Revive old GDM610

[altenplos]

Hi there, that's a great job you've done! I just saved an old GDM610 from being thrown away but its onboard batteries are dead -> program lost ... Is there by chance any possibility to bring this loveley device back to live with these tools? The serial port seems to work fine on the CU

[robots]

Hi, when battery dies in gdm610 all content of memory is erased: that means firmware, calibration values, etc etc. You can bring it up, by uploading firmware from other unit (preferably very similar one - same tracker edm version) and it will just work. Although with uploaded firmware calibration is not the same. You wont get the same accuracy as before. This is the trick that geodimeter used to make you come back to them and now that the stations are not supported they are thrown away.

I am working on calibration routine for 400/500/4000 stations. As the sensors are the same, and gdm6x0 has servo board it "should" be easier to calibrate, but this is very far away. I need to find how to control servo board not by angles but by "steps". Too much work to be able to give you date.

I have saved also one GDM600 from dump, and i have uploaded firmware from different gdm600. It took many days to find out how to change the configuration of the station (mine is without tracker), now station works, but CU will not connect. needs more work

[altenplos]

Maybe EPROMs didn't make their way to sweden back in the 90s.. :) I'm afraid there is no similar unit I could use, would you mind sending me one of your dumps? Just to test if things are working...

[Jesse-EE]

Hi there, that's a great job you've done! I just saved an old GDM610 from being thrown away but its onboard batteries are dead -> program lost ... Is there by chance any possibility to bring this loveley device back to live with these tools? The serial port seems to work fine on the CU

I have a couple working GDM610's I could send the FW dump from. They both have EDM, tracklight, and radios , and will track the RMTs. I don't know if it'll work on yours but if you like trying things....

[altenplos]

I have a couple working GDM610's I could send the FW dump from. They both have EDM, tracklight, and radios , and will track the RMTs. I don't know if it'll work on yours but if you like trying things....

Thank you for the offer, but I don't have the 610 any more. I bought an old Trimble 5600 without CU :(

[Jesse-EE]

Thank you for the offer, but I don't have the 610 any more. I bought an old Trimble 5600 without CU :(

Do you know if your 5600 works, or is it battery-brain-dead?

I also have a Trimble 5601 DR200+ which is battery-brain-dead -- if you can read the code from yours I'd love to try it on mine.

I don't have a CU for mine but I do have a CU for a 610, and I have a TSCe Data Ranger / Collector that should work, so if I could get code in my 5600 and get it to respond to the Data Collector, I should be able to capture the RS232 commands so you could make your own CU or control it from a computer or whatever.

Actually, I suspect all the commands are documented for the serial port so if your firmware is still alive in your 5600 you should be able to control it via RS232 and take measurements.

[altenplos]

Actually, I suspect all the commands are documented for the serial port so if your firmware is still alive in your 5600 you should be able to control it via RS232 and take measurements.

Unlike other manufacturers (Leica, Sokkia, Topcon from which i own a TS) GDM/Trimble has only limited documentation for the RS232 interface of their older devices. I couldn't find out how a EDM measurement can be triggered on a 5600. For the FW of the 5600 you can pm me tr2@fregga.de

[Jesse-EE]

Unlike other manufacturers (Leica, Sokkia, Topcon from which i own a TS) GDM/Trimble has only limited documentation for the RS232 interface of their older devices. I couldn't find out how a EDM measurement can be triggered on a 5600. For the FW of the 5600 you can pm me tr2@fregga.de

After doing some net searching, I agree with you. I was unable to find anything other than a few sample commands.

I was able to trigger EDM on a GDM620 Pro via RS232.

Basically, TG triggers the EDM sequence, but returns no numbers. You then do RG,9 and it then gives me the distance in meters.

Alternatively, you can just do RG and it gives both angular readings and the last EDM reading.

However, you can only read out the EDM reading once. After that, it gives error 3 "Already read."

You have to do a TG again to re-activate the EDM then you can RG it again.

I have no idea if this is similar to the 5600 or not. I'll shoot you an email note!

I do have a TSCe which does work with ONE of my 610's but not both...

I have parts on the way to build an RS232 debugger, hopefully I'll soon have some data dumps of the communications between the Data Collector and the 620/610. (And if I can get your 5600 code communicating on my 5600, I should be able to data dump on the RS232 on that too.)

[Jesse-EE]

I couldn't find out how a EDM measurement can be triggered on a 5600. For the FW of the 5600 you can pm me tr2@fregga.de

I just loaded your 5605 firmware into my dead-battery-blank 5601!

It took it, and I was able to type TG to trigger an edm, then RG to read it and the two angles.

I was also able to connect my TSCe Ranger Data Collector and do some stuff with that, including angles and controlling tracklight and stuff. Even tracks my active RMT.

However, the TSCe so far can't trigger an EDM function so I don't know what's with that. But it triggered and read via RS232 as I mentioned with TG and RG.

Not surprising, the TSCe Ranger now identifies my 5601 as a 5605.

But the initialization procedure worked - the Bubble level display came up on the TSCe Ranger and let me level it out, did the double-half-rotation initialization of the level compensator just like normal.

Of course my ram battery is still dead so if it powers off I have to send in your firmware again LOL.

LATER IN THE DAY:

I replaced the ram battery. Now my 5601 identifies as a 5605 and sort of works, but it has a 2 minute timeout on power up during which it does not respond to RS232 or CU. After that it comes alive and does some stuff. It's like it's trying to connect to some internal feature? Laser?) that mine doesn't have, and it gives up after 2 minutes.

Sometimes I can get it to do the EDM, sometimes I can't. I don't yet know exactly what the deal is. (It is from eBay, it could be faulty. But the EDM does seem to be working, I think maybe the firmware just isn't quite right. haha!!)

I have some parts on order to build a bi-directional RS232 recorder so I can hopefully get some two way data stream dumps between the TSCe/Ranger and the 5600.

[robots]

BTW: 5600 station and 600 station are the same. (600 with PVX2 board, there is also 600 with older PVX board, and this firmware is not compatible with 5600) One exception is the EDM, 5600 stations use different EDMs - DR, DR200 and DR300. But the firmware is the same - different configuration.

[Jesse-EE]

BTW: 5600 station and 600 station are the same. (600 with PVX2 board, there is also 600 with older PVX board, and this firmware is not compatible with 5600) One exception is the EDM, 5600 stations use different EDMs - DR, DR200 and DR300. But the firmware is the same - different configuration.

Interesting! So I could try loading my 5601 with the firmware from my two 610's and my 620. I think I did try the firmware from one of the 610's, but it just beeped and beeped and beeped.

I did put that other fellow's 5605 code on mine, and the EDM is hit or miss (mostly miss) and I cannot zero out the vertical index error -- in other words, F1 and F2 are different by about 1.3 degrees.

However, if I take F1 and F2 and average them the average is spot on.

Is this likely due to slight changes in hardware that was compensated for in the firmware? I did try physically rotating the vertical angle sensor but was not able to get it below 1 degree of difference.