Testing GPS

LOL so did I

 

the main problem is sorted using any of these methods but what els happens is that ur gps takes forever to get a fix, when it should not even take a minute....:confused2:

 

I ordered a new antenna for the GPS. I couldn't find one for sale that was the right size, so I'll dremel the housing out the extra 3mm.

I hope to get a better lock with the new antenna. I know the module itself is responsible for a good portion of obtaining a signal, but with a more sensitive antenna I might have a better chance. This one is a 27dB antenna, but not sure how strong the original is. I'd guess less than half of that though.

 

Modly... Did you order the one you posted here??? You MUST post pics!

 

YES Please, the Masses need pic's

 

I ordered this one;
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=178

It's bigger than the one I posted before, but I couldn't find anybody that sold it. I'll be sure to get photos though.

 

i've been playing and tinkering alot in windows xp
i havent used win2k to compare but no matter what, we seem to be getting a very slow and poor fix.
this makes no sense to me, because i am just using the gps down the serial, not through any drivers!!
maybe it is something to do with hot/cold fix

something have noticed, if you use your toughbook in the dark and fire up the gps you will notice the IR sender going crazy(easier to nitice in the dark), can someone confirm this happens on win2k even with it disabled?

 

When you say fire up the gps, do you mean launch an application which uses the gps to find your location?

I have win2k sp4 loaded at the moment and only software I have for gps right now is MS streets and trips. I can test whatever you want later today, but my new hdd comes tonight and will be reloading most likely with xp or tabletedition.

 

Um... Modly... Umm... The one you ordered has a U.fl connector. I believe the GPS in the CF-28 has a MMCX connection.

 

thats what i thought it had a MMCX conection, i dont have it near me so cant confirm but am sure it is a MMCX conection...........:confused2:

 

I opened mine up, and it doesn't look like an MMCX, it looks like a larger u.fl.

If my camera was sharper, I'd take a photo, but it's as blurry as my vision when I'm choosing women to date...

It's definitely a hirose connector though.

 

No my IR is set to On and when im using my gps with ms streets on win2k the light never once flashed.

 

Yeah... It's not a MMCX like I thought originally...

 

by default ur IR should be on auto not enable,
but am going to try it and see if i get the same responce..........

 

I ended up turning off my IR just as I dont have any gear that needs IR...

still waiting on my GPS to get here too

 

I got my new antenna today. I modified the housing to fit the larger antenna, and it's all back together. I wish the cable was a few cm longer though, it's a tight fit.

However, it's raining and overcast right now, and had trouble getting a lock with my good antenna in the car. Perhaps another day for testing....

 

Awwww... Come on! You gotta stand in the rain and let us know! You CAN'T leave us hanging like this!

 

I'll try it out tomorrow, but I'm very wet from just running outside fast. I'm more worried about me getting soaked than I am the toughbook

The connector was right on though (H.fl), and snapped into place, so the antenna can physically work, but I wish it was another 3cm longer to not strain the cable as much.

Edit;

I was thinking more and more about the GPS module, and it's pretty obvious that this build in module isn't powerful at all.

I've been looking at the connector right next to the spot where the GPS ribbon attaches to the motherboard. It's a 13 pin connector, with spots for serial "labeled". I'm pondering some nifty ideas involving that, and a 13 pin ribbon cable I just made, which I'll split the ends apart, solder on wires, and attach them to a serial board with a module on it.

Assuming I can figure out what the other 4 pins do anyways... I'm hoping one of the pins send +3.3-5v.

 

hello, i am new to this site but have been reading alot about the gps systems. i just bought a used CF-28 with the built in GPS system, but am having a problem getting it to work i downloaded the winfast navigator software to "test" the GPS Transponder. According to the winfast help section, the GPS is not providing vaild data. Therefore it cannot obtain a "fix". is there something i'm doing wrong, or any other help with these built in gps systems? Thanks

 

easy way to get a gps fix is by disabling the anoying mouse in ur device manage........
mine works fine now i tried alot of thing even removing the driver for it and re-diung the whole right up but just got me banging my head at the ends,
just sorting out the registry will work,
at the moment, mine is working as i took the drivers out and just used the panasonic drivers to installed it, but still its working the same as it did when i disabled the mouse maybe am so used to faster gps signal through my phone/pocketpc/tablet pc that it maybe the best speed it runs........

