Successfully attached GlobalSat BR-305, but !!help me!!

[F0lken]

Hi!
I've successfully attached GlobalSat BR305 to psp - this GPSlim236 green thing works!! (I patched speed to 4800 and recompiled it).
BR305 must be attached through MAX3232 level converter.
So, everything works fine, but I CANNOT use MapThis 0.2 even with 4800 speed in config file. It always says, that GPS DATA is BAD.
I have tried timing 1,2,3,4,8,100,1000 - it always says, that data is BAD. When I try to dump data to file I'm getting one column of symbols $,0,1,9,.
I'd like to menion again, that GPSlim with 4800 speed works, and when GPS data is ready - it shows lattitude, longitude, etc...
Pls, help!
A little suggestion. May be an synchronious mode can be added - e.g. no screen update, no drawing, nothing, but reading from serial. This can help with reading slower gps'es.

2Deniska, feel free to contact me at nzabrod(a)yandex.ru, if you are interested in support of BR305 device.

Thanx in advance.

F0lken

[A Fn NOOB]

Did you try the patch?

http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=9730&d=1157118953


My gps-360 (sirf-ii) now works in MapThis! @4800 baud with respect to positioning.

It will now correctly display the precise coordinates, but other data such as altitude and # of satellites dont. Im using "8" as the variable in config.txt.

[deniska]

Hi!
I've successfully attached GlobalSat BR305 to psp - this GPSlim236 green thing works!! (I patched speed to 4800 and recompiled it).
BR305 must be attached through MAX3232 level converter.
So, everything works fine, but I CANNOT use MapThis 0.2 even with 4800 speed in config file. It always says, that GPS DATA is BAD.
I have tried timing 1,2,3,4,8,100,1000 - it always says, that data is BAD. When I try to dump data to file I'm getting one column of symbols $,0,1,9,.
I'd like to menion again, that GPSlim with 4800 speed works, and when GPS data is ready - it shows lattitude, longitude, etc...
Pls, help!
A little suggestion. May be an synchronious mode can be added - e.g. no screen update, no drawing, nothing, but reading from serial. This can help with reading slower gps'es.

2Deniska, feel free to contact me at nzabrod(a)yandex.ru, if you are interested in support of BR305 device.

Thanx in advance.

F0lken

Yeah, try the patch above if you already have not tried it.
Also, it would be helpful, if you could record samples of your NMEA feed with some PC program and post it here..

[F0lken]

Thanks! I'll try the patch later and report. And I'll send you nemea output from my GPS, as soon, as I resurrect my laptop with rs-232 interface =).

[F0lken]

I have tried the patch, you provided, but nothing helps.
Here are two files with my gps output from hyperterminal and gps.txt - a recording from psp.
Again, simple viewer (GPSlim236 with 4800 patch) works fine.
Any tips ?
P.S. readtime setting is 8. No "1", nor "20" helped.
:(

[deniska]

I have tried the patch, you provided, but nothing helps.
Here are two files with my gps output from hyperterminal and gps.txt - a recording from psp.
Again, simple viewer (GPSlim236 with 4800 patch) works fine.
Any tips ?
P.S. readtime setting is 8. No "1", nor "20" helped.
:(

Hm,
I am assuming that you changed the baud settings in MapThis to 4800... cause it really looks like that PSP's serial is not reading it corectly....

Some other pointers:
check wifi switch and umd drive, make sure phone plug is in.

Try the early beta version (there is a link to it in one of the threads here as well as the link to a MAC code generator (the beta checks for MAC address for authentication)

If nothing else helps, you may need to re-build it from source code and put in a few debugging print lines in getGPSMessage() in main.cpp and run in in PSPLink

Hopefulyy, we'll get to the bottom of it ;-)

BTW, according to PC NMEA file that you attached, you device did not have a fix on to any satelites..

[F0lken]

I know, that I'm not attached to any sattelites =).
And if so, shall MapThis show "bad data", if my GPS is not "fixed" ? Or it should report "OK", but with zeroes in coordinates ?
I think, that I'll use "READTIME=8", as it mentioned to work with SirfII device (BR305 is SirfII).

[F0lken]

I feel so stupid =).
I removed UMD from PSP and I'm getting "out of range" now. gps log is looking ok.
Looks, like everything WORKS!!!!
Thank you for tips!
Tomorrow morning (it's 21:19 in Moscow now) I'll try to check it on streets. I don't feel very well now (37.5 degrees temperature) and I cannot go out =((.
Deniska! Thank you for your wonderfull app, and I think you can add GlobalSat BR-305 device into compatibility list.
My 5 cents: Please, add message like "GPS data is corrupted" instead of just "BAD". Because if your receiver is not "hooked up", you'll get GPS DATA:BAD, too. Just print "not fixed" or something.
Hope, you'll find this suggestion useful.
And the question: you posted a patched version. How does it differs from original ? Should I need to wait for "patched" versions of future releases or I just can use them with SirfII ?

[deniska]

Use the patched version...
It has a bigger buffer, allocated for NMEA data, so it is less likely to overflow and freeze your PSP...

Where in Moscow are you?
I used to live on Taganka for 19years before I moved to US... BTW, Moscow has great map coverage on Google and MSN, comparing to other Russian cities..

I was in Moscow for a few days just a month ago, but could not test the GPS mapping since my program was not ready yet...
Hopefully I'll give it a test in Paris next moth...

[deniska]

Hey,
BR305 looks like a nice device.
Could you post some pictures and connection diagrams, so other could benefit from your reseach?

