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 Adding BLE to Vertica V2 (Bluetooth low energy)
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bo.
Pterodattilo

843 Posts

Posted - 01/10/2015 :  22:52:35  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Hi, have anyone here contemplated or even gone through with hacking the Vertica V2 to add BLE / Low energy Bluetooth 4.0 to one of the serial ports?

The reason for asking is that I'm quite interested in the new and extremely precise gps/vario XC-TRACER. It has BLE, and won't work with classic BT. You can read more about it on https://www.xctracer.com/

People who are hacking Kobos and similar e-readers for the same reason use the chip in the link below. It looks small enough to probably fit inside the case of the V2. Any hints about the feasibility of this idea and how to proceed is greatly appreciated!

https://m.fasttech.com/product/1292002-ti-cc2540-cc2541-bluetooth-4-0-ble-2540-2541

Here is an image how the HM-10 is mounted in the Kobo Mini
https://www.xctracer.com/image/kobo_mini.jpg

Edited by - bo. on 01/10/2015 22:56:32

BravoLima
Aquilotto

Netherlands
276 Posts

Posted - 02/10/2015 :  09:10:45  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Don't forget the V3.
I don't know all the specs of the V3 but may be it's worth to implement it as well.

Edited by - BravoLima on 02/10/2015 09:13:03
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bo.
Pterodattilo

843 Posts

Posted - 02/10/2015 :  09:19:20  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Yes, I actually asked about the BT specs here recently, but no reply yet. So I don't know if V3 will have BLE.

My V2 still works OK, and as the HM -10 chip is listed at 6 USD with free shipping, that would obviously be the cheaper solution. But I still don't know if the V2 would accept the BLE chip in the same way as a Kobo.
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bo.
Pterodattilo

843 Posts

Posted - 03/12/2015 :  20:55:12  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Hi, I am happy to report that I have now successfully added a BLE (BT 4.0) chip to my Vertica V2, and it is communicating with the XC Tracer GPS/vario.

I am having some issues with the communication though, hopefully it can be sorted.

Briefly, XC Tracer can output the following protocols:
XCTRACER, LK8EX1, LXWP0, FlyNet, and BlueFly.

I have tested LK8EX1, LXWP0 so far, using COM 8 at 38400 baud, 8 bit, normal serial mode

LXWPO with LX/Colibri profile in KL8000 yielded GPS position and baro altitude, but not vario.

LK8EX1 also give vario data, but the screen incl. the clock updates only roughly every 5 seconds, although the NMEA seems to include position at 1 Hz (both $GPRMC and $GPGGA) A piece of the NMEA log looks like this:

$LK8EX1,98996,99999,8,99,4.18,*36
$LK8EX1,98997,99999,5,99,4.18,*3A
$LK8EX1,98996,99999,8,99,4.18,*36
$LK8EX1,98997,99999,6,99,4.18,*39
$GPGGA,190803.400,6022.3042,N,00522.0785,E,1,9,1.05,174.9,M,43.7,M,,*51
$LK8EX1,98997,99999,6,99,4.18,*39
$LK8EX1,98996,99999,7,99,4.18,*39
$LK8EX1,98997,99999,5,99,4.18,*3A
$LK8EX1,98997,99999,5,99,4.18,*3A
$LK8EX1,98996,99999,5,99,4.18,*3B
$GPRMC,190803.800,A,6022.3042,N,00522.0785,E,0.01,121.33,031215,,,A*6E
$LK8EX1,98997,99999,2,99,4.18,*3D
$LK8EX1,98997,99999,2,99,4.18,*3D
$LK8EX1,98997,99999,2,99,4.18,*3D
$LK8EX1,98997,99999,4,99,4.18,*3B
$LK8EX1,98996,99999,6,99,4.18,*38
$GPGGA,190804.400,6022.3042,N,00522.0785,E,1,9,1.05,174.9,M,43.7,M,,*56
$LK8EX1,98996,99999,9,99,4.18,*37
$LK8EX1,98996,99999,7,99,4.18,*39
$LK8EX1,98996,99999,6,99,4.18,*38
$LK8EX1,98996,99999,6,99,4.18,*38
$LK8EX1,98996,99999,3,99,4.18,*3D
$GPRMC,190804.800,A,6022.3042,N,00522.0786,E,0.01,121.33,031215,,,A*6A
$LK8EX1,98996,99999,2,99,4.18,*3C
$LK8EX1,98997,99999,0,99,4.18,*3F
$LK8EX1,98997,99999,-3,99,4.18,*11
$LK8EX1,98997,99999,-5,99,4.18,*17

Do someone know what the problem might be?

