Database Users

X2 & GPS - doing my head in

Hi guys,
Firstly great board, secondly i was wondering if anyone was able to help me with the problem I am having with my X2.
I have loaded tom tom onto it and when I plug the GPS in, it doesn't work. I have stopped the Active Sync running since it kept launching the active sync window when I plugged in the gps. I try launch the GPS Status menu from inside the tom tom navigator and it says "Unable to launch the GPS control panel".
Any suggestions greatly appreciated.
Stuart.

What GPS are you using?, i use a Fortuna Bluetooth GPSmart and it works perfectly, i am running bluetooth tools though, the bluetooth connection seems much more reliable when using it

It isn't a bluetooth one, it doesn't say what make it is just a compact flash GPS receiver?

Mosser,
Is the fortuna blue tooth recharchable or does it use AA batteries??

Imries, if it is compact flash then i assume you must be using it with the xda2 backpack, I have heard of many cards that will not function with the backpack.
Jupiter. The Fortuna Gpsmart uses AAA batteries, standard or rechargeable, however there is no recharge circuit on board.

As cruisin said, the fortuna uses 3 aaa batteries, but i mostly use the power lead in the car and save the batteries for when i'm on the train or walking,
I also have a noname brand CF GPS that just says BC-307 on the cd rom that came with it, it works fine on my ipaq 2210 but i dont want to get a backpack after trying one in the shop, it was way too bulky for me so i'm staying bluetooth on my XDA2

Thanks.
I am tempted to get one. I suppose there are pro's and con's of having AA batteries.
Ie if you are in a himalayan village without electricity but the corner shop sells AA batteries?!
Any ideas what price I should be paying.
Another thing - do you guys know of any shops that actually sell GPS units? I have looked in all shops in the UK but could not find any?!

I had the same issue with my XDA 2 with Tom Tom.
It is to do with the Infra Red Port.
Loot at connections under Control Panel under Infra Red untick the Receive box.
Hope this works OK.

Click the link below, expansys are usually one of the cheapest suppliers in the UK they are curently going for £115 for the gps, £25 for the pc link/car power lead, and £8 for the cig lighter to usb power adaptor making it around £148 in total
http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?code=GPSMART,
If your interested i am selling my Fortuna gpssmart and pc/power cable and cig lighter adaptor soon as i am getting a rover 75 that will have sat nav in it already and i dont need 3 sat nav system!!
It is all in mint as new condition with the latest firmware that i loaded myself and is all fully boxed, looking for £100 for it all

Mosser, which cable did you use for the firmware upgrade, i was under the impression that a proprietary cable was required and that a standard mini usb cable would not suffice?

Your right that you do need the genuine propriatry cable to connect to the GpsSmart and luckily thats what i bought!, you cant use a standard cable as there is no usb interface on the GpsSmart, it is actually a serial connector made to look like a USB connector and the genuine/propriatry cable has a USB to serial convertor chipset built into it, thats why the cable is so expensive

xda charging unit

bougt a xda2 from ebay,
it works fine but is missing the chargeing unit at the bottom so i can not sync it with the cradle nor charge it, unless i take the battery out and charge it on its own in the cradle, is there any chance this can be fixed,
the actual clip inside is missing so i dont know wether it was soldered on or its a clip and can i get a replacement
any help will be appreciated
also ive tried to sync using bluetooth through active sync but it will not work is this because the initial set up requires the xda to be in the cradle??

Hi There,
I don't quite understand,
Are you saying you don't have the cradle or are you saying there is something wrong with your device?
Are you charging your battery on something other than a cradle?
There is 2 ways to charge an XDA2 in original form
1. Placing it in the cradle and turning the computer on and it charges through the USB. It will not charge if the PC is not turned on i.e. Powered up.
2. Plugging in the charger that connects directly to the machine and plugs into a 220V AC plug socket.
Can you give me a wee bit more info and I will help you out.
I have a spare cradle and a charger and if you need either we can talk business if you need them, but I won't sell you them if you don't need them.
What type of goof sellls an XDA2 without the ability to charge it? If he has ensure you give him some serious negative feedback!!!
Many Thanks

the xda is was bought with all leads and cradle,
i can onkly charge the xda battery in the cradle, as the where the unit sits in the xda that part is missing so it cannot be charged only the batt can be charged every time you wantto use it, i was told you can sync it with ifrared but i dint have infrared only bluetooth
hope that helps

BTW, You can sync with BlueTooth as well.
Are you saying the male plug in the cradle which slides into the female slot in base of the XDA II (when you insert the XDA II into the cradle) is missing?
Sounds like you need to replace the cradle.
A photo of your problem would help us understand.
Ed

