GPS for E100

[Guest Jasonkruys]

I am looking for a GPS mouse type thingy to use with my E100. Could someone point me in the direction of one?

One thing I have considered, is the fact that I have a Road Angel. My Road Angel can be used to output standard GPS data from the serial port on the rear. I have used it successfully with my laptop and a serial cable.

Would it be possible, do you think, to somehow use my Road Angel as a GPS receiver for my phone while I am in my car? Surely it must be possible, using a home made cable, or is there something I can buy as an adaptor. This would be great as in my car, I could use mappopolis as GPS, and it would also be fairly future proof as all I would need to do (when i maybe get an mpx220) is replace the cable. Any ideas anyone?

[Guest squall]

afraid not, the Bluetooth on the e200 makes gps possible, without it you need a set of drivers and a serial connection that are not available

[Guest Brody]

Aren't there people using XDA wires on their E100's in the Mapopolis thread?

Edit: Yes they are, look here> http://smartphone.modaco.com/viewtopic.php...er=asc&start=45

NOTE: Some links have been removed but you can follow people getting it to work :)

[Guest Dr_StrangeTrick]

Yes you can connect a serial GPS mouse to either the E100 or the E200 the current MPx does not have a serial port but hopefully the new ones will.

If your GPS mouse comes with a 9pin female connector then all you need to do is to get yourself something with the XDA/E100 connector on the end (I modified my car kit) but if you want to build it yourself then you can get the plugs from Gomadic

Then refer to this page www.yorch.net and all that you need is to connect as follows.

9Pin SPV

2 10

3 8

5 5

Then fire up Mapopolis and set the GPS to COM1, 4800 (or Auto) then open Mapopolis, press Menu, GPS, Start GPS and away you go.

Other things to consider your Road Angel may need separate power for long runs. Also while I am driving I cant see the screen without the light on so its a good idea to provide power to the phone as well, Mapopolis and Backlight take their toll on the battery (Pin 13 on the SPV connector)

Not wanting to put a downer onto the subject but the one thing almost everyone overlooks is the fact that you are running Mapopolis on a mobile phone and you can bet when you are in some busy city centre your phone will ring arrgh so again you need to think about how you want to handle this while you are driving, Mapopolis slips into the background when a call comes in and comes back when the call ends.

So you either need use the supplied handsfree kit, use the speaker function (not good when driving) or something else. I already had the Safe-2-Talk kit and thats why I decided to hack that instead of building my own from scratch, the kit provides phone power, puts the phone into Car mode so it auto answers, it also makes Mapopolis a lot clearer and I can use the volume on the car kit instead of fumbling with the phone and I take the power from the car kit to power my GPS and all I had to do was add two wires into the phone plug and take power from the main unit.

Hope this helps.

[Guest squall]

oh my mistake. Cool!

[Guest Jasonkruys]

Wow thanks for the info :lol:

My road angel is powered off of the 12V cigar socket anyway. I have been planning to get a four way adaptor for the 12V socket, as I wish to power my ipod and get that in my car as well.

So, my plan is, to get an SPV car charger (cheapest I can find) and hack a serial cable onto it to connect to the serial port of my road angel, using the three pins you have specified. Will this work? I think it will as long as I get it right, and can get at the charger connector. Please put me straight if I am wrong :)

For the moment, I will just switch to radio off when I am driving, as I have never used a handsfree kit anyway and always ignored my phone. That is until I can do a more elegant solution such as yours 8)

[Guest Dr_StrangeTrick]

Cheap power connectors, I think this is about as cheap as you can get.

ORANGE SPV & SPV E100 CAR CHARGER - NEW

Or try www.pc-mobile.net and get a 12v USB adapter and a USB sync lead.

These already have the correct power for the SPV (don't want to fry it do we :wink: ) and they have the the correct plugs for the phone (E100 and E200 both have the same connections as far as the serial port goes)

Personally I would go for the second one as this will have both power and data going to the plug and we just need to rewire the data pins. I cant guarantee if the first one has more than two wires (but I would expect it would have) but all you need to then is attach this to your Road Angel through the 9pin plug.

I will warn you that the pins in the SPV plug are tiny :twisted: and if you are like me it may take you several goes.

Good luck.

[Guest Jasonkruys]

Thanks VERY much for your help :lol: A few last questions, I'm sure your bored with this now :)

The cradle, does that have the correct connections that I need to use for the serial data? I have just ripped apart a spare SPV (canary) cradle I had lying around. I'm thinking, could I buy a car charger, take the end of and connect it in place of the AC connector on the cradle, then cut off the USB end and connect that to the serial cable, would this work?

Below is a pic of the connector, with the separate power feed.

Connector.jpg

[Guest Dr_StrangeTrick]

Hi again, don't worry about being bored. Its nice to help someone :)

I have had a look at my old spare E100 cradle, you cant use the wires that are currently soldered to the plug these are the USB wires and these go to pins 14 and 15.

From what I can make out though on the other side of the connector there are 9 pads and I believe you will find pin 8 and 10 carried through to these pads but you would have to check which ones (I cant tell, must be getting old) so that is about the only way to use that connector.

If you don't fancy all the soldering then you may be better off looking for an XDA GPS lead, I cant say that I have seen them but from what I have seen they do exist and they take care of the serial port for you. Not sure about the power though.

Let me know how you get on.