Nav Path not remembered / clock wrong - chinese double din

[cowabunga]

I have a cheap chinese double din with both IGO and TomTom 7 installed. Both work - with 2 exceptions

First problem seems to be a system one. the nav path is set via config.ini on the SD card. You basically type in the paths to the exe files. When you select the nav path icon on the unit these paths are displayed and you can check one of them.

However this setting is not remembered when it powers down. If you do power down with the app running it does not restart on power up, and you get an error message in chinese on a white screen. You can exit out of the navi section and run radio etc, but the navi section has the chinese error message.

Need to power down with radio on. Then on power up go to navi section and reselect the path. Then all works normally.



Second problem is within tomtom. The clock seems to get its time from the GPS, but the time zone seems wrong. It is 2 hours different from AUST EST - but accurate with that 2 hour difference. There is no clock icon in any of the menus including the change preferences menu.


I have searched the site for these problems - apologies if it has been answered before.

[beer4life]

G'Day Cobber,
To explain how GPS works, the Satellites have extremely accurate on board Atomic clocks which are regularly updated.
Your GPS receiver uses an algorithm to calculate your position from the time difference from the acquired Satellites. The more Satellites, the more accurate.
As far as your local time is concerned, that is a function of your particular unit and it's software.
Kindest Regards, " The Druid ".

Sorry, the penny just dropped.
The time you are seeing is GMT which is 10 Hours behind us ATM, hence the 2Hrs difference.

[cowabunga]

Thanks - I know how GPS and atomic clocks work (I have a masters degree in elec engineering . The problem is definitely with the config on the device.

I did wonder about UTC being 10 hours different from EST but I am fairly sure it is actually 2 hours different on the device not 10 (fairly sure I checked the am pm part) but I will check again tomorrow.

The tomtom website in the support section seems to imply that the device works out the local time automatically from your location.

[beer4life]

A Master's Degree is not necessary, just a schooling in Navigation.

[cowabunga]

Whilst it may not be necessary, it is still sufficient, and comes in handy for a few other things


What it doesn't help with is knowing why the clock is worng on this device. Or why there is no set clock menu item.

[beer4life]

Whilst it may not be necessary, it is still sufficient, and comes in handy for a few other things


What it doesn't help with is knowing why the clock is worng on this device. Or why there is no set clock menu item.

Whilst I do not doubt your credentials, Are they applicable here?

Set your clock to 24 Hr, not 12.

Case in point, 11:30 PM GMT on 19/04/10 equates to 09:30 AM AEST on 20/04/10.

QED.

[beer4life]

Whilst it may not be necessary, it is still sufficient, and comes in handy for a few other things


What it doesn't help with is knowing why the clock is worng on this device. Or why there is no set clock menu item.

An optometrist would be handier than a Masters Degree.

Google had no problems finding the user's Guide:-



Check page #42 for setting the clock.

Kindest Regards, " The Druid ".

[cowabunga]

Whilst I do not doubt your credentials, Are they applicable here?

Set your clock to 24 Hr, not 12.

Case in point, 11:30 PM GMT on 19/04/10 equates to 09:30 AM AEST on 20/04/10.

QED.

What are you going on about? You were the one that went on about atomic clocks when answering a question on setting the clock in Navigator 7. I know all about atomic clocks, and I know it has nothing to do with this problem.

It also has nothing to do with 24 hour time. The time is 2 hours different from local. it is not a UTC difference.

I can't change the time format - because as I said there is no menu item to change the time.

[cowabunga]

An optometrist would be handier than a Masters Degree.

Google had no problems finding the user's Guide:-



Check page #42 for setting the clock.

Kindest Regards, " The Druid ".

Yes an optomertrist is needed for someone here - and a better attempt at irony wouldn't go astray. Or is it ironic already when someone tries to make a joke about not finding something, and finds the wrong thing

I had already found the CORRECT manual - which isn't the one for a tomtom Go as you referenced - before I asked the question here.

There is no menu item for setting the clock in change preferences (as I said in the first post, and the one you quoted).




So to once again state the problem.

The problem is the time is wrong by 2 hours (not 10) and there is no set clock menu item in change preferences.

Also note the set units menu item does not bring up any sub menu for time.

[cowabunga]

Case in point, 11:30 PM GMT on 19/04/10 equates to 09:30 AM AEST on 20/04/10.

QED.

