PilotAware

British Forum => General Discussion => Topic started by: peteD on May 18, 2016, 06:19:53 pm

Title: 4 mins for wifi access to become available(was battery startup issue) - SOLVED!
Post by: peteD on May 18, 2016, 06:19:53 pm
Times for connect/ become visible via wifi seem to vary between 1 to 4 mins(4 being the usual)
Any thoughts.. using Anker battery power?
Also what is the TRX interface?..its red! logging shows repetative fails.
Thanks
Pete

update: connecting to a monitor shows cycling flashing screen with no boot up, if some of the usb devices are removed then it boots...is this a power problem from a not new battery?
Title: Re: 4 mins for wifi access to become available
Post by: JCurtis on May 19, 2016, 12:34:12 am
update: connecting to a monitor shows cycling flashing screen with no boot up, if some of the usb devices are removed then it boots...is this a power problem from a not new battery?

Could be, do you have an iPad (10w/12w) charger you could try?
Or try each USB item in isolation and see if it only fails with one of them.
Title: Re: 4 mins for wifi access to become available
Post by: the_doc on May 19, 2016, 07:30:44 am
The TRX being red may well be because there is no GPS fix (have a look at the text in the GPS row).

I seem to recall my TRX row only went green on moving the PAW outside and getting a GPS fix, after which it went green and started transmitting without any problem.

I suspect you might be on the right lines, first of all excluding a power issue by use of a mains adapter. Then if that doesn't help, check the USB devices are in the ports as per the QuickStart guide (the double-sided A4 sheet received with PAW), then try restarting, removing one of the USB items each time to see if removal of one consistently resolves the issue.

Hope some of this helps?
Title: Re: 4 mins for wifi access to become available
Post by: peteD on May 19, 2016, 09:43:59 am
Solved...sort of

OK Thanks all...seems my battery is marginal, boots consistently in less than 1 min when powered from nexus 7 chargers, one rated at 2A and the other at 1.25A.

On the other hand, my less than 1 year old, hardly used Anker Astro ES(2nd gen) (16 Ah) is rated at 3.0A.

Seems not all ratings are equal!
Title: Re: 4 mins for wifi access to become available
Post by: Admin on May 19, 2016, 09:51:43 am
Solved...sort of
OK Thanks all...seems my battery is marginal, boots consistently in less than 1 min when powered from nexus 7 chargers, one rated at 2A and the other at 1.25A.
On the other hand, my less than 1 year old, hardly used Anker Astro ES(2nd gen) (16 Ah) is rated at 3.0A.
Seems not all ratings are equal!

Hi Pete,
Power is crucial!

I am sure I am asking a daft question, but the Anker is fully charged (one of my battery packs requires an almost overnight charge) ?
and also, I am presuming the same power lead used in both test conditions ?

Glad you have it sorted, and now when you go to the home page http://192.168.1.1 it should show all interfaces working correctly ?
(green lights on all)

(setting to SOLVED)
Title: Re: 4 mins for wifi access to become available - SOLVED!
Post by: peteD on May 19, 2016, 10:04:06 am
Same power lead, fully charged, (well it was) have run for a couple of hrs, still showing 4 blue/fully charged lights. It's rated at 16 Ah ,quoted consumption around 1A or less so should be good for quite a few hrs (10+)......but it's not!

Yes, all interfaces working.

Thanks

Pete
Title: Re: 4 mins for wifi access to become available - SOLVED!
Post by: Admin on May 19, 2016, 10:11:09 am
Same power lead, fully charged, (well it was) have run for a couple of hrs, still showing 4 blue/fully charged lights. It's rated at 16 Ah ,quoted consumption around 1A or less so should be good for quite a few hrs (10+)......but it's not!

Yes, all interfaces working.

Hi Pete,
I suspect the Anker is faulty, I would return to Anker and get them to take a look.
Also, if you have (or know someone with) a USB plugin Meter, I would be interested in seeing the min peak voltage
I recall the RPI starts to see 'brownout' issues below 4.8v
Title: Re: 4 mins for wifi access to become available - SOLVED!
Post by: peteD on May 19, 2016, 11:27:06 am
Thing is, my Anker battery has worked as expected and happily recharges phones etc many times over.

Thinking about the possible brown out issues, I wondered if it had something to do with the way the power was delivered(rate of voltage rise etc) when the battery sensed a power requirement(getting out of my depth now!)

So I plugged my nexus7 into the battery(creating a demand) then plugged in the PAW to the other port....

