NaviGPS
From OpenStreetMap
There are now quite a few OpenStreetMap users who own NaviGPS units. This is an owners page containing useful notes for these people. The different Names for this Device range from NaviGPS, NaviGPS-BT, BGT-11, Amaryllo. It was originally made by Scytex but the product and its engineering team have now transferred to Locosys. If you want to buy one, read the Merchandise page to give OSM a 10% donation for free. More useful info about this model is on the review page for this unit. Also see NaviGPS with Linux.
Contents |
Quick Start
This guide is for anyone who has never used a NaviGPS before and just wants to go out and record some tracks (assumes you have a memory card installed).
- If NaviGPS is brand new read the #Setting Up section.
- Press the small button for two seconds to switch it on.
- Check that the messages CARD FOUND and NEW FILE come up.
- Hold it out in the sun, with a good view of the sky, for two or three minutes to get a fix. It will bleep and the light will flash when it has a fix. There will be a small
3Dor2Dicon in the top right of the screen when it has a fix. Remain stationary until you get a fix. - Go and make some tracks.
- Ensure that the unit always has a good view of the sky.
- If you lose your fix because of a tunnel or heavy tree cover, stop and wait for the fix to be regained once you have clear sky.
- To record a waypoint press and hold down the big button. The waypoint number will be displayed for a second or two.
- Write down the waypoint number and the name of the street or point of interest.
- If you are recording the name of a street, write something like "turning left into start of High Street" or "Bridge Road becomes Water Lane at this point".
- If you are recording a point of interest note the location relative to where the GPS is. "St Peter's Church on left hand side about 50m from the road" or "Pied Piper pub on right hand side".
- To switch off the unit press the small button and hold it down for several seconds.
- Once you have the NMEA format .TXT files from the SD card, you will need to convert the files to GPX for use with Josm or Openstreetmap. Check out the NMEA page for instructions.
- The Navilink software (for Windows) captures your tracks and waypoints to a PC in NMEA, GPX and Google Earth KML format.
- The Amaryllo site has a good Getting Started guide.
Memory Cards
Not all memory cards work in a NaviGPS. It is known that only 2.85v cards work. Any other voltage will not work, however it can be difficult to discover what voltage any particular card is.
Known to work
The following cards are known to work:
- SanDisk Ultra II - 1Gb/2Gb
- SanDisk Ultra II Plus (with integral USB connector) - 512Mb
- SanDisk Ultra II Plus (with integral USB connector) - 1.0Gb
- SanDisk 256Mb, 512Mb, 1Gb
- Panasonic branded 16Mb
- Impact branded 256Mb
- Kingston Ultimate 133x 512MB
- Crucial 2Gb (CT2GBSD)
- Integral 2GB maybe -- needs more testing
Known to NOT work
- "Canon" branded 32Mb
- "Jessops" branded 512Mb (corrupts see below)
- "Palm" branded 128Mb (corrupts see below)
- SanDisk TransFlash 32MB micro-SD with SanDisk microSD/TransFlash to SD Adapter
- Kingston Technology 2GB Secure Digital (SD) Card
- Nokia miniSD 512Mb (with converter)
- Transcend 1GB SD (will appear to record data, but the NMEA track points will all be zero)
Troubleshooting
- The NaviGPS expects a FAT-16 file system so don't expect cards with more than 2GB to work.
- The NaviGPS is a bit fussy about the formatting of the file system. If you have problems, try reformatting the card using the NaviGPS's built-in memory card format command. Cards formatted using Linux seem to be more prone to problems (try formatting the entire card without a partition table because that's how the NaviGPS formats it).
- There have been a couple of reported cases where the unit has appeared to work fine, but has not created any track log files. Try running chkdsk. The files might be there but just not visible in the file system directory.
- As the data on the SD card is just NMEA ASCII text, it can be converted to GPX (or any other format) with GPSBabel.
- Some PDAs running Windows Mobile will automatically wipe a NaviGPS formatted SD card on insertion, no questions asked. Test this before you have important data (the above comment about extracting data in Linux will get it back again). The issue with this may be using a card that's not seen a Windows environment before it's used. If a card is used in a Windows Mobile PDA and then put back in the NaviGPS, all appears to be fine and you don't appear to lose your data when it's next inserted in the PDA. Someone should verify this is the case and add a comment here please.
- If the unit turns off randomly, especially if it also corrupts files, then it probably does not like your SD card. Try to get one of the 'known good' cards listed above.
Addenda
This was provided in an email from Scytex support):
- INDOORS – If the system can't find a GPS signal, it will pop up INDOORS asking if you are somewhere the sky is blocked by a roof or something. If you answer with NO, the system will pop up TRAVEL LONG...
