![]() This made it very (i mean very) easy to write and upload code to it after burning the firmware. It was a hit or miss with them, I am quite lucky I was able to finally figure it all out.Īnd so for the above reasons, I chose to burn the MicroPython SDK onto the A9G. The firmware documentation for the burner tool that A9G manufacturers recommend, is non-existent.C/C++ was way to verbose and needed too much thought about the implementation specifics, I want to be able to spend time on optimizing and developing features not debug pointer issues.This could be due to my lack of trying hard enough, but regardless I was demotivated really fast. Extreme lack of documentation of the A9G API's, nothing was really clear to me.They have a couple examples on their github but nothing really resulted into much progress. I first started trying to implement this project in C/C++ in their choice of SDK. Step 16: Let's Understand the Software Upload PartĪ9G module runs C/C++ on their SDK by default. I chose the Dipole antenna, it was simple to build and surprisingly fast fix + accuracy. This would not work for my small form factor design goal.ĭoing some research on different types of antennas I found out that there are two other options that could work for my small factor: But there is a little problem with this strategy: if I wanted to use any commonly available dielectrics for the patch antenna, i'd need the patch to be around 60 mm x 60 mm ~ The patch was basically trapped inside a Faraday cage, hence no reception.Īfter learning that, I thought I could put the patch outside the metal box. Metals do not allow RF (radio frequency) signals to pass. It's probably RF-Enginnering 101 Lecture 0, but, here we are. After doing a lot of research on RF / Antennas I learned the following lesson. But upon plugging it all in I got really poor reception, I could not understand why. I figured it'd be enough to make it work. The first design I tried building was a patch antenna. I decided to make my own GPS antenna, i've done this before in my With U shoe GPS project so I didn't think it would be that hard, but I was wrong, slightly :) The antennas are active antennas and hence consume power, I was trying to optimize every mA drawn.The size of the antenna is too big for my wearable build.I couldn't use the commercial antenna that shipped with the module (ceramic patch antenna) for the following reasons: Reliable GPS / GNSS transmission / reception.The design goals for this project are the follows, they are pretty non-negotiable: If you are in Tempe Arizona, you should check them out!įinally, here is a demo video that shows off the highlights, I have a detailed build video later in the steps. I want to give a shout out to HeatSync Labs, they are a non-profit Makerspace located in Mesa AZ and have been an essential place for me to go build my projects at. I hope you enjoy that part of the Instructable, if you have feedback I'd appreciate it! I can't really demonstrate it 'step-by-step' but I tried documenting my thought process in the steps with hand drawn illustrations. ![]() Is fully open-source and self-hostable.Ī lot of work went into the software part, from integrating the web-services to optimizing every mA draw from the chip.Comes with a Web App to which you can add multiple furry fwends (friends).Lasts about 12 days on battery (will get a LOT better in V2 with more optimizations).Introducing to you my friends, Find my Cat. I am already working on a Version 2 with the lessons I learned on this build. I was able to cross off most of my goals. Should use GPS for positioning, (cellular / bluetooth only based options don't make the cut).Needs to be extremely reliable with a near to real time tracking capability.So, for the last 4 months I embarked on this journey, to build the best possible Pet tracker system I can attempt to build. They either lack precision / refresh times (number of times the live location updates), have low battery life or are just unreliable for the most part. I wanted to do something about it, I looked for cat tracker options but none really fit what I was looking for. There were a couple times over the last two years of having him that he went out of my sights (outdoors) and I was really frightened that he had gone missing. Optimal parameters depend on many factors, so following are just our preferences when running Traccar on DigitalOcean VPS servers with Ubuntu operating system.Īdd custom configuration file: nano /etc/mysql//custom.I love my cat, Pumpkin, a lot. For details on how to configure Traccar to work with MySQL database please check MySQL config.ĭefault MySQL configuration might be enough for a small setup, but if you have a large number of devices and/or high frequency of location reporting, you might want to adjust the database configuration. ![]()
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