 

on the IR front
sorry for the delay i've been out of town.

well it seems i have a problem of some sort then, cause anytime i use software with my gps i can see the IR flashing away
it could well be also a problem with the IR driver under XP
who knows gonna tinker with the drivers and mess in the bios again.

 

I notice no difference with the new antenna. I was able to pick up 2 satellites at work, but nothing at home.

Today is overcast though, so perhaps it's hindering a little...

But I'm not gonna say it made a real difference.

 

I really want to make this thing powerful enough to actually use, so I've got a few options, but all of them start with a new module.

I'm looking at various modules and features, and still haven't figured out which is best for me, but one I'm looking at for wiring makes it look fairly easy.

Here is where my options start. I can implement a new module on the current board. Easier to do, but will cost more because I can't resell the GPS module that is in it now (Not that it's worth much if it works so poorly).

The other option is to build a power/control board, which will take the 12v I found on the GPS cable slot and make it <5v through resistors, and provide a battery backup. I can solder on a connector onto this board for easy disconnection. The only hard part is finding another flat ribbon cable to fit into the motherboard slot.

Edit; Reading more. Some people with home built GPS modules find they have a better lock with the GPS running at 3.3v rather than 5v, which is what our modules run. Perhaps ours won't run at that power rate, but I'm thinking there is a good chance because of the battery voltage.

 

Well... I just tried to activate my GPS... The first thing I noticed is that my mouse is all of a sudden jumping around the place and opening other programs. What a pain! The other things is... My GPS doesn't seem to work! I guess I need to go back and read through this thread and post some questions... Someone needs to write a "how-to" (djacid!) on how to activate your GPS if you have just gotten your new CF-28 (supposedly with GPS)... My Internet connection is slow tonight so I'll wait to do it tomorrow.

 

Got The GPS To Work. Thanks For The Help.

 

a friend of mine has a bluetooth gps module, its a sirfstariii and gets a very good lock connected to both his laptop and pda.
ok, you have to charge up the gps unit seperately (or power it somehow) but it goes for many hours
it seems that as far as the laptop power is concerned bluetooth uses no more power than the gps module when running
you could maybe add internal bluetooth via the mini-pci
it's an option worth considering cause you can throw the reciever outside, stick it to your car, boat etc prob even hardwire it to electrics

 

Starbase15... What did you do to get it working?????

James... I saw those BT GPS Sets... Pretty slick. I found a way to get BT internal (Sort of)... You have to have the right BT pcmcia card though. I'll post pics when I can. (It's been raining for 4 days here and I think it's gotten into the cable lines. It's taken me 10 minutes just to get to this page!)

My HD and DVD arrived last night so I will post "how-to's" in a different thread later.

So... Since I can't surf like normal... Can someone post a "how-to" on how to activate the GPS in the CF-28?

 

Got my GPS the other day, put in the CF-28. when into BIOS to make sure it was on and put it onto manual of:


I/O IRQ 2F8/IQR 3.


reboot and yes pointer went mad,disabled the pointer and then did the Regedit hack, work great, Reboot to see if it work or not then went into Com setting, copy down what the port settings where.
Downloaded WinFast, had to run it a few times and set it to default, but now it reads the GPS.

At that point i fell asleep, lol love coming off night shift . WinFast shows that there a 8 satellites up there, but cant get a FIX on any of them, tho is was heavily overcast when i did that test. Tho the data info is going thought a lot of data finding them. And even PC Navigator 5 find the GPS fine now but just cant find a "Fix".

so thinking about that new Antenna sound good

If i get this work right I'll put a wiring up of what I did as I'm still using XP spec 2

 

with regard to my IR goings on
it seems disabling the IR in hardware manager stops the flashing while using gps
i'm gonna just disable it in the bios, and i can live with that
if anyone knows of a fix if it is fixable then that would be nice.
really unsure if it affects gps reception, time to lock seems to be random for me.