Is the NMEA log in accordance with the $LK8EX1 protocol? According to this description it look ok: https://github.com/LK8000/LK8000/blob/master/Docs/LK8EX1.txt
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brunotl
Pterodattilo

France
1090 Posts

Posted - 03/12/2015 :  22:54:11  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
this problem is well know, RMC & GGA don't have same date, XCTracer update exist (or will be available soon) for that...
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bo.
Pterodattilo

843 Posts

Posted - 08/12/2015 :  20:51:45  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
I got a new firmware for testing, but that introduced another error, and it will take some time before a new firmware can be delivered.

In the meantime I will have to do with turning off the GPS data from XCTracer and rely on the internal GPS in V2. This seems to work quite well, but it will not help for someone using eReaders like Kobo with no internal GPS.


There is however a dedicated NMEA protocol for XC Tracer. Is there any chance that this could be added to the list of supported protocols?:

$XCTRC,2015,1,5,16,34,33,36,46.947508,7.453117,540.32,12.35,270.4,2.78,,,,964.93,98*67

$XCTRC,year,month,day,hour,second,centisecond,latitude,longitude,altitude,speedoverground,course,climbrate,res,res,res,rawpressure,batteryindication*checksum

https://www.xctracer.com/en/tech-specs/?oid=1861&lang=en
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Coolwind
Moderator

Italy
8957 Posts

Posted - 08/12/2015 :  21:11:41  Show Profile  Visit Coolwind's Homepage  Reply with Quote
In order to support the XCTRC sentence we should at the same time ignore GGA and RMC.
It is possible by creating a dedicated device (LK8EX1 would be ignored too).
But if they fix the standard sentences it would be a waste of time.
What is the problem with the fixed version? What error is now introduced?

p.s.
Are there any PNA-KOBO-WHATEVER that actually can interface with XCTRACER without custom modification of the hardware like you did?
Because for you single problem a single solution is available by probably applying a custom patch and recompiling yourself with nimbus.


Edited by - Coolwind on 08/12/2015 21:14:52
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bo.
Pterodattilo

843 Posts

Posted - 08/12/2015 :  21:37:18  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Hi Coolwind,

there is no need to ignore GGA and RMC, since $XCTRACER is self sufficient with GPS position included. Also it includes the battery percentage of the XC Tracer.

The error in the firmware was that RMC sentences were not properly terminated, but fused with the next $LK8EX1... And as you can see the checsum is wrong (possibly other things as well).

$LK8EX1,97079,99999,9,99,3.62,*3A
$GPGGA,143513.400,6022.3135,N,00522.0973,E,1,7,1.01,163.7,M,43.7,M,,*57
$GPRMC,143513.400,A,6022.3135,N,00522.0973,E,$LK8EX1,97079,99999,8,99,3.62,*3B

Aside from modern smartphones, I do not think there is many (any?) devices that can communicate via BLE natively. But it seems like quite a few have done this with Kobo and possibly other devices, adding the HM-10 or HM-11 BLE chip like I did. Currently they are limeed to using XCSoar. Apparently XCS ignores the decimal seconds in RMC/GGA.

If someone wants to look into it, $XCTRACER support has been added to a beta version of XC Soar for Andoid. I suppose the source code could be useful.
http://www.windeckfalken.de/xcsoar-en

https://github.com/ThomasXBMC/XCSoar/commit/b7fcd4e42029e03000f28acd42f63dfd9b42c245

Making my own compilation with nimbus is out of my scope for now, thanks! :-)
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brunotl
Pterodattilo

France
1090 Posts

Posted - 09/12/2015 :  02:01:06  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
the truth are simple, nothing are wrong inside LK... so users need to wait XCTracer fix or try with LXWP0 (instead of LK8EX1), maybe that can solve the problem.

concerning new device driver implementation, the rule are always the same, we need device ...

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bo.
Pterodattilo

843 Posts

Posted - 09/12/2015 :  07:00:16  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Hi, LXWP0 give the exact same result as LK8EX1.
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