- TRAVEL LONG – The system maintains the database of the last GPS satellites received before turning off the power. When you turn on the power again, the system compares the database with the new GPS signals received, so that the system can fix very quickly. If you travel far away from the position (a few hundred miles in general) and the system can't find the same GPS signals as in the database, it will pop up TRAVEL LONG. If you press YES, the system will re-initialise the database, indicating COLD START. You generally want to press NO.
- NAVIGATION / SPORTS – A unique feature to screen out the position drafting. When set to SPORTS (under FUNCTION in the Settings), the system will fix only when the HDOP value is less than 4. Under NAVIGATION, the system will fix when HDOP value less than 10. However, it is recommended to set to SPORTS only when under a very clear sky.
- Turning On/Off Backlight using Power/ESC button – Pressing Power/ESC button at the Main Screen to turn on the backlight will override the setting under the SETTINGS page. You will have to go back to the SETTINGS page to select the BACKLIGHT TIME again, then the backlight will turn off automatically again.
- (this one from an e-mail from Locosys support) - to use the firmware update software, you can set the unit to any page but Navlink page (i.e. the opposite to what you need to do for connecting the Navlink software. Doh!)
- BLUETOOTH - When setting up the bluetooth link with a mobile phone, the default passcode is 0000.
Setting Up
The following notes relate to setting up a NaviGPS from new for use in making tracklogs:
General
- Upgrade firmware to the latest stable version. Newer firmware provides extra features and fixes for bugs. See the Locosys Support page. Unstable firmware version numbers end in a 'T'. These are not recommended for general use.
- Backlight timeout. By default when you use the unit the backlight comes on automatically and goes off after 10 seconds or so. However, pressing the on button can also switch on the backlight permanently - which helps to drain the batteries. If you set the BACKLIGHT TIME to OFF then it is obvious when you have accidentally switched it on.
- Tracklog interval should be set to 1 second. Nothing else is good enough for our purposes.
- Note that, if you are using an SD card, you can set the tracklog and SD NMEA log intervals (see below) independently. Setting the tracklog interval to COMPACT whilst leaving SD NMEA log interval at 1 second will allow you more time during which tracks are displayed on screen, whilst recording GPS data at 1 second intervals to the SD card.
- Differential correction. Set the DGPS SOURCE to SBAS. Set the POWER MODE to NORMAL, otherwise DGPS is disabled.
Memory Card setup
- If you are using an SD memory card, format it using NaviGPS's built-in format command (don't know for sure that this solves any problems - but does eliminate problems from FAT-32 formatted cards etc).
- Set the logging interval to 1 second for all nmea messages.
Memory Card corruption
If you've arrived home to find that your SD card can't be read by your computer, there is a chance you can recover some files using PhotoRec. PhotoRec will scan through the card, ignoring the partition information, looking for file headers. It will produce some files that have been renamed with numbers (not original file names). A program like grep (for GNU/Linux) might help you sift through to find the resulting files. Try "grep 'dd,mm,yy' *txt" where dd, mm and yy are replaced by the day, month & year you're looking for respectively.
Such corruption has been known to occur using development firmware (B0608T) on a known good card model. Please stick to stable/formal firmware releases to avoid disappointment.
Updating Firmware
Under GNU/Linux
The firmware update software for Windows can be successfully run under GNU/Linux via Wine. If you haven't used Wine before, you'll want to read the introductory sections of the Wine User Guide.
Once Wine is installed, you need to configure the serial connection for Wine, see Wine User Guide: Serial & Parallel Ports. As the USB serial device names are of the form /dev/ttyUSBx, a typical system would require creating a symlink like this: 'ln -s /dev/ttyUSB0 ~/.wine/dosdevices/com1'.
Mounting
Helmet mounting for cycling
The NaviGPS is light enough to be barely noticable when mounted on top of a cycling helmet. For track logging with occasional waypoint recording, this is quite an effective setup as it gives the unit the best view of the sky. To record a waypoint, you simply reach up and press the joystick till the beep is heard.
Velcro dots are sufficient to hold the unit, though you'd be wise to also add a string just in case.
Care
- Do not let the LiIon battery run flat and remain flat for a long period of time - this can permanently damage and reduce the life of the battery.
- Always switch off the unit before removing the memory card (or use the REMOVE CARD option from the MEMORY CARD menu).
- If you're planning to test the waterproof claim to the max, dry it out after use, including the metal screws on the inside of the casing door, which will go rusty otherwise. It seemed to be waterproof for a long time, but Harry's NaviGPS has taken on water, misted up, and broken (at least temporarily) during a kayak mapping session :-(