I think it must be part of the pda thats missing, otherwise the usb cable would do the job.

the bit in the actual pda is missing and not from the cradle, so i cannot connect to it, i can connet via bluetooth but i cannot use active sync, i think i need to have usb / cradle connectivity intially for set up so i can later on active sync, as i want to load tom tom s/w on there and i cant

I got activesync working over bluetooth but I had to install bluetooth tools to do so, have you tried that?

treid that, but when i try to connect active sync does not see the bluetooth, it doesnt even have the option for bluetooth connectivity on infrered or usb

Exec noisy car audio output when powered by car adapter

Having previously owned a IIs and having a standard usb cradle in my car run from a usb connectored "cigarette lighter adapter", I'm used to using my devices as a portable "car stereo". I even wired it up to replace my old crap car stereo, using a small "cheap boy-racer style" £30 stereo power amp under the dash. This has been great for the last year. I get in the car, dock the xda IIs into the cradle, plug in the headphone socket which is wired into the amp and hey presto, music - and tom tom prompts through the car speakers.
Recently I've been eyeing up the xda exec(JasJar/Universal) and after getting a second hand colleague to buy my IIis, decided to get the new device. Obviously the shorter battery life is a bit of a shock compared to my old one, but I was pleasantly suprised that
1) The audio output seems a better quality
2) The new device no longer needed a custom USB cradle plinth or gooseneck holder, ... I could place the "open clam" in the recess in my instrument panel, to the right of my speedo. Basically sitting just behind the steering wheel, which also solves the night-time reflection issues of a bright display.
Just one problem, I discovered that the USB sync cable supplied with the new device doesnt seem to enable charging to the exec when I plugged it into the 12Volt to USB adapter that worked with the XDA IIs that I wired into my dashboard.
So I decided to buy a new car power adapter for the new Exec, egged on by installing the great "mort player" which has an ideal "large button" interface on a black background which is ideal for use in the car.... and it doesnt forget the playlist like media player 10 seems to do each time you run it...
However, When the car power adapter arrived today, (from expansys)
http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?code=125511
To my dismay it is very noisy! the audio output to my amp sounds great with just the headphone output to my mini under dash amplifier, but only on battery power. But when the adapter is supplying power, the audio output becomes "crackly" Any electonics boffins have any suggestions to remove the "noise" with capacitors, if so what type and where should I put them, on the audio, or inline with the cigarette power adapter dc input somewhere, or should I just send it back and try and source a better quality adapter?
Expansys also do 2 other models -
http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?code=125969
http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?code=125970
Does anyone know if these are as noisy as the other one? Does anyone else have a similar setup?
Thanks in advance
Derek

you have a ground loop. in america, we use negative as the ground, so be carefull with what I'm telling you (posative is ground in some countries).
What you need to do is run the amp and cigarette lighter off the same ground(s) and possibly the same feeds (supply voltage). Make sure you fuse the lines appropriately, or you might fry something.
I would suggest installing a secondary cigarett lighter outlet somewhere convenient (so you don't cross any other circuts in your car, and burn stuff out), and run it off the same points that your amplifier gets it's power. Fuse the new outlet with the appropriate fuse (should be 5 or 10 amps), and give your new setup a whirl. It's a cheap alternative for you to try (should be about $10 or 8 euro?)
Good luck, and remember, NOT MY FAULT WHAT YOU DO> TRY THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!!!!

I agree with him ^
JAmes

Strangely - today the noise is gone... hmm... very strange...
perhaps it was a solar flare, or another explosion at hemel
or more likely - perhaps there was a loose connection somewhere!
Thanks for all the advice guys, I will certainly make sure I avoid any ground loops and ground the audio on the same physical connection as the car earth. I'll check this at the weekend when I have some daylight to work in!. I'll do this when wiring the new adapter in properly - I can't bear it hanging out of the lighter socket with the near the indicator stalk!
I can say the Exec is great device though... Its a far better solution for car audio - and no leaving an expensive hifi in the car to be stolen.
Hopefully someone else is inspired by this post to also use the device in this way. If you want plenty of storage for a full install of the tomtom uk map and loads of music, you'll be interested to hear that you can actually get a 2 gig card now from ebuyer for about £60!
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/prod...vd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=103013
Cheers
Derek

This is very valuable info
interestingfellow said:
you have a ground loop. in america, we use negative as the ground, so be carefull with what I'm telling you (posative is ground in some countries).
What you need to do is run the amp and cigarette lighter off the same ground(s) and possibly the same feeds (supply voltage). Make sure you fuse the lines appropriately, or you might fry something.
I would suggest installing a secondary cigarett lighter outlet somewhere convenient (so you don't cross any other circuts in your car, and burn stuff out), and run it off the same points that your amplifier gets it's power. Fuse the new outlet with the appropriate fuse (should be 5 or 10 amps), and give your new setup a whirl. It's a cheap alternative for you to try (should be about $10 or 8 euro?)
Good luck, and remember, NOT MY FAULT WHAT YOU DO> TRY THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Indeed! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_loop_(electricity)

Full Charge or trickle?

