T68 for DIY E-ink GPS on a motorcycle

[vincetherookie]

Hi folks,
I want to share a first video of the GPS mod of my T68

https://youtu.be/GYYqWSB-Sk8

Cheers, Vince

[Jmirko]

Congratulations, this thing looks great! How many hours of work went into it? How do you get the gps signal - does the T68 have it built in? How did you waterproof the case, including the ports?

I have had the idea of doing something similar with a rooted Nook Simple Touch, but the lack of GPS radio turned me off.

[vincetherookie]

Originally Posted by Jmirko

Congratulations, this thing looks great! How many hours of work went into it? How do you get the gps signal - does the T68 have it built in? How did you waterproof the case, including the ports?

Thanks
Well it took a few hours but that's what hobbies are for, right
The initial idea was to CNC the case from one piece of polycarbonate but I changed plans as it would become way more expensive. So now it's a kind of sandwich construction made of lasercut aluminium parts.

This first version is not waterproof as the sides are still open. In a next version this gap will be filled with some plastic (CNC or 3D printed). For making the gap around the display waterproof I think I will use some glue/silicone.
The GPS signal is supplied by a Nokia LD3W Bluetooth GPS receiver. It has its own battery and lasts at least a day.
There are not many Ereader or E-ink tablets which are that easy to use for GPS and have hardware buttons so I went for this Onyx.
For more info on how it is build check www.bertl.bike.

Cheers, Vince

[Dr. Drib]

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[machinogodzilla]

Hi Vince,


Awesome work. Perhaps you should consider laser cutting premium replacement cases for onyx devices themselves, low profile edges round the screen, brushed aluminium, gold plated buttons etc. Good luck with your enterprise, I hope the take-up is good.

What mapping software do you use with your reader? I noticed in your videos that you have to press the buttons to pan the map which does not seem very safe.

I don't own a motorbike, but your idea made me think about using eink on my pushbike. Unfortunately Onyx E43 looks like a failed attempt, YotaPhone is too premium and has the unnecessary regular second screen, could InkCase be the answer? Available from October apparently.

[vincetherookie]

Originally Posted by machinogodzilla

Hi Vince,


Awesome work. Perhaps you should consider laser cutting premium replacement cases for onyx devices themselves, low profile edges round the screen, brushed aluminium, gold plated buttons etc. Good luck with your enterprise, I hope the take-up is good.

What mapping software do you use with your reader? I noticed in your videos that you have to press the buttons to pan the map which does not seem very safe.

I don't own a motorbike, but your idea made me think about using eink on my pushbike. Unfortunately Onyx E43 looks like a failed attempt, YotaPhone is too premium and has the unnecessary regular second screen, could InkCase be the answer? Available from October apparently.

Thanks
I'm using OsmAnd and it works but since it's not designed for e-ink (as all mapping software in the store) the user experience is not perfect. But the advantage of the having an e-ink screen on my bike outweighs this disadvantage. I hope that that some day an app developer dives in to this
I usually drive with the map(+track) zoomed out quite far and map centred, so I don't need to pan. But even panning is not a problem with the large screen and hardware buttons. I can keep my eyes on the road and just hit the button a couple of times.
Cheers, Vince

[mdp]

Proof of concept

[mdp]

I met this thread a few weeks ago, and I loved the idea.
I made it work this evening.
I am using OruxMaps on a T68 (*) connected through BlueTooth to the GPS of a telephone, through com.jillybunch.shareGPS and com.Saenko.GpsOverBt.
Now it is a matter of checking whether the system is battery efficient for normal use on a car.

* BTW the T68 flashed with the 1.8.2 found at Booxtor's is amazing.

[mdp]

Today I tried it in a "real world scenario".
Apparently, to send the GPS signal via BlueTooth com.jillybunch.shareGPS is sufficient (the other software earlier mentioned does not seem to communicate to OruxMaps).
The "telephone" (GPS+BT) seems to consume a meager or acceptable 120mAh. It would be nice - simpler and more efficient - to have a GPS radio on the tablet, but on the other hand most people will carry a telephone anyway, and the communication does not consume that much.
The T68 seemed to consume between 5% to 10% of battery per hour, but the measures did not look well calibrated.
I could not find an option to update the GPS data less frequently than every two seconds - again for battery efficiency -, but it must be possible.

[mdp]

The T68 exhausted the battery after around 7hrs of mixed use, but solely as maps viewer and GPS receiver.
As stated, I believe the stats could improve if I found a way to update the screen less frequently (the GPS cursor updates every 2 seconds).
I posted a note about this on Orux's forum - although, for reasons of post vetting, it is not published yet...

[mdp]

The great Orux himself replied a little ago, on their forums ( oruxmaps.com/foro/ ; subject: "Limit GPS update frequency for use on EPD screens"). It seems that the next version of OruxMaps will be a bit more EPD oriented - screen update after external GPS signal will be configurable.

[mdp]

The project seems to show capable of a pretty stable implementation

[mdp]

I now used (and on a different telephone, although this should be irrelevant) a setting of 8 seconds as "GPS timer" option in com.jillybunch.shareGPS : this actually was reflected in the screen update, slower as I intended.
Nonetheless, the T68 seems to work as a map/geo-positioner device, OruxMaps based, for about 6 hours. Which, then again, is not really a problem, having the ability to keep it charged through the car battery.

[mdp]

A few cursors optimized for the EPD screen (more visible than the original red arrow):
place them in /sdcard/oruxmaps/cursors
and pick them in the [settings] > User interface > Cursor > Gps Cursor icon

[mdp]

More cursors for EPD (semi-transparent inner area):