evo828

I just wanted to post a thread where you can find a working version of a PDA/Pocket PC logger.

What is needed:
Tactrix cable
PDA/Pocket PC with USB Host adapter (in my case it is Acer n50 with USB host cable)
OS: the current version works with Windows Mobile 2003 and .Net compact framework 2.0

First you need to install FTDI drivers for Pocket PC - instructions are posted on FTDI website:
http://www.ftdichip.com/Documents/In...tion_Guide.pdf

I installed this driver into my pocket pc (Acer n50):
http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/D2XX...D2XXDriver.zip

I modified the inf file so it contains the PID ID of my cable. I do not use the serial emulation - connect directly through ftdi driver (attaching a zip file ftd2xx.zip which contains all 3 files that you just need to copy into your programs directory in pocket pc).

Attached is also a zipped exe file that you just copy to your PDA and run. Version with installed is zipped as well. For developers - zipped source code for Visual Basic enclosed enjoy

Credits go to johnbanks - his serial logger was my baseline

chrisw

iTrader: (2)

Cool! this is the 3rd version that I have seen...

evo828

In average I get 3-4 rows/sec and when above 80% TPS it stops logging some redundant items - and it increases to 5-6 rows.

The bottleneck seems to be FTDI driver - which slows the communication. As I cannot edit the driver itself - at the moment I have no idea how to improve the logger speed further. If anyone is interested in some code optimising (multi-thread or change the way I work with the forms there - you are welcome.

May be when johns finishes the DMA logging - this could be the way to have faster speed on a pocket logger.

jcsbanks

It is probably the latency timer which really runs at 1ms on the PC and doesn't on the Pocket PC? Therefore blocks of data would move faster?

evo828

I am not sure - I just spoke with one guy who just knows more of this - and he told that while the system is communicating to USB it is just fully concentrating on this and doesnot allow for going to another "thread" - so this is what I know. That is why I think that doing one request and waiting for bulk of bytes - would be little bit faster.

jcsbanks

Or do one request and do other things and then check for the bytes read? This is the way I thought of speeding up the PC stuff without going multithreaded.

evo828

Good idea - thanks - I will test

edit: tested - no improvement

SuPeRNeT

iTrader: (13)

There should be a way that you could move the driver priorty up in the registry.. I just did it with my bluetooth and it fixed alot of issues..

jcsbanks

A slow SD card slows my logging compared with a fast one or writing to device memory.

evo828

I will give it a try

evo828

OK - I tried to log into memory instead of SD car - but still the same results.
With 27 items logged - I get cca 3 rows per second. It is enough for a dash display and informational logs as well.

Looking forward to have DMA logging built into this Pocket PC

sharkm87

iTrader: (29)

does this work on phones?....its not PPC though, i have a att tilt with windows mobile...would be nice i guess

evo828

You phone would need to have a "USB host" connector - I am not sure if any of the mobile phones has this.

laakness

iTrader: (12)

Will not work on the Tilt, it doesn't have the USB host ability. There are only a handful of phones/pda's that do.