Forums > Windsurfing   Gps and Speed talk

A plug-and-play GPS?

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Created by boardsurfr > 9 months ago, 21 Mar 2021
Xbraun54
74 posts
15 Apr 2021 3:46AM
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JulienLe said..
I have a strong hunch on this one, I'll release a new firmware friday. Nice find, thank you.


Now you got us all excited, what will be fixed in the new firmware and how does this affect previous versions ?

decrepit
WA, 12761 posts
15 Apr 2021 7:57AM
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Xbraun54 said..
Hi, is this comparison based on the native .ubx output from both the Motion and the M8logger ?


No .oao from motion .ubx from logger

decrepit
WA, 12761 posts
15 Apr 2021 7:58AM
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JulienLe said..
I have a strong hunch on this one, I'll release a new firmware friday. Nice find, thank you.


Good one Julien, sorry should have sent you the files straight away

Xbraun54
74 posts
15 Apr 2021 1:27PM
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Bigsnut said..

JulienLe said..
I have a strong hunch on this one, I'll release a new firmware friday. Nice find, thank you.



What?... Come on What is it?... I want to here this hunch????
Motion wasnt worn properly?


That's funny ?? To wear the Motion not porperly and fix it with a new firmware..... somehow it seems difficult to be transparent...almost political.... two simple questions.... what's the root cause of the issue and what's the impact of all sessions already posted....

JulienLe
405 posts
15 Apr 2021 3:20PM
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None, it takes a very rare combination of events to happen.

Are you looking for another topic random concerned speed enthusiasts could copy/paste on windsurfing.nl and Facebook ad nauseum like that *one* time a Mini Motion lost its strapping plate over 400 devices made? Disappointing attitude and I'm not sure it really helps selling your stuff. If anything, it made the Mini Motion known in the Netherlands.

Xbraun54
74 posts
15 Apr 2021 3:34PM
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Not impressed either Julien, just asking a few simple questions, nothing to do with watches what so ever....So there is no root cause and no impact, even more impressive that you have found a solution for this ? In this case you are the one and only GPS Wizard

powersloshin
NSW, 1835 posts
16 Apr 2021 6:14AM
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tbwonder said..

So I spent ....another 30 minutes soldering some headers on to the tiny boards.




you can buy the open log with headers, it would save some soldering:
www.digikey.com.au/product-detail/en/sparkfun-electronics/DEV-13955/1568-DEV-13955-ND/11570518

powersloshin
NSW, 1835 posts
20 Apr 2021 4:31PM
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tbwonder said..
My Beitian GPS board arrived yesterday. Before attempting any programming I connected the 4 wires to my logger to see what
Here it is all stuffed into an old Gopro case ready for action....




How do you start it, just plug the battery in and close the go pro case?
And how do you turn it off gracefully ?

decrepit
WA, 12761 posts
20 Apr 2021 7:01PM
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powersloshin said.. >>>And how do you turn it off gracefully ?


The openlog seems to cope fine with power just going off. I've been doing that for almost 2.5 years now, without any data corruption.

tbwonder
NSW, 730 posts
20 Apr 2021 10:17PM
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I was starting it by simply connecting the battery and turning it off by pulling the battery out. But I have put it into a case with a folding lid and fitted an on/off switch.
Amazingly the open log manages to not corrupt the file when the power is just shut off.
It is much simpler to use than any commercial device.
1. Turn on
2. You can see the lights flashing on the Ublox receiver and the Openlog so you know it is working.
3. Turn off
4 Pull out SD card and put in your computer.







decrepit
WA, 12761 posts
20 Apr 2021 9:42PM
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So have you done a discharge test? A bit over 10 hours I'd guess

powersloshin
NSW, 1835 posts
21 Apr 2021 6:46AM
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tbwonder said..
I was starting it by simply connecting the battery and turning it off by pulling the battery out. But I have put it into a case with a folding lid and fitted an on/off switch.




Need to make sure not to turn it off accidentally.. maybe having to open the case is safer.
I ordered the parts, now that you have shown the way it should be easy. Are you going to have it approved by GPSTC ?

Bigsnut
30 posts
21 Apr 2021 5:44AM
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decrepit said..
So have you done a discharge test? A bit over 10 hours I'd guess


its 900mah ,it should do 3x the gw60 or double the motion

tbwonder
NSW, 730 posts
21 Apr 2021 8:12AM
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powersloshin said..


Are you going to have it approved by GPSTC ?



Yes I am well into the approval process. Unfortunately this time of year there is no wind, so it is proving difficult to perform on the water testing.

I was initially worried about the battery coming loose from it's holder or a connection coming loose whilst sailing. But so far It was worked perfectly. If power was interrupted during a session, it would just be a simple matter of joining the two files logs afterwards.

