LTAR TRRS Protocol

[neuron]

Yeah, I understand what you mean! I just reread what I posted annnnd it's confusing! Haha, thanks anyway!

[Chklnk]

Holy cow, this is exciting to see progress on this protocol.

[DrDDS]

Wow! This is going really well so far! Ryan, thanks again for all the decoders and for the hints as well.

I had intended to start some analysis last night, but I found that the TRRS splitter that I ordered doesn't allow me to connect well with the LTAR. It is a 4-pole female to 2 male splitter. I thought that might be adequate, but it doesn't. Most of the time the app doesn't recognize the LTAR is connected. When it does, the gameplay and audio is very fiddly. I don't know if the splitter degrades the signal too much, or if I just ended up with a poor quality splitter. Perhaps I will go with the other suggestion from justin, and open the LTAR up to take the reading directly from the board. Anyway, it's nice to see you guys are having a lot of progress!

[izzy84075]

Wow! This is going really well so far! Ryan, thanks again for all the decoders and for the hints as well.

I had intended to start some analysis last night, but I found that the TRRS splitter that I ordered doesn't allow me to connect well with the LTAR. It is a 4-pole female to 2 male splitter. I thought that might be adequate, but it doesn't. Most of the time the app doesn't recognize the LTAR is connected. When it does, the gameplay and audio is very fiddly. I don't know if the splitter degrades the signal too much, or if I just ended up with a poor quality splitter. Perhaps I will go with the other suggestion from justin, and open the LTAR up to take the reading directly from the board. Anyway, it's nice to see you guys are having a lot of progress!

I had a similar problem when I was trying to capture stuff earlier this week. Try having the splitter present but not connected to the PC, and get the app going, and then connect it to the PC. The iPod Touch 4G I was using didn't like when the PC was connected when first connecting to the LTAR, but was fine after that.

Also, you're welcome! Glad to see a few people are getting in on this, now.

[DrDDS]

I'll give that a try, thanks for the tip! Honestly, this project has renewed my excitement for Tag to levels that have not been seen in my house since I was 8 years old and got my first Starlyte WOW gear ha ha. And, I feel like we are really close now to having enough figured out to even get a simple app written to use the phone for basic vitals and stats. So exciting!

For reference, this is the cable I bought - side note: I can hear a faint sound of the audio data through the tagger speaker when it is connected to the app. I'm a little suspect of the wiring on this splitter. I'll check it out again tonight. Anyway, this is the cable: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01F8 ... UTF8&psc=1

[neuron]

Wow! This is going really well so far! Ryan, thanks again for all the decoders and for the hints as well.

I had intended to start some analysis last night, but I found that the TRRS splitter that I ordered doesn't allow me to connect well with the LTAR. It is a 4-pole female to 2 male splitter. I thought that might be adequate, but it doesn't. Most of the time the app doesn't recognize the LTAR is connected. When it does, the gameplay and audio is very fiddly. I don't know if the splitter degrades the signal too much, or if I just ended up with a poor quality splitter. Perhaps I will go with the other suggestion from justin, and open the LTAR up to take the reading directly from the board. Anyway, it's nice to see you guys are having a lot of progress!

The same thing happens with mine too. Initially I was doing exactly what Ryan suggested, but my sound card would get a little wonky sometimes. Here's what I have been doing now... I have a couple USB sound cards so I split the signal from the LTAR and from the iPodTouch and this still works. Once everything is connected I do not move the LTAR or iPodTouch, and if I do I get pops and the gun seems to disconnect sometimes. I'll start recording on my computer, then I load the software on the iPodTouch, and once the software is sitting at the Main Menu the I turn on the LTAR. If you are still having problems with things connecting you can try to wipe the connections with isopropyl or acetone. If you use acetone be careful where you get it. If that is still causing problems it might be the small pin on the iPhone/iPodTouch that presses against the Sleeve portion of the connector. I found on a device I bought used I had to clean that too. Then things connect and work decent most of the time. I hear the ringing noise you hear too, I think it's the 2kHz tone. It's not crazy loud though, so if yours is really loud you might need to configure things a little different.



EDIT:
I forgot to add one other issue I ran into, the metal case of the iPodTouch and my cables that do the splitting. The case is grounded, and my cables have a metal ring that touches the iPodTouch case but that ring also connects to the Mic, so I had to put a piece of tape so it wouldn't ground out.

[neuron]

Ryan, I have a question about recording from the iDevice. The way I have been doing it is to disconnect the right channel from the input to the sound card so it's just floating. I think I've tried other ways too, i.e. disconnecting ground and right channel. It records ok, but is there a better way to go about it?

When you guys were in development did you have a special wiring harness or were you just getting information from the iPhone and dumping data from some diagnostics ports on the LTAR?

I understand if you can't say.
Thank you

[izzy84075]

Ryan, I have a question about recording from the iDevice. The way I have been doing it is to disconnect the right channel from the input to the sound card so it's just floating. I think I've tried other ways too, i.e. disconnecting ground and right channel. It records ok, but is there a better way to go about it?

When you guys were in development did you have a special wiring harness or were you just getting information from the iPhone and dumping data from some diagnostics ports on the LTAR?

I understand if you can't say.
Thank you

I'm not entirely sure what you're saying you're doing(Disconnecting..? Shouldn't that be connecting..?), but the three connections that are important are Ground, Mic(Output from the LTAR), and Left(Data output from the iPod). The iPod is super picky about the electrical characteristics of connected devices, though, which is what causes these issues.

I've got a device that sits in between the two and has a pair of isolation circuits(Not completely isolated, but current isolated, at least. A pair of good op-amps and support circuitry, and three headphones cables), so that the PC connection doesn't load down the iPod/LTAR connection.

[neuron]

Picture is probably easier. The splitter from the LTAR (Right channel disconnected) is how I record the iPod communication, and the splitter from the iPod is how I record the LTAR communication...
It's been a while since I've messed around with this setup too. Once I got it recording both devices I never changed it because it seemed touchy. It just seemed strange because the sound cards record from the MIC. I was confused so I asked haha!

[izzy84075]

Ah, okay, I see. Do your USB soundcard things have a stereo input? If so, try to get rid of the second splitter and rewire that handy-looking arrangement on the right-hand one to get the mic and left channels onto the left/right channels and record those with one soundcard. That should at least keep the two channels being affected roughly the same, which is less guaranteed with two separate sound cards.

Beyond that... There's not a whole lot I can suggest short of building an isolator thing.