Is there any way to see if the unit is being fast or slow charged? It seems that the HTC charger uses an extra pin on the charger to enable fast charging and that MAY be why some aftermarket chargers (wall and car) do not seem to keep up with the battery discharge when running even if their plugged into a charger with sufficiant current capability. The HTC Wall caheger is rated as a 1 Amp charger. I have other chargers that use an external USB cable to connect, both rated as 1.5Amp (1500mA) chargers but seem to charge very slow. Soooooo I'm looking for the difference between the HTC charger and the aftemarket ones to see if I can make the ones I have work properly.
Thanks for any help
joe
<edit> in Looking at the Mini USB spec I find 5 pins labeled 1-2-3-x-4 with 1being VCC (5v), 2 & 3 being Data + & - and 4 being Gnd. Does the Advantage use the X pin to enable fast charging? How? Does it provide a second 5v line to cause/enable the Advantage to fastcharge? I think I need to look at the wall charger mini USB pinouts.

After talking to Pocket PC Techs and looking around online, it looks like the x-pin (next to pin 4(gnd)) is shorted to pin 4 to provide the advantage with a sense line to tell it to fast charge. The also shuts off the data lines in the unit AFAICT. Still don't know what the current capability of "Fast Charge" is or how to ask the unit to query the port for status. USB ports are generaly limited to 500ma and the stock charger is 1000ma (1A) so it seems that to ensure the MAX charge, the cable connected needs to have the x pin and pin 4 shorted. This is usefull if you are NOT wanting to do a data transfer (car GPS, stand alone charging, etc).
Here is a link to the connector http://pinouts.ru/PDA/pda_miniusb_pinout.shtml
Anyone can add to this?
Joe

I just received the Lil Sync DUO Mini-5 Adapter from PPC tech and it works perfectly. I'm now getting a fast charge from my PC (no sync) and I'm able to charge my S705 bluetooth headset.

Interesting news on the pinouts. I've never heard of any utility that shows fast vs. slow charge.

I wonder if anyone has a utility that can sense a gnd on the x pin (next to gnd) of the input connector. Does anyone have a schematic of the advantage side of the input power/data connector. It would me that there might be a pullup on that line sothe unit see's it as a high untill pulled low by a ground applied tothe x pin.

here you have "hot to do it"
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=396053

ppa25 said:
I just received the Lil Sync DUO Mini-5 Adapter from PPC tech and it works perfectly. I'm now getting a fast charge from my PC (no sync) and I'm able to charge my S705 bluetooth headset.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please tell me i need "PPC Techs HTC Advantage Lil Sync Extended Cable + mini 5 DUO" ( http://www.expansys.com.gr/p.aspx?i=145972) or ONLY "PPC Techs HTC Advantage Lil Sync DUO Mini-5 USB Adapter" (http://www.expansys.com.gr/p.aspx?i=145975) ?

Nexus 4 car charger problems.

Hi
I've been using a Nexus 4 for almost a year now and am mostly happy with it. One major problem is that I cannot charge it in my car. When connecting to a car charger and using it as a GPS navigation device as well as audio through bluetooth, the charge drops much faster than when working solely on battery. When the charge drops below 20% it crashes down to under 5% in a few minutes.
I've tried different chargers. A couple of them are rated for up to 2.1A and are good enough for iPads. Belkin, no name Chinese ones, etc. It charges nicely when connected to line chargers, either iPad ones, or the LG that came in the box.
On my last trip abroad driving around it become simply a nightmare. I had to constantly manage the battery turning services on or off, got stuck without GPS one night in a not so nice part of town, asking every time I stopped for lunch for the phone to be charged, etc.
Any recommendation? I can't really return it to Google as it was bought in the US, and I live abroad.

Hi Junior,
If your USB cable has the 4 pins (power and data) your phone may be trying to connect for data transfer. To disable the data transfer connection ensuring that the phone will connect for charging you need to go to Settings -> Storage, at the top-right corner click on the 3 dots then "USB computer connection", finally uncheck both protocols (MTP and PTP) then remove and plug back the USB cable to your Nexus 4.
Well, I had to do this and it worked fine! Good luck! :fingers-crossed: