Minor Planet tracking unit, anyone have info?

[Jess--]

I know its not arcade related but I had been looking for a gps unit that I could fit in my vehicle permanently (and if that had trace capability aswell then even better)

I won this auction
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5875590409
does anyone have information on the guts of these things? I can probably hack the GPS output for navigation usage but I know nothing about the GSM side of it.

[SirPeale]

I know its not arcade related...

And you posted it in the appropriate place.  Good for you.

[Jess--]

I tried everywhere but could not find the "hack a proprietry (sp?) tracking system" forum.

knowing what projects some of the members here have going I figured there was a small chance someone may have come across these before.

[SirPeale]

I tried everywhere but could not find the "hack a proprietry (sp?) tracking system" forum.

knowing what projects some of the members here have going I figured there was a small chance someone may have come across these before.

No, I mean you posted it in Everything Else.  It's for...well...Everything Else.

[Jess--]

I know

[Stingray]

This thread is certainly keeping me on the edge of my seat.

-S

[Jess--]

I have the unit sat in front of me,

I have already hacked access to the gsm modem part and have that fully functional, just trying to chase down the gps side now.

the unit breaks down into 3 parts (if you ignore the antenna)

part one, motherboard, contains custom cpu, flash rom and a low frequency transceiver

part two, interface board, contains power regulation for the gsm / gps module

part three, gps/gsm module, Falcom a2d-si-900-1800 module, Nice unit this one, contains full gps and gsm modem in one small unit.

currently I am ignoring the motherboard as that starts applying custom settings to the modem, (setting message centre settings, gprs settings etc) I have the interface board hooked up to 12v and have got the gsm modem working to the point where I can use it to connect to the internet and have it auto answer incoming calls

[danny_galaga]

This thread is certainly keeping me on the edge of my seat.

-S

LOL

[Jess--]

cracked the system, now have a board I can dial into via a modem, the board auto answers the call and starts sending back raw NMEA (gps data format) messages.

one real time vehicle tracking system 

[dpstek]

Jess

Don't know if you have any notes on what you did with the minorplanet unit, but do you think you could explain how you got it working as you did?

Got two of these sitting on the spares shelf and thought I might be able to reuse them before I break them down.

I appreciate it was 6 years ago..................

Thanks

Dave

dpstek

[ark_ader]

What's the odds for a reply?

[Jess--]

What's the odds for a reply?

Pretty good




I will have to pull the board to check, need to do it soon to keep the sim card alive anyway (it has to make 1 chargeable call per year or it gets shut down)

from memory the custom board with the cpu is useless without knowledge of their control system and as such is not used.

the board that the gsm / gps module plugs into requires the addition of a 5v regulator (to power the 5v parts of the module)
next step is to configure the gsm module to run at 4800 baud and to auto answer any incoming calls
to do this you will need the modules datasheet so that you have the correct commands and can trace the wiring so you know where to attach wiring to access the serial port and issue the commands

once you have done that you need a single link wire to link the GPS nmea output to the gsm modems serial input.

if all goes well you should be able to dial into the board with any modem and it will connect and start feeding back raw gps data

I will grab the board over the next few days and photograph the mods

[dpstek]

Jess

Thank you, I look forward to it.

Ark-ader - I agree it was a long shot - but ............ worth a try. - Thanks for your post though

Dave

dpstek