Oh and clocks are adjusted to UTC, not GMT anymore - Something I learned in navigation school. lol



Now if I could just work out how to get my bloody clock right in tomtom 7

[beer4life]

Oh and clocks are adjusted to UTC, not GMT anymore - Something I learned in navigation school. lol



Now if I could just work out how to get my bloody clock right in tomtom 7

Methinks you will find UTC is adjusted to GMT.

For most common and legal-trade purposes, the fractional second difference between UTC and UT (GMT) is inconsequentially small, so UTC is often called GMT, ...

You should use GMT/UTC for Navigation and I Know that it is seldom done on the Internet, but should also be used to remove any confusion or ambiguity across different time zones.
Also, this may be on different pages of user guides, but there are hidden Menus that you can expand to where you will find Clock Set.

[cowabunga]

[COLOR=Blue]Methinks you will find UTC is adjusted to GMT.

Incorrect. UTC though based upon GMT originally is kept as a separate standard and isn't adjusted to GMT.

Maybe other people get GMT and UTC confused, but UTC has been the standard for about 20 years now and I seriously don't know anyone who talks about navigation and GMT. Maybe the odd optometrist?




Now that the pissing comp is well and truly over.

The problem is partially solved.

Looked around a bit more on other forums (ipmart, and unfortunately there was a reference on a now dead GPSunderground thread) and this problem is somewhat known about. There is no way of changing the time zone in navigator 6 or 7. There is no set clock menu item.

Now usually the sync method automatically calculates time zone from location, but with nav 6 or 7 running on these windows ce devices for some reason it uses the the device time zone. Which for a Chinese bought and configured device probably will be 2 hours different from aust EST.

To get it working you need to change the time zone of the device in windows CE. This is a problem due to both the fact that you will need front end "unlock" programs, plus chances are the windows is in chinese so running control panel could be a hassle.

It can also be done via a direct registry edit. Obviously not the easiest thing to do.



However I have discovered something very odd.

If I run IGO first (in IGO you can change the time zone) then tomtom gets the time zone correct. Also the nav path (my other problem) is remembered. But only if IGO is run first. Then exit the IGO application, then run tomtom without powering down the device.

Basically if I can be bothered I will hunt down the front end programs and try and reconfigure the time zone. Or maybe just get the latest maps for IGO and see if they are any good.

[beer4life]

Incorrect. UTC though based upon GMT originally is kept as a separate standard and isn't adjusted to GMT.

Maybe other people get GMT and UTC confused, but UTC has been the standard for about 20 years now and I seriously don't know anyone who talks about navigation and GMT. Maybe the odd optometrist?
Now that the pissing comp is well and truly over.
The problem is partially solved.

I do have a penchant for accurate facts. That is not correct. UTC is adjusted by skip seconds and to keep it within 0.9 second of GMT/UT1

The Origin of UTC
-----------------
o The concept of a coordinated universal time was introduced in 1960
when the British and American national time services initiated a
program to coordinate the offsets of the frequencies and epochs
(phases) of transmitted time service radio signals from Atomic Time in
approximating UT2. Subsequently, other national time services joined
the program. The BIH was charged with the task of monitoring and
maintaining the program and introduced the term Temps Universel
Coordinné or Coordinated Universal Time for the coordinated time scale
in 1964. Initially, the time scale was derived by offsetting its rate
from that of Atomic Time to agree with the average rate of UT2 over
the past year and was held fixed at that rate for the following year.
If the rate of UT2 changed significantly during the year, then an
offset (from 1962, in multiples of 100 milliseconds) could be
introduced on the first day of a month. This system of frequency and
epoch offsets was continued until 1972 when the current practice was
adopted of keeping the rate of UTC equal to that of Atomic Time and
introducing leap seconds when needed to keep UTC to within 0.9 seconds
(it was 0.7 seconds until January 1975) of UT1.

[Jards88]

To me it looks like your device does not have a permanent battery connection to keep the time and other settings in place and so when the ignition is turned off the device is losing it's settings. As you have found iGO8 has the ability to update the devices time zone settings within WindowsCE so when you swap to TomTom it will be correct until the ignition is turned off. Then it will revert to whatever defaults WindowsCE uses. That's the area that I would be looking at anyway.

Cheers, Ian

[cowabunga]

Right I happen to know a fair bit about UT1 and many other standards. Your pedantry is not very accurate.

From your reference.

