bGeigie Nano GPS

[Louis Bertrand]

Hi,

I'm almost finished assembling a bGeigie Nano (bought last fall from KitHub) and tried it before installing it in the case. It powers up just fine and I brought it near a window to acquire GPS signals. The first time, it was slow (about 2 minutes) to get its satellite fix. I tried it a few minutes later after installing the BLEbee, and it never picked up a signal. I tried shutting it off an trying again in case it was a firmware issue.

A secondary question is about the BLE and Android app. I could set up the BLEbee (8 digit hex ID) in the app settings but it would not connect in the main screen. Does the device need a GPS fix before it can connect?

Thanks

 --Louis

Louis Bertrand

Blackstock ON Canada

[Louis Bertrand]

Hi,

The GPS works fine now. Following suggestions from Pieter, 

 -- Removed the Micro SD card and powered up;

 -- Waited for the "No SD Card / GPS Reset" message on the OLED;

 -- Powered off, and inserted the SD card, powered up again;

 -- Went for a walk -- the GPS found 9 satellites in a couple of minutes.

All the best

 --Louis

[Angela Eaton]

Glad things are working smoothly - thanks Louis for reporting back! We're looking forward to seeing your new measurements. 

Cheers, 

Angela

[Alberto Villa]

In two years of operation I am experiencing more frequently similar problems:

1) Even in open fields, sometimes the GPS does lock only after I have switched off and on again the bGeigie for two or three times.

2) Last month, during several long trips by car, I noticed that sometimes the bGeigie was suddenly missing the GPS lock without being able to reacquire it. This weekend, after uploading all the data collected I saw that  a high percentage of the points were lost.

Just an idea: should I try to substitute the memory card?

Thanks and best regards.

Alberto

[Pieter Franken]

Hi Alberto,

Hard to tell what is causing this. but one thing you may want to try is to do a GPS reset - to do so remove the SD card and with the bGeigie on for 1 minute. After that switch off, reinsert SD card and go outside. It may some time before the first GPS lock appears. 

The SD card should not affect the GPS unit's ability to get a lock, but you can test the SD card for any formatting errors to be safe.

Beware that GPS reception sometimes is affected by time of day, trees, clouds and tall buildings. 

Pieter

[Alberto Villa]

Hi Pieter,

thank you very much for your answer.

A first doubt: during the 1-minute GPS reset, is it important to keep the bGeigie into "log (cpm)" operating mode, or into "Bq/m (uSv/h)"?

A second doubt: the firmware and the config.txt and safecast.txt files in the micro-SD card have not changed since my bGeigie started working two years ago. Do they need to be updated?

Cheers.

Alberto

[Wood]

There seems an issue in startup where the GPS chip supplies an invalid location and date and may be no error checking in the code?  Guesses but needs work in any software upgrades. (Smarter GPS chip?)

I think one suggestion was archive SD files so you have maybe five most recent records in the working folder. ?  Lots of ways to do this and old / questionable files should be obvious.

Not a new issue, should be crib notes somewhere.

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[Alberto Villa]

Hi Pieter,

I have followed your procedure and made a couple of tests in these days. The GPS lock (and reacquisition in case of temporary loss) now appears to be rapid and stable. In the future I will repeat these steps systematically, just to be sure...

Please take into account that the operations manual in Github (March 2017) includes the GPS reset procedure at the end of section "Measuring Ionizing Radiation in Logging Mode", but as far as I have seen here it does not tell why and when it should be performed.

Hence I suggest to add a note recommending, for instance, the reset before the first logging and after having obsered anomalies in the GPS acquisition. Or maybe just on a periodical basis...

Thank you very much again and best regards!

Alberto

Il giorno martedì 11 giugno 2019 16:22:03 UTC+2, Pieter Franken ha scritto:

[Pieter Franken]

Hi Alberto,

That’s great and the reset normally does it.

Good point on the manual - it should be done when the board is booted up for the first time during the build, before inserting the SD Card.

Azby - can you see if we can more promemntly mention this step, and also put it in the trouble shooting section. Thanks!!

Best,

Pieter

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