 

OK, spent some time outside, 30mins and NO lock on
pull out the new Ph(N95) to check for Sat' position, 5 lock in within 2mins......
One thing I did noted was that the Sat' No's where different on both systems. So I'm thinking that as the N95 is set up for Aus, it know which Sat' to look for, where the WinFast is US I think so its looking for other Sat' that are not in the area from the save file list I cant change.

Could that be right????

This is the info from the Data view

$GPGSA,A,1,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,*1E
$GPGSV,2,1,08,31,78,239,,01,72,358,,14,49,078,,30,34,063,*7B
$GPGSV,2,2,08,20,25,313,,05,22,048,,22,21,148,,11,15,270,*73
$GPRMC,150419,V,,,,,,,220807,,,A*5B
$GPGGA,150420,,,,,0,00,,,,,,,*64
$GPZDA,150420,22,08,2007,,*47
$GPVTG,,,,,,,,,A*3F
$GPGSA,A,1,,,,,,,,,

So I'm sure that it reading from the GPS module. Tho every time I set it to cold start it goes to hot start instead. Now going to Look on the net to find any info on position files for Aus.
I have it set to default in the NMEA settings tho I'm not sure if there the right ones or not......

What are some of the other settings that people are using with WinFast to get there Lock on's?

 

What OS are you using toughbook?
I did a fresh load of winxp the full version no streamlined stuff. Did all the service packs and no reg hacks at all.

I installed only the hotkey and video drivers. Then I did click on that gps.exe file you posted as a driver.

I installed Microsoft streets and trips. configure gps in that...searching all com ports...found gps on com4. and bam it was working fine.

Oh and gps is set to Auto in the bios.

 

well
i am sitting here in my room with winfast after tinkering with all sorts of stuff for hours
from reboot i am finding one satellite in about 15 seconds, then finding and losing one more
i have my pda next to me finding absolutely nothing, even after multiple reboots which is odd, usually that thing gets a good lock.
however, in previous experiments the toughbook and the laptop used to generally find the same sat numbers (though the cf-28 would take much longer about it and see less)
i dont think the program knows about the sat positions.

 

Well.. I finally got WinXP installed successfully (Long story) and now am turning my attention to the GPS. I enabled it and disabled the ballpoint. I downloaded WinFast Nav and it started looking at Com1... No dice. I see everyone seems to set theirs up on Com4.. I don't even see that availability on mine... It's Com1,2 or 3. Everything started stock on Com1 so I tried that. No dice again... I was playing around with it and told WinFast to look at Com3... Bingo (I thought) as the data started flowing... But no fix on satellites! ($#!*) I'm pissed! djacid emailed me a GPS tester... Same thing with that... The satellites show but are grayed out... same as WinFast... The sats are there but they are red... Not green.

Anyone with some helpful words?

 

I think that's where we are all at. I've tried flipping the DIP switches on the board, with no change. IR is disabled, GPS has been on Auto and manual, etc.

The only thing I haven't done is the registry edit hack, but at this point it seems like a null point (The mouse isn't tweaking around), unless something else is wrong otherwise without it being done.

The GPS has gone to the "warming zone" on the stove now though, I got my vehicle docking bay today and have to tweak it a bit to fit (It was for a CF-27, need to hack some metal off).

 

Personally... After hearing all the aggrivation and crap... I may just get rid of the GPS and work on the BT mod. I have the PCMCIA BT card I bought setting in the slot WITH the door closed! So I guess one could argue that it it truly an internal card!

I'm a little depressed about the GPS... I was really hoping for something good here. In my search on the web... I ran across a shoot-out between Itronix and Toughbook. They said that in a 2 hour test that Itronix kept the GPS signal the whole time... However the Toughbook only kept the signal for 15 minutes out of the 2 hours. This is not what I signed on for.

Anyone wanna buy a CF-28 w/ GPS?

 

i,m sorry to hear is not going well. i saw you mention usb gps do they work well?(could throw it on the dash while driving) what brand? thanks-would advise you to drive over your cf-28 but looks like you already have!

 

Toughbook, thats the same that happen to me. shows 8 satellites but stays red.