But because there are two possible meanings for
GMT differing by up to 0.9 seconds, the term GMT should not be used
for precise purposes -- particularly not in reference to GPS
observations!

I didn't see GMT mentioned anywhere in your quote. Probably because UT1 isn't really GMT. UT1 has completely replaced GMT and your reference specifically says not to confuse UT with GMT, especially when talking about GPS. lol

UTC is the civil standard for time and is adjusted to UT1 which is based on the rotation of the earth and is actually measured upon astronomical observations. However UT1 isn't GMT. Now that might seem like a pedantic point. But you said you wanted to be accurate.

UT1 is the actual standard against which any time reference can be set. UTC is set to keep up with UT1. (UTC is kept by atomic clocks, UT1 is astronomical observation). If you like UT1 is the actual standard, then the various regulatory bodies use it. A large number of civilian bodies use UTC (which is set against the standard of UT1)

However whilst both have come to replace GMT as the time standard in various ways, it is incorrect to pedantically say UTC is set to GMT, or that UT1 is GMT.

Pedantically UT1 has replaced GMT as the time standard, and UTC is set to UT1.

Other standards like UT2 and UTR are also computed from UT1. However they are not used as commonly as the actual standard UT1 and the civilian standard of UTC.

GMT was set by the Greenwich observatory (also by astronomical observation). Basically they set Greenwich mean sidereal sun. This has been replaced by ERA (earth rotation angle).

What this all means is that GMT has been replaced but UT (universal time - back in the 1920s) which though still essentially not much different from the old GMT is computed differently, and the standard is now kept in an entirely different manner.


If you want to be pedantic that is.

[cowabunga]

This will be boring the pants off other users, but some more info on UT


Just to be completely pedantic Universal time is a bit ambiguous, as there are a few different universal times, as mentioned above.

UT1 is the astronomically derived position of the earth (longitude zero) with respect to the sun. Though the sun isn't actually used to compute it. This is what has essentially replaced GMT. GMT is often used by people when they really mean either UT1 or UTC

UTC is kept by atomic clock. UT1 has the problem that it isn't actually constant. So if you set a very accurate clock off against UT1 after some time has elapsed there will be a difference. So UTC gets leap seconds to keep it near UT1.

Which is what beer meant when he said that UTC is adjusted to GMT. Pedantically UTC is actually adjusted to the earth mean sidereal day as calculated at longitude zero. This is UT1 which replaced GMT.

Though really in essence unless you are trying to be utterly pedantic there is no real difference

[cowabunga]

To me it looks like your device does not have a permanent battery connection to keep the time and other settings in place and so when the ignition is turned off the device is losing it's settings. As you have found iGO8 has the ability to update the devices time zone settings within WindowsCE so when you swap to TomTom it will be correct until the ignition is turned off. Then it will revert to whatever defaults WindowsCE uses. That's the area that I would be looking at anyway.

Cheers, Ian

Absolutely.

I thought exactly the same thing. However every other part of the device remembers the settings. Radio remembers the stations presets, tomtom remembers favourites, home etc. Bluetooth remembers my phone connection etc etc.

Also the time zone is constantly set at 2 hours different (which happens to equate to eastern China - where the device comae from).

So most settings remain. It is just one setting is wrong (time zone) with no menu item to change it. One setting is not remembered - the navpath.


I have actually experimented with disconnecting the permanent 12v line. All the setting get wiped if I do this. So by both elimination and symptom I think we can rule out the permanent 12v idea.

[cowabunga]

I have had it confirmed. The problem is tomtom 7 takes the time zone from the device. You need to change the time zone within windows CE

[2happy]

I have had it confirmed. The problem is tomtom 7 takes the time zone from the device. You need to change the time zone within windows CE

I hope your are luckier than me as Garmin XT does exactly the same (derives its displayed time from the device with no adjustment possible) on my chinese 2din car unit.

Problem is that even when I (re)set the clock and zone on the unit in windows explorer it reverts when the unit is turned of then back on?????

If you find some way to correct TT then please post it as if SHOULD fix garmin as well. I think that a simple app and some short mort script is needed - I just don't know the practice as to how to get there!!!!!

[cowabunga]

I am about half way there 2happy. Problem is with the registry in windows CE usually being only kept in ram, and these chinese double dins not saving it on power down.

Can change time zone in control panel, but need to get the registry on the flash updated.