or signal-strength bars). I checked that the antenna is connected to the GPS engine properly, and also disconnected the lithium backup battery (in the piece of yellow heatshrink) in case that might help.

I will try running the system for a while near my window in case it needs some time with a 'view' of some sky to detect some satellites. I've heard that the factory GPS engine board can often take quite a long time to set itself up.

Craig.

 

If you have the GPS installed... Not ALL things in the BIOS can be activated... At least one has to be disabled. I chose the irda too...

Craig... Did you load the drivers into the registry?

I'll try to get a picture up tomorrow. You'll need copper flashing which you should be able to find at any home/building center...

 

Ah yes I've seen that stuff before.

Yes the drivers are loaded properly - used the install program supplied in the zip file I downloaded from modly.org to install everything.

I agree with other's comments in the com4 thread that I need to try a different antenna. What type of connector is the one on the factory GPS engine?

Oh btw these are the RIM boards I think everyone raves about for aftermarket GPS module fitting:

flickr page



so that's a backup plan for the future when I look to an aftermarket engine.

Craig.

 

That looks to be exactly what was being talked about. If you can't get the OEM to work, I would definitely consider the aftermarket. I think you will more than satisfied with the results.

 

Thanks for confirming it's the right board. I'm getting two of them so I have a spare if I bugger one up. Anyone have a non-military use for the Sierra modem modules off them?

In the meantime I'll grab one or two small active antennas and try them out. What is the name of the connector type used for the antenna? Probably either MCX or MMCX and I believe one is smaller (hence the extra 'm' meaning 'miniature' presumably?) than the other.

My Garmin GPS-12XL handheld GPS unit uses an external antenna with an MCX connection I think, so probably the smaller type.

Craig.

 

Yes, MMCX is the connector for the EM408. For the stock, I thought it was U.fl connector, but I could be wrong.

 

Ok thanks for that. I really need to know what the stock engine uses at present then I can track something down even if I need to use a pigtail to adaptor to a different connector type to use a generic active antenna for testing. I'd very much like to confirm whether or not the stock antenna is working before deciding what to do next.

Craig

 

Ohlip or Toughbook would know for CERTAIN, but I will stand with the U.fl until they say otherwise.

 

Ok well I should get some more SMA pigtails for the wifi card which uses u.fl, so I'll grab a couple extra as they're fairly available. Hopefully Ohlip and/or TB can confirm. This sort of info should be put in the FAQ...

Craig.

 

u.fl is used by your mini pci wifi cards. For the CF-28 OEM GPS and the RIM antenna we have been calling an h.fl it is larger diameter than the u.fl.

 

While we are on the subject, the "sma" bulkhead fitting we all use is really RP-SMA. I don't want to be pedantic, but it does make a difference. As TB would say, "ask me how I know".
CAP

 

So how do you know? On the subject of SMA, some u.fl to SMA pigtails have arrived in the post and they have the cable looped through a ferrite half-way along. Haven't seen that before with a wi-fi antenna pigtail.

Out of all the pigtails I've found on the web, there's a heap of people who sell u.fl and h.fl pigtails saying that the two connectors are basically the same. I'm sure they are slightly different but perhaps someone can enlighten us on that as well.

When I receive the cheapy active GPS antennas I can test out the GPS engine and see what's going on with a different antenna.

Craig.