 

48User; Yes, USB GPS receivers work pretty well. Some you can mount on the dash, others you put on the roof, and others you drill the car for a permanent mount (Like mine, but since it is an ex cop car, it already had a hole). I've got a GlobalSat MR-350, and it picks up my location in damn near no time. If I wait more than 5 seconds, the toughbook must have crashed But it will pick a signal up under trees, under bridges if they aren't too wide, etc, and I'll always have 8 satellites or more registered and locked.

Toughbook, I slightly regret buying the GPS toughbook because of the pain in the ass the GPS has been, but I sold my old toughbook for $305 on eBay, so this one cost me just over $100 after shipping, and I got the faster 800MHz processor and a backlit keyboard, so I'm not too upset. I may pull the whole GPS portion out and sell it on eBay, then make my own power board and start from there with a new GPS module. I think that this one is just not powerful enough, nor sensitive so it needs an extremely clear signal to operate.

All I need is to find a pin with voltage on the 13 pin serial connection next to the GPS connector on the motherboard, and I'd be more than set for putting in a GlobalSat module into it.

 

There is a guy on ebay that I emailed. He sells the Toughbook 34's that are the 700Mhz with the Wifi and GPS. It turns out that he makes his own GPS stuff and puts it in the Toughbook... So I know it can be done. His laptops look so cool I thought about selling one or both of mine and getting that one... Except it would be too slow... The interesting thing is that he, like Modly, talked about putting in his own GPS module. I asked him a few questions but I think that he will think I'm asking for trade secrets... I doubt he will answer my questions.

Well... I am VERY disappointed with the GPS... And to think how long I pined away for it! Sheesh!

 

Yer I'm not happy at all with the GPS too, not happy jan!!!! And still cant get a lock on.
Makes me wonder how good this Lap'y was when it come out of the factory with GPS. What do the factory do to get this to work right??? Had a look at the GPS card and it looks like its missing or could have exta chips put on it. A lot of empty spots on it.

Toughbook, you think that guy will sell just the GPS card he make?

 

I emailed him and haven't gotten a response yet.

 

I'll check out the board tonight and see if I can find a +5v source out of that pinout, and if so, a GPS Module will be very easy to impliment.

 

Right now I'm more interested in getting this one working... Either that or I'm going to take it out and put it up on ebay!

 

Well... I finally got it working... Sort of! The dip switches DO have control over the unit! If you break out the magnifying glass... You'll see that they do have markings. The dip switch closest to the center of the laptop is the on off switch. Move it to the right (with the handle facing you) to turn it on. I don't know what the other switches mean yet... Perhaps the different types of GPS handshaking????? So far... I've read 3 satellites. BUT... They are in the purple (Using WinFast Navigator) which means that the data is unreliable. I haven't let it sit for a long time so I don't know what will happen if I leave it alone for a while. I can read 1 satellite from my deck and three out in the street in front of my house. Still... all in the purple.

I'll play around with the dip switches and report back... Keep your fingers crossed!

 

they make blue tooth gps units as well. So if you get the bluetooth mod done...all you need is another 60.00 and get a bt gps.

 

Yeah... I know. I've got the bluetooth mod done but I still want to get the internal GPS system figured out. NOW I'm not reading ANY satellites! *&$@!

I want as much internal stuff as possible so I don't need to cart around a bunch of crap with me. I suppose I could use some industrial velcro and attach the BT GPS so I always havge it with the Laptop... I don't know... I just HAVE to get the GPS figured out... Unless one of you Toughbook Modders gets a different GPS engine installed and working!

 

thanks for the info modly, i liked the globalsat bu-353 usb gps+guidance s/w--i did'nt know they make this stuff, toughbook, i saw keychain gps at http://www.mobileplanet.com/p.aspx?i=147694 hope it helps???

 

How about this one.....

http://www.mobilegpsonline.com/mgps...id=409&zenid=2ae2bf2b8c06ab47658ad066eccc70d2

Or this one...

http://www.mobilegpsonline.com/mgpsstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=7&products_id=367

 

Toughbook, I like that first one you posted because it has a provision for an external antenna. The second one is an earlier revision module of the one I was thinking of using (EM-406).

I didn't get a chance to check out the power last night, and won't be able to this weekend (Going out near Toronto for the weekend), so hopefully next week we'll have more to go on.

 

Hmmmm... I thought the first one WAS an antenna. I mean that it was an all-in-one unit.