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

[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...