I haven't done a discharge test - I probably should

decrepit
WA, 12761 posts
21 Apr 2021 9:08AM
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Bigsnut said..

decrepit said..
So have you done a discharge test? A bit over 10 hours I'd guess



its 900mah ,it should do 3x the gw60 or double the motion


That's if the openlog is as power hungry as the other 2. It is very good, but who knows what the others do.
Yes I suspect it may go over 20 hours, but there's no way of knowing until you test.

decrepit
WA, 12761 posts
21 Apr 2021 9:41AM
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powersloshin said..
>>>>>
I ordered the parts, now that you have shown the way it should be easy. Are you going to have it approved by GPSTC ?


There's one thing missing from Andrews device, a battery charger.
I think he's using one from a GoPro, but that means unplugging the battery after a session to recharge it. This is fine for an initial experiment to get a logger working, but if you want to use it long term it makes more sense to include battery maintenance in the device.
I'll get back with how I've done mine shortly.

decrepit
WA, 12761 posts
21 Apr 2021 10:45AM
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Here's my stuff but it's probably a bit over the top. It dates back to a previous configuration that needed a 5v supply, both the Bn880 and openlog work down to 3.3V. And I was using a battery without protection.

I think the flat pack type batteries have over discharge and over volt protection built in.
So all you should need is a simple charger.
But things may stop working properly if the battery gets down to 3v


I've got a battery charger and a battery protection board,
The charger is a DD05CVSA
The details are here.
www.canton-electronics.com/power-converter-modules-c-4/battery-charger-and-discharger-module-c-4_9/other-voltage-c-4_9_35/2-in-1-charger-discharger-board-dc-dc-converter-stepup-module-charge-in-458v-boost-out-5v-for-ups-mobile-power-diy-p-977.html

A very long url. make sure you get all of it.
This keeps a constant 5v to the openlog as long as the overdischarge doesn't turn thing soff

here's the protection board details
DD04CPMA battery protect module
Functions:
Over Charge Protection
Over Discharge Protection
Short Circuit Protection
Overcurrent Protection
Parameters:
Over Charge Detection Voltage: 4.28?0.05V
Over Charge Release Voltage: 4.26?0.05V
Over Discharge Detection Voltage: 2.5?0.1V (hmm I've just read battery voltage shouldn't go below 3v)
Over current Detection Current: 1-3A
Overcurrent protection : 3.2?0.2A
Size : 12.6x10.2x2.1mm
Weight : 0.34g
Note: Please charge the first time, activate the protection board. Otherwise there is no voltage output
Wiring:
B- connected to battery negative
B+ connected to battery positive
P+ Connect the charger/load positive
P- Connect the charger/load negative
Applications
3.7V lithium battery 18650
TP4056 Charging module

powersloshin
NSW, 1835 posts
21 Apr 2021 5:27PM
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Thanks Mike,
yes I ordered a battery charger I have 3 GT31 batteries, one is new. Will build the simplest device first and then.... who knows ?

tbwonder
NSW, 730 posts
21 Apr 2021 9:26PM
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decrepit said..

There's one thing missing from Andrews device, a battery charger.
I think he's using one from a GoPro, but that means unplugging the battery after a session to recharge it.


Yes the battery is from an old Gopro copy (SJCAM) but the battery holder is a charger, it has a micro USB in the side.
So to charge up I just open the case and connect a usb cable, just like with a GT31.

decrepit
WA, 12761 posts
21 Apr 2021 8:10PM
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tbwonder said..>>> but the battery holder is a charger, it has a micro USB in the side.
So to charge up I just open the case and connect a usb cable, just like with a GT31.


Sorry Andrew, didn't realise that, a very neat solution

sailquik
VIC, 6165 posts
28 Apr 2021 1:55PM
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Raymond reports that he has been testing his M9 based Gyro GNSS device running at 20Hz with 4 GNSS and three sentences:

NAV-PVT @ 20Hz
NAV-DOP @20Hz
NAV-SAT @ 1Hz

He reports that his Device handles all this 'quite nicely'

But that he gets better results with no missed points or apparent errors, and low sAcc. using just GPS and Glonass.

He also reports that he has spent quite some effort optimising and integrating the antenna into his build, which is likely a bit part of his good results.

This is significant because it seems that Ublox has significantly improved the processing power and/or throughput capacity of the M9. The M8 struggled to output these three sentences even at 10Hz and even with only 2 GNSS.

I note that NAV-DOP is not really necessary to log for what we need, (All the essential info is now in PVT) but it illustrates the higher capability to process and output data on the M9.

NAV-SAT is not really necessary either for most uses, but I find it very useful for trouble shooting (It is all the SV and constellation data) and I recommend people add this sentence @1Hz if they can. This may not be the case with the M8 @10Hz, but seems certainly to be the case with the M9.

boardsurfr
WA, 2454 posts
2 May 2021 11:39PM
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sailquik said..
Raymond reports that he has been testing his M9 based Gyro GNSS device running at 20Hz with 4 GNSS and three sentences:

NAV-PVT @ 20Hz
NAV-DOP @20Hz
NAV-SAT @ 1Hz

He reports that his Device handles all this 'quite nicely'

But that he gets better results with no missed points or apparent errors, and low sAcc. using just GPS and Glonass.

He also reports that he has spent quite some effort optimising and integrating the antenna into his build, which is likely a bit part of his good results.

This is significant because it seems that Ublox has significantly improved the processing power and/or throughput capacity of the M9. The M8 struggled to output these three sentences even at 10Hz and even with only 2 GNSS.

I note that NAV-DOP is not really necessary to log for what we need, (All the essential info is now in PVT) but it illustrates the higher capability to process and output data on the M9.

NAV-SAT is not really necessary either for most uses, but I find it very useful for trouble shooting (It is all the SV and constellation data) and I recommend people add this sentence @1Hz if they can. This may not be the case with the M8 @10Hz, but seems certainly to be the case with the M9.


You are confusing a few things here. The M8 actually has no problem reporting at 10 Hz with 3 GNSS systems, as Mike's prototype (and several others) have shown. The Beitian chips, which use the M8 core, don't have any problem.

The primary problem with higher rates and the M8 are u-blox NEO-M8 chips that use run the firmware from Flash. Flash is slow, so these specific chips have a problem with higher rates.

The other source of dropped points are linked to communication, not the chip. If you use serial communication at 19200 baud, recording at 20 Hz cannot work because your data rate exceeds the channel rate. Higher rates can run into occasional errors when the GPS and logger get out of sync, which is very device dependent. Using I2C or SPI instead, which u-blox chips support, eliminates these errors. I have had no problem recording M9 data from 3 or 4 GNSS systems at 25 Hz.

But the only thing that rates above 10 Hz accomplish is to make files larger, and to render estimated errors for results rather meaningless if those estimates use standard Gaussian error propagation. Which is quite ironic, since the main reason to use higher rates is to see the lower error numbers that you get using Gaussian error propagation.

powersloshin
NSW, 1835 posts
7 May 2021 8:39PM
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So I followed Andrew's steps. I ran into problems running ucenter in Wine, could not see the com port. Opened my old windows7 PC and could not install the latest ucenter due to some dll missing. I managed to run an older version, but could not save the config to use NAV-PVT Messages, would always come back to default. The other changes were accepted.
Did a test today against the mini motion and got some discrepancies, not sure if it is because of the config or the fact that was wearing the devices in different places.
It's been a very interesting time so far and will keep working on this. A great opportunity to learn something. Thanks all that contributed.






decrepit
WA, 12761 posts
7 May 2021 7:38PM
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So have you got the GW60/GW50 utility working in wine?
If not you need to link the usb port to the windows comport.
I've found my old instructions here, if you need them PM me.

I'm running U-centre in virtual windows 7 without a problem, just do a search for the dll.
It took me a while to get U-centre to save stuff, it should be possible.
If you aren't recording NAV-PVT, where are you getting the sAcc numbers from? That's a big mystery

sailquik
VIC, 6165 posts
7 May 2021 9:40PM
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George, good to see you doing some science.

But there is not much of value to be learned unless the two GPS you are comparing are locked together in the same place and orientation. I have found that the Doppler speeds are very sensitive to very small, actual movements and changes in velocity (refer to the graph of gear changes in my motorbike tests). If you wear them separately, they will be moving differently and seeing slightly different constellation. That can easily be enough to cause the different runs being found as best and second in your 10 second results.

powersloshin
NSW, 1835 posts
8 May 2021 8:00AM
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Thanks guys, I can run old ucenter version in wine now and the pvt messages are saved. Maybe they were saved already but I could not see it because it always shows NAV SOL first. Next test will put both devices on the helmet

decrepit
WA, 12761 posts
8 May 2021 9:05AM
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you don't need NAV SOL, that will just make the file bigger.
Any way, good stuff George. With both on the helmet, I predict a very close correspondence.

powersloshin
NSW, 1835 posts
17 May 2021 6:31PM
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decrepit said..
...With both on the helmet, I predict a very close correspondence.


I think you were spot on as usual. Went out today and results are much closer, some discrepancies I think because I was running the BN-880 at 5hz. using both GPS and Glonass Systems, while the mini-motion is running at 10hz. Cannot run the BN-880 at 10hz if you select Glonass.
I will ask the advisory committee what needs to be done to have it approved. I need an emergency device, only have one motion left and waiting for my orders, but who knows when I will get them, and also some team members cannot post anymore due to lack of devices.










decrepit
WA, 12761 posts
17 May 2021 4:46PM
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Looks great!!!!

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I will ask the advisory committee what needs to be done to have it approved.

At the moment we cannot access, info@gpsteamchallenge.com.au, Nebs is working on it.

If you send both those files to Daffy or me, we'll start you on the registration process.

tbwonder
NSW, 730 posts
18 May 2021 10:01AM
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powersloshin said..



using both GPS and Glonass Systems, while the mini-motion is running at 10hz. Cannot run the BN-880 at 10hz if you select Glonass.



Georgio, I have my BN 880 running at 10 Hz with GPS, Galileo and Glonass.
Can you not set it in U-centre, or does it not work when you set it?



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Forums > Windsurfing   Gps and Speed talk


"A plug-and-play GPS?" started by boardsurfr