I’m trying to figure out how things work at the moment, as it is my first time. When I send a message on one, the other does not receive it - in either direction. More below.
I started with the left one a few hours ago, and have just finished the one on the right. I have set them both in a new short-range channel, which I’ve named “qe”, as I got no different behaviour with the channel “Default” that both had.
The one on the left, displays a few different things from the right one:
“B 4.18V+U” on the left. I presume 4.18V is the current battery charge. The one on the right shows “B 4.18V U”. Why does left show the “+” between the V and U, and the right one does not?
The left has locked on to GPS - but it took a while. As I just finished the right one about 45 mins ago, is it correct to assume that it may not yet have locked onto the satellites? There is no red LED flashing under the NEO-6M chip, whereas the left one has it flashing, and had it flashing even before locking onto GPS. Could I have a fault on the right device?
What’s “Users X/Y”? Left shows 1/1, right shows 0/1.
When I send a message on one, the other does not receive it. And in the serial debug (I have both on, permanently), both devices print “Can not send yet, busyTx” continuously. Is that expected? Do they take a long time to each lock into the channel?
I realise I’m asking a lot of things that may already be covered in an FAQ of some sort. If they are, feel free to send me there, as I had a skim through the forum and didn’t see one at first glance. So much to learn though!
Did you share the URL or QR code between the two Android devices you have connected to the radios? It is not enough just to change the Channel setting to the same name. I just figured this out myself, but it seems the URL / QR code contains the information that needs to be synced between the two radios via the Android app. It’s also not a traditional URL in the sense that you do not need to be connected to the internet for it to open in the Mestastic app.
@geeksville, I didn’t realize this before, but I believe there should be a hint on the APP, for the user, to share the address or QR code, to get the key shared. As it is not enough to copy the channel parameters manually.
Yes that’s what enables either qr code image based sharing or sharing through via other mechanism to say “open this particular Android app if the user tries to open this link”
Oh wow, I am blown away how you all just jumped straight into it! Thank you.
So, your URL/QR code questions sort of imply that I shouldn’t be using the same Android phone to configure both devices, right? Because I did, as there was nothing in the app preventing me from doing so. Doh!
Ok, I will try configuring the second one with another device first. I can see in the serial console that they are trying but fail to decrypt messages, so what you’re saying actually makes sense with what I’m seeing.
Hmm… New problem. I can’t actually get the new (old) phone to connect to the 2nd device. After pairing, the phone says “Pairing complete, starting service”, but it stays in that state for a long time. After a while it just goes back to the “No radio device is paired with this phone” (or something similar.
I’ve just hit the “Report Bug” button, in case that is useful to someone.
This is an Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge, running Android 8.0.0 that I had lying around, and I’ve just reset it to factory defaults just to use for this purpose.
[thanks @rebuildpangaea - I was doing just that as you wrote the above]
Scrap that last message. I’ve reset the 2nd TBEAM and started again, and it has now connected fine to the phone. I was able to sync the device using the QR code, and messages now go between the two devices. However, instead of the “Your name” I’ve selected in either, on the receiving device I get “???” where the name should be. Interesting. Do they take time to sync up?
Back to my original questions:
“B 4.18V+U” on the left. I presume 4.18V is the current battery charge. The one on the right shows “B 4.18V U”. Why does left show the “+” between the V and U, and the right one does not?
The left has locked on to GPS - but it took a while. As I just finished the right one about 4h ago, is it correct to assume that it may not yet have locked onto the satellites? There is no red LED flashing under the NEO-6M chip, whereas the left one has it flashing, and had it flashing even before locking onto GPS. Could I have a fault on the right device?
Users now show 2/2 on both devices, so I guess that’s 2 users in this channel.
I now have a new screen in both devices, that show an “Unknown Name” at the top, and what appears to be a compass, showing the direction where the other device is? Why “Unknown Name”? Related to why I don’t see the name of the sending person in the messages screen, I guess?
Also, I am not seeing the received messages on their respective phone - only the sending phone. Is that expected?
Again, thanks and sorry for the barrage. I’m really curious about this tech
Yes, I think I’ve flashed the right firmware for my devices, right? The only meaningful identifier is the picture I posted in the first entry here. They are T-beams, right? With a Neo-6M on them.
I still have yet to put the OLED screens on my radios so I’m not sure about the discrepancies you describe. Maybe try and set the names to something really simple as a test… like “a” and “b”. You may need to reset the radios after you make the changes.
Just a quick update to try and wrap this one up. Thanks for all the suggestions. Everything is now pretty much understood, and almost everything works as expected. The only thing missing is, for the life of me, I cannot get the GPS to lock on the 2nd device. Tried many positions outdoors and where device 1 locks fine in a few seconds, device 2 has now spent some 48h outside (excluding when charging the battery) and no joy. Either the GPS portion is faulty, or I made a mistake somewhere (doubt that part, somehow since the other one is working fine).
Is there a way to troubleshoot the GPS Neo-6 module on the T-Beam? In the meantime I’ve ordered a GPS antenna, just in case.
You might try asking ttgo, I’ve purchased about 30 boards (of different types - not just lora) from them and had a couple of boards with busted parts. They are good about just sending a replacement.
@fackie you probably have a “damaged” board, like geeksville already pointed out. But one thing you could try would be to program your TTGO as Serial Passthrough to check for NEMA messages of the GPS-Module
