Following the instructions provided for the Vivid unit and the GPSDR, upon reaching step 4 (Reboot twice), the device fails to boot. It simply has the colorful word "Vivid Unit" on screen an no other information. I'm not able to find any information about recovering the device. How can I proceed? I'd love to try out this brand-new device. Thanks
Short video showing boot failure of Vivid Unit after reinstalling OS
It appears that this site isn't accepting a 5.9 MB video attachment. Will attempt to compress
I've posted the video demonstrating the device attempting to boot after reinstalling the OS:
@pete-norloff According to the video, I am almost certain that was due to the power supply.
We already have similar discussions in this forum:
https://www.uugear.com/forums/technial-support-discussion/full-crash/
In order to get Vivid Unit + GPSDR working properly, connecting power supply to the extender board is the correct way. However that can not avoid the power issue in your video (it may get worse actually), and the fixing is to use a correct power supply.
Here I paste the sumarry from our FAQ on GPSDR product page:
The Vivid Unit Extender has undervoltage protection: after GPSDR++ starts, the CPU and GPU usage increase and the device may randomly draw a brief current spike. If your supply or cable can’t deliver it, the input voltage sags and the Extender may cut the power. It is recommended to use a solid 5V/3A (or higher) power supply.
The Vivid Unit and Extender are non-negotiating 5 V loads by design. A highly rated USB-C PD/QC charger may still not delivering enough current to them.
Recommended: Use a fixed 5 V power supply rated at 3 A or higher (e.g. the 3A or 5A Raspberry Pi official power supply) .
Not Recommended: USB-C PD/QC chargers, even if they are rated 5V with 3A or higher. Some of them won’t deliver enough current to devices that don’t negotiate PD/QC.
@admin I am very happy to report that upon your suggestion to use higher current supply has solved the initial problems.
Running now from a high current USB PD supply, the Vivid booted with the GPSDR attached. I was able to get through the software installation without issue.
Interestingly, after the initial problems installing the software because of an untrusted certificate, the sudo update-ca-certificates produced a "0 added, 0 removed; done." response. Moving on to "sudo apt update" and "sudo apt install vue" also produced no errors this time. "sudo apt install gpsdrpp" completed with no issues, as did "curl -sL https://bit.ly/ENGPU | bash", so it's unclear why this device had the problems in the first place that brought me here.
So, now the device boots, GPSDR++ is available and appears to be working. (Local FM broadcast signals are almost not present with this antenna, but that's likely just the antenna.) But:
Running Vivid without running GPSDR++ draws 800 mA. No problem.
Running GPSDR++ without engaging the radio draws 1.7A, and the cooling fan is running.
Engaging the radio in GPSDR++ increases the current draw to 2.4A and the device is powering itself off after a few minutes (2:40 and 5:40)
The Vivid Unit Extender Dashboard indicates about 50 deg. without GPSDR++.
56 deg and 65% fan with GPSDR++ running without starting the radio (~1.7A current.) Starting the radio, I can't see the dashboard to report temperature, but current climbs to 2.4A and soon the device powers off.
Now I'm hoping to understand why the device is powering itself off if the GPSDR++ radio is used to receive signals.
Thank you for your help
@pete-norloff Your device turned off because of this reason mentioned in FAQ:
device may randomly draw a brief current spike. If your supply or cable can’t deliver it, the input voltage sags and the Extender may cut the power.
Yes, it is still a power supply issue. Your current USB PD supply is better than the one you used before, but still it is not recommended:
Not Recommended: USB-C PD/QC chargers, even if they are rated 5V with 3A or higher. Some of them won’t deliver enough current to devices that don’t negotiate PD/QC.
And it is because:
The Vivid Unit and Extender are non-negotiating 5 V loads by design. A highly rated USB-C PD/QC charger may still not delivering enough current to them.
It is recommended to use a fixed (dumb) 5V power supply with 3A or higher current rating. A good example is the official Raspberry Pi power supply.
@admin Alright, I think we're about there. Changing to a Steam Deck power supply and the Vivid + GPSDR are staying powered up now.
I do appreciate your help, thank you.
And a little bit of feedback:
Might you be planning a version of the GPSDR that has the USB C power connector spaced away from the antenna connector? I'm worried that there is tension / pressure on the USB C connector on the board from trying to fit the power cable and antenna at the same time.
Also, in future revs of the Vivid Unit Extender, something quieter than the little fan to cool the board would be a big plus. On this unit, the fan seems to be going up to 100% within a few minutes and making quite a lot of noise when running at 80% or more.
I'm glad to have the unit up and running now and look forward to exploring the device.
@pete-norloff You are welcome and I am glad to hear it is working now.
About the SMA and USB-C connectors, we already received similar feedback before, and we do plan to move the SMA connector a little bit to avoid the USB-C connector. This will make the signal trace a tiny bend, but we believe the impact is negligible.
Vivid Unit Extender 2 is currently under development. It will still use a cooling fan, but it will use a better one, which is indeed qieter.