I recently purchased two RTK Surveyor Units (U-Blox Zed-F9P-02B-00 Chipsets), along with a set of LoRaSerial 1W 915 MHz radios , to allow me to do some precision RTK surveying. After about 1,000,000 hrs of work, I believe I have managed to configure all hardware to a point where everything is successfully “talking” and I am sending/receiving RTCM correction data (with 10 mm RTK Fix) successfully around my back-yard (I haven’t done any proper field-testing yet).
My problem is that BOTH Surveyor units will forget their settings (most crucially the UART2 Configurations) as soon as they are powered down. This is despite ensuring that the baud rates are saved in RAM, BBRAM and Flash. I have not yet found a way to overide the Default setting (Level 7) used in U-Centre to ensure that the Units will reboot using my desired baudrate (please see attached screen grab of the U-Centre Advanced Configuration View showing my current UART2 Baudrate configuration.)
So to cut a looooong story short, is there a way to change the default (Level7) setting, Or do I have a Hardware issue, Or some other mystery that I am yet to fathom??
Many thanks in anticipation of a solution - and Yes I have tried EVERYTHING (Latest firmware/starting from scratch etc etc)!
I’d guess the SparkFun RTK firmware in the RTK Surveyor is reconfiguring the ZED at each power up, this includes the port baud rates. Did you set the radio port baud rate using the RTK firmware configuration screens?
I don’t use u-center to configure my RTK Facets; the configuration options in the RTK firmware are quite robust. And the Sparkfun RTK firmware generally overwrites any configuration one does in u-center anyway.
u-center is great for configuring ZED chips on the SparkFun breakout boards that don’t use the RTK firmware.
I configure the radios separately using a terminal emulator “Tera-Term” - absolutely no problems with them using the standard “AT” command set - they go to sleep and wake up with all configuration parameters A-OK.
My problem is purely with the Sparkfun Surveyor Units (vs your Facet models).
My units appear to automatically dump their “default” config values into RAM after a power cycle. Weirdly enough - each of the two units (set up as base and rover) have different UART2 Default baud rate settings - one is 57600, the other 38400 bps, so when they “wake up” - I have to then reprogram them (using U-Centre), to get them talking/listening at the speed that I want (19200 bps at the moment). This is despite using the “conventional” Config Save command and/or the Send Config commands available in U-Centre. Hence my frustration !
Hopefully, there are some more wise people out there who can shed even more light on my dilemma.
Many Thanks for your time,
Jeff
toeknee:
I’d guess the SparkFun RTK firmware is reconfiguring the ZED at each power up, this includes the port baud rates. Did you set the radio port baud rate using the RTK firmware configuration?
I don’t use u-center to configure my RTK Facets; the configuration options in the RTK firmware are quite robust.
They run the same SparkFun RTK firmware as the Sparkfun Facets, Reference Stations, Expresses, etc. These are all best configured with the RTK firmware configuration.
Use the RTK firmware configuration to configure the radio port speed.
(That’s a crazy looking URL but it seems to work. You can go to the SparkFun RTK Surveyor product page, documents tab, and click on “RTK Product Manual” instead.)
Put u-center aside. It’s not the best tool for this job. The SparkFun RTK firmware reconfigures the ZED at power up and overwrites items you set via u-center.
From the SparkFun RTK product manual:
However, because the ESP32 does considerable configuration of the ZED-F9P at power on it is not recommended to modify the settings of the ZED-F9P using u-center. Nothing will break but your changes will likely be overwritten at the next power cycle.
If I’m in the office, yes, I use a serial terminal to configure the RTK firmware. Once you’ve connected to the correct port at the correct speed, any keypress brings up the menu. You might see GPS output messages while you’re connected before you bring up the menu.
You’re a “Legend” Mate - Just had to sift through the blurbs - reconnect to the ESP32 Port at 115200 baud and “Lo and Behold” - all is there as promised !!!
I am a very happy (old) man now - and thanks to you, I can get a good night’s sleep (it’s 11:58 pm here).
Thanks again - I wish I could buy you 1,000 beers to repay !