[F0lken]

About BR305 - nothing special. I just found an article about psp serial and soldered a level-converter.
Here we go:
http://nil.rpc1.org/psp/remote.html
Then I found a pinout of BR305 (in russian) - the ps/2 like connector is from BR305
http://www.gpshome.ru/support/connectors/

Actually, the most tricky part was to determine signal level of BR305 and decide, do I need max3232 circuit, or not... There was no data about signal levels. It may be 3v-level rs-232 or something else - i don't have an oscilloscope at home =).
After a day of diggin google and forums I found an answer on www.gpshome.ru - it was definetely +-12volts RS-232.
First of all I soldered DIY cable for ordinal PC serial port. I have a thinkpad for weird hardware expirements =).
Cable worked. That was good news.
After that I bougt soj variant of max3232. The first thought was: "Uh oh - I should drink less coffee and beer to reduce handshaking" =).
Finally, i made a simple circuit board for a chip. Nothing special - just cut some parallel lines on textolite =).
Then... Soldering.. Testing. Mixed cables.. No power on chip, mixed cables again, burned hands... I 'm not really expierenced in smd soldering =)).
Finally, I got nemea strings in lua serial port echo =).
My girlfriend wanted to kill me at 2:00 am at night, because I was singing halleluja at wake her up =).
Later I downloaded all this development stuff for psp and grepped for "38400" in source code. Just changed it for "4800", kxploited new eboot and... Got NEMEA sentences on this "Green" app =).
You know all the rest.

About Moscow. I'm living permanently at "Red Gates" metro station ("Lermontovskaya"), and staying at my girlfriend's house for several days in a week an "Schelkovskaya" metro station.
My university is located at Taganka =). (I've graduated already).

Back to hardware. Important tips! I got an external PSP battery and I'm using it to power up GPS device !
Now I'm solving a problem to attach a little box with circut to psp itself and not to spoil the case =).

[deniska]

Back to hardware. Important tips! I got an external PSP battery and I'm using it to power up GPS device !
Now I'm solving a problem to attach a little box with circut to psp itself and not to spoil the case =).

I specifically chose holux236 because it has a built in battery and low TX voltage - so the connection is really simple and there is no extra battery boxes hanging around...

Anyway, great work .. I am glad you had it all figured out...

[A Fn NOOB]

I dont know why you folks with the Holux Bluetooth dont get a Bluetooth serial "dongle"
and do away with the wire!

You could just make a connector like I did with the DB9 and plug in one of those little things in and you GPS doesnt even have to be connected physically to the PSP

[deniska]

I dont know why you folks with the Holux Bluetooth dont get a Bluetooth serial "dongle"
and do away with the wire!

You could just make a connector like I did with the DB9 and plug in one of those little things in and you GPS doesnt even have to be connected physically to the PSP

This would add yet another battery to the equation, would n't it? ;-) plus this blue tooth thingie will probably be almost same size as the holux receiver....
Nah... I am gonna keep mine cheap & simple... :-)

[deniska]

Actually, I was thnking about another possible wireless aproach:
perhaps the 3-5V TX line from holux (or any other device) could power a small IR diod, which would broadcast data to PSP's IR port...
Not sure wherether it's technically possible, but if anyone wants to investigate the HW setup, I'd be more than willing to write IR support of MapThis!...

[seesoe]

someone could try, but i wouldn't use the ir setup i will keep my wires much betters, its not that bad haveing the wires.
i was thinking, for a power supply for some gps units: the psp has the docking 2 little pads near the dc input, this is for dock chargeing, but im not sure if it can give out power.

[vibez]

The advantage of not using wires is that we should be able to get sound

[fokia]

Actually, I was thnking about another possible wireless aproach:
perhaps the 3-5V TX line from holux (or any other device) could power a small IR diod, which would broadcast data to PSP's IR port...
Not sure wherether it's technically possible, but if anyone wants to investigate the HW setup, I'd be more than willing to write IR support of MapThis!...

One major problem about iR is that, usually, beams must be perfectly aligned. Otherwise, there's signal loss...

About Bluetooth support - I guess this theoretically could be done through USB (Bluetooth USB dongle) but had to be written some kind of driver for the PSP to be able to communicate with that device... There's some undergoing work with the USB protocol and the PSP but I can't really tell if that’s feasible or not... maybe as soon as the GPS and Camera are out someone can mess with the PRX’s and come up with something...

[F0lken]

I think, that IR is not really suitable for GPS solution.
Anyway, you'll get a plenty of wires with IR diode on end - and you'll have to place your psp in front of diode. It will look like cable, anyway =)
USB.. err... Does PSP has a usb host ? =)
IMHO, serial is the most suitable thing.

[fokia]

I think, that IR is not really suitable for GPS solution.
Anyway, you'll get a plenty of wires with IR diode on end - and you'll have to place your psp in front of diode. It will look like cable, anyway =)
USB.. err... Does PSP has a usb host ? =)
IMHO, serial is the most suitable thing.


PSP doesn't have a usb host but CAN have one for sure - GPS and CAMERA units are coming out later this year and use the USB connector on top of the PSP...

Could you post some kind of schematic's about your converter? I'm sure it's like many others on the web but even so i'd like to take a look on it...

[seesoe]

The advantage of not using wires is that we should be able to get sound
i never thoght of that for some reason lol

but as said in other posts it has to be next to the psp and the doide has to be infront of the ir on the psp, but its VERY possible to do this i got to thinking about it, you could put some sort of covering on the umd door, like vinal, u can go to some sign store and get a small scrap square, stick it on the umd door and put 2 wide strips of velcro on the bottom right side of the umd door, and u put the gps's usb jack faceing up, then you could simpley get the ir head *extended from teh main converter from the gps* and place it on top the psp's ir input and cover with something, maybe also velcro square with a hole in the middle for the signal, if someone will help me get some ir scymatics to make i will attempt to try this, the converter can MAYBE *depends what kinda pieces its gonna use* fit inside of the gps, i just took a look inside the holux unit and found a very veyr lil room