Put to the test!

A brief update for today:

The four CNC machined housings arrived this week and all of them make a nice fit as you can see in the photo (I masked off the LED opening with some tape to simulate the lens effect as those lenses were to small to be CNC'ed). I have been in touch with the housing manufacturer this week as well to iron out the last details of the drawings. They will start cutting steel upcoming week! Once that is done, I will visit them to take a look at the molds before we get our first parts.

I built three additional GPS modules this week as well and the new upload tool for A-GPS data from the manufacturer seems to work a lot better now. After having uploaded the latest A-GPS data to each of the modules, I have performed open/clear sky testing with the modules and am very happy with the results! Typical time-to-first-fix (TTFF) with A-GPS enabled is ~10sec average on a cold start. Average signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) is ~42dB (note that both the TTFF and SNR numbers are open/clear sky numbers and can vary in practice depending on surroundings and GPS satellite strength). Performance is thus very good for such a small unit! After the antenna tuning process, we might gain a little more on the SNR, but we will wait for those results first before concluding anything.

I also had to place a special purchase order (PO) for the high brightness/low current bi-color LEDs this week as they only had 200 in stock (delivery is scheduled for September 15, 2008). As I thought the green/orange color combination was a little too ordinary, I have chosen a blue/red LED which looks really cool. The blue LED will be on as power-on indicator and the red LED will flash when searching for satellites (it will be off after a GPS lock is found). So while searching for satellites, the combined blue/red LED will flash purple. Power consumption of the LED will be a little less than 1mA when the module is tracking. The rest of the module consumes ~36mA while tracking for a total of 37mA for tracking.

Power consumption, size and performance have all been traded off against each other, but it looks like the final results are pretty good in my humble opinion!

The estimated-time-of-arrival (ETA) for the modules is still set for the end of September. Let's hope there will be no further delays; thanks everyone for hanging in there!

What's (been) happening?

It has been a little while and as you can imagine things have been busy and very hectic. Here is an update on the various items:

1. Last Monday, the last revision of the PCB came back. Although I placed it as a rush order, it was late; it was supposed to have arrived the Thursday before. In the meantime I have built a new GPS module with it and tested its performance, which is up to spec now. This new module is shown in the photo (inside of the new housing prototype).


2. The biggest milestone that got done this week is the new two-piece housing design. This has pretty much kept me busy full-time since last week:
• New 3D CAD files (no logos) were completed and a new FDM prototype was made to verify that everything fits inside of it. I painted the prototype black, put the latest board inside and hooked the USB cable up. The result can be seen in the photo.
• The next thing in line was sending out the new 3D housing designs to get real prototype housings CNC machined out of solid ABS plastic (no FDM). These are needed to do proper antenna tuning of the board and the housing for optimum GPS performance. These housings are expected back upcoming week.
• Next I had to finalize the drawings for production and place the logos on them. This did not go without hick-ups and quite some time was waisted trying to get the 3D software to accept the graphics files. But eventually I managed to get everything imported.
• I am currently detailing the lens a little more to make sure that the LED light comes out properly and has a wide viewing angle. The final CAD files are due first thing Monday morning.
• A purchase order (PO) was placed for the injection mold making and a delivery of 1000 housings. The housings are to be completed by September 9, 2008.


3. I also received new GPS modules with updated firmware for this new PCB design. I had problems uploading A-GPS data to them. I thought it was a firmware issue, but after talking to the GPS vendor it turns out that the A-GPS upload tool that they provided had some problems, so they provided me with an updated version which performs better but still seems a little buggy. After we get a final OK from the vendor on the module configuration and firmware, we can place a PO as well (I hope this can happen this week).


4. Regarding contract manufacturers, I have converged on a candidate for PCB manufacturing and assembly with competitive pricing. I might have to make a few minor adjustments to the bill of materials, but after that we can get the ball running.

It looks like the Orange Gadgets website has been running pretty smoothly. As of now, 177 people have signed up so far for a total of 208 modules. Feel free to do some additional advertising among your family and friends as well as online.

Bingo!

Link for iPhone and iTouch users here


To top the week off with some more exciting news, what you see above is a live demo of the xGPS software that xWaves is working on. Note that all credit for this awesome application goes to them!

This software does not require a live internet connection!

Here is how to get this running:

1. I configured one of my modules at a baudrate of 19200. That is the baudrate the xGPS program currently runs at. Hopefully they will add in an option to custom set the baudrate the program uses for the serial port in the next version. So you will need to have a GPS module with the correct baudrate settings, otherwise it won't work. Plug your GPS module into the dock.


2. Go to the Installer.app on your iPhone or iPod touch and add in http://irepo.xwaves.net under the sources. Refresh the sources and then go to the Install menu and scroll down to Xwaves and install xGPS (the version I am running is 1.0p1). Quit Installer.


3. Start up the xGPS software and hit Maps. You'll end up somewhere in France. Zoom out with the small magnifier glass and move the map to your local area, then zoom back in again with the large magnifier glass.
   


4. Now drag with two fingers a red box for the map area that you want to download and hit the Download button. This will take a while depending on how large the map is. Make sure auto-lock on your iPhone/iPod touch is set to never and that you have enough battery left. I suggest downloading a small map area the first time (< 20mb). Cancel to go back to the main screen. The map is located in /private/var/root/Library/xGPS_map.db.
   


5. Then hit Enable GPS and voila, your GPS should be working! A pin will drop on your current location.


6. Take your phone, get into your car and have fun!
   

As this is still a very early version of the software, it is a little bit buggy when it comes to zooming in and out (double tap with one finger is zoom-in, double tap with two fingers is zoom-out). Also, the voice navigation is not working yet, although I did get it to display the purple-line directions on the map occasionally and the program spoke the first navigation direction out loud.

It looks like things are coming along very well in having a complete GPS navigation solution available.

So make sure up to sign up for one of the iGPS360 modules. The first production run will start very soon and will be a quantity of 1000 units. Make sure you are among the first 1000 to sign up!

Sign me up!

Allright! It has taken quite some time (I mentioned that some things were running in the background), but this new website is finally up and running!

I am hereby introducing you to:

www.orangegadgets.com


and



The logo in my earlier post is indeed an Orange. Why (an) Orange? Good question... why (an) Apple? Consider it a re-FRESH-ment, something different and FRESH from all the things out there. It also represents the color orange, a color which has left a trace of the history in my own life: it is the color of the dutch Royal House, most dutch sporters play in orange, the Orange is orange, and Orange Gadgets is located in Orange County...

With respect to the logo for the GPS module, I'll let the module speak for itself: "i (I) GPS 360 degrees or all-(a)round". The 360 degrees signifies that the gadgets we will bring to market can find application all-around.

So much for the logos. I hope you like them!

Regarding the website, I have incorporated a sign-up form on the site where you can sign up for the GPS module. Please only sign up if you are serious about buying one or more GPS modules. All data is logged into a database and will be used to determine future production quantities and to contact you once the modules are available for sale.

Since I have only done limited testing on the site so far with only a few different browsers (Firefox, Internet Explorer and iPhone Safari), please provide me with feedback on any broken links or other things that might not be functional.

Enjoy!

Puzzle

Time to tease a little... What could this be?