Boots and works every time! ;D ;D

So the battery does provide adequate power, it's just a dirty startup...I think!
(maybe this is only relevant to the Anker Astro ES)

Hope this is of help to others

regards

Pete
Title: Re: 4 mins for wifi access to become available - SOLVED!
Post by: Admin on May 19, 2016, 11:29:43 am
Hi Pete,

great analysis, I think you have hit on something, because the PAW, boots up using little power and slowly increases its power requirement as more resources are utilised and the CPU starts to get busy.
Maybe the Anker is expecting a constant load, and takes time to shift into a higher gear ?
Title: Re: 4 mins for wifi access to become available - SOLVED!
Post by: JCurtis on May 19, 2016, 11:49:06 am
Hi Pete,

great analysis, I think you have hit on something, because the PAW, boots up using little power and slowly increases its power requirement as more resources are utilised and the CPU starts to get busy.
Maybe the Anker is expecting a constant load, and takes time to shift into a higher gear ?

Indeed it does, this is the current  consumption (in Amps) for the first 100 seconds @ 500 reading per second.  Its a bit rough, just threw the data into excel, but you can see it working away.  I ran out of time with a borrowed unit yesterday to dig into what it does when fully up and running connected to an iPad properly, will have another run at it over the next few weeks.
Title: Re: 4 mins for wifi access to become available - SOLVED!
Post by: Admin on May 19, 2016, 11:53:12 am
Jeremy, thats a great analysis and pretty much what I expected to see, can I ask
was this recorded with only the following peripherals

1. USB - GPS
2. USB - SDR
3. USB - WiFi

in other words this excludes an HDMI conected monitor, and an RJ45 ETH0 connection ?
Title: Re: 4 mins for wifi access to become available - SOLVED!
Post by: JCurtis on May 19, 2016, 12:11:35 pm
Jeremy, thats a great analysis and pretty much what I expected to see, can I ask
was this recorded with only the following peripherals

1. USB - GPS
2. USB - SDR
3. USB - WiFi

in other words this excludes an HDMI conected monitor, and an RJ45 ETH0 connection ?

Yes, just the base unit, all 3 USB items attached and nothing else.  In effect it was plugged in with the supplied USB lead and switched on.  This was before the GPS locked on (had to put that outside on an extension) or an iPad connected, so the Bridge wasn't transmitting at that point.

I did take some quick readings with an iPad connected showing 3 ADBS targets on SkyDemon (no signal in the office), peaks were over 1.1A.  It will be interesting to see what happens with lots of ADSB targets etc. to process and a voice alert - not sure how to trigger that on the ground though...
Title: Re: 4 mins for wifi access to become available - SOLVED!
Post by: exfirepro on May 19, 2016, 12:34:22 pm
Hi Jeremy,

If you're on the ground anywhere near an airport the inbounds will trigger the audio alerts.

Interesting power data. Looking forward to getting my C4 wired in so I can get back onto 'plane power'

Regards

Peter
Title: Re: 4 mins for wifi access to become available - SOLVED!
Post by: JCurtis on May 19, 2016, 06:01:53 pm
Hi Jeremy,

If you're on the ground anywhere near an airport the inbounds will trigger the audio alerts.

Interesting power data. Looking forward to getting my C4 wired in so I can get back onto 'plane power'

Regards

Peter

Well Cambridge airport is 1.6nm from me, but I'll need to sort out an external aerial to be able to do decent testing. 
Let me know how your C4 install goes, always happy to have comments and pics of installations on the website  ;D
Title: Re: 4 mins for wifi access to become available(was battery startup issue) - SOLVED!
Post by: Paul_Sengupta on May 20, 2016, 10:56:26 am
With my DVB-T antenna placed in my upstairs east facing window here in Guildford, I get ADS-B from as far away as Belgium, and everything in between, including over London.

When I first experimented with ADS-B reception on a DVB-T dongle, I made a coax collinear. Just having it in my bedroom it managed to bring in over 100 aircraft at one time.
Title: Re: 4 mins for wifi access to become available(was battery startup issue) - SOLVED!
Post by: JCurtis on May 20, 2016, 11:12:43 am
With my DVB-T antenna placed in my upstairs east facing window here in Guildford, I get ADS-B from as far away as Belgium, and everything in between, including over London.

When I first experimented with ADS-B reception on a DVB-T dongle, I made a coax collinear. Just having it in my bedroom it managed to bring in over 100 aircraft at one time.

The problem is my office/lab is pretty well shielded, even the glazing has a coating that is a pretty good attenuator.  What is handy is the metal roof, so I just use a mag mount and pop an aerial up when I need to, it makes a great ground plane.  Just not had the time to sort anything out as yet.
Title: Re: 4 mins for wifi access to become available(was battery startup issue) - SOLVED!
Post by: exfirepro on May 20, 2016, 11:22:13 am
Hi Jeremy,

At that distance you will definitely get ADS-B alerts and should also get Mode S warnings - certainly from the 'big stuff'. Please remember to enable Mode S in the Config page if you haven't already done so and note that the Mode S triggers in the current software version are not the final version yet, so start from the ultra (too noisy) setting to allow everything in, but you will probably need to use the 'medium' or even 'low' range setting to avoid being swamped with alerts if aircraft (especially Mode S CAT) are that close to you.

Regards

Peter