Hey guys,
Was testing some Focus 30 units with the Ranger 3 controller today and the connection via Bluetooth kept dropping. It would even struggle to connect in the first place. This never happened as I tested them individually.
There were other units being operated at the same time and so I thought there could be some kind of interference via Bluetooth. Sure enough when I switched off all the other machines the problem evaporated.
The units were all in close proximity such in a radius of about 40- 30 meters.
Is this something anyone has experienced before or know of a mitigation?
Are you sure it's a bluetooth problem? I don't have a Focus 30, but I think it uses a 2.4 ghz radio modem rather than bluetooth for robotic communication, right? Or are you not using the Focus 30 in robotic mode?
The radio modem is supposed to be frequency hopping to prevent interference. Not sure what would cause that, but between the Ranger 3 and Focus 30 you potentially have Wifi, Bluetooth, and the radio modem all talking at once, but they are supposed to work together and hop frequencies when needed.
i have a focus 30 and im not 100% sure what the method of communication is but its a form of radio not bluetooth. there is an SSID that you need to set on the instrument and on the controller and they need to match. so yes if you are operating more than one unit you need to have all seperate ssid set on the instrument then change it on the controller to match which one you want to use. i have ran into this a few times having to change the ID because another company was using a similar trimble instrument accross the street.
edit: just looking at my controller it is called Radio chanel (1-30) and Network ID (1-255)
enough combinations there that you shouldnt have any problem.
not sure what the previous posting is talking about the frequency hoping i know mine doesnt do that and i cant see it anywhere in my controller as an option? then again ive never messed with it just works everyday LOL:-D
Maybe your hat caused the interference? 🙂
Kidding aside, you could try maybe to go in the Bluetooth utility program. There's a place where you have two boxes "trusted and untrusted", move all Bluetooth received that you do not want to the untrusted side. The only trusted would be the one to your instrument.
I haven't seen/heard about interference with Bluetooth. Good luck
The spec sheet for both the Focus 30 and Ranger 3 (with radio) call the internal radio "2.4 Ghz, frequency hopping, spread spectrum". That means it is rapidly changing it's frequency to minimize interference. But you are right, it just works. You don't have to change any settings or mess with it. You know it's working if you don't have interference problems.
Frequency-hopping spread spectrum (FHSS) is a method of transmitting radio signals by rapidly switching a carrier among many frequency channels, using a pseudorandom sequence known to both transmitter and receiver.
....
A spread-spectrum transmission offers three main advantages over a fixed-frequency transmission:
1. Spread-spectrum signals are highly resistant to narrowband interference. The process of re-collecting a spread signal spreads out the interfering signal, causing it to recede into the background.
2. Spread-spectrum signals are difficult to intercept. A spread-spectrum signal may simply appear as an increase in the background noise to a narrowband receiver. An eavesdropper may have difficulty intercepting a transmission in real time if the pseudorandom sequence is not known.
3. Spread-spectrum transmissions can share a frequency band with many types of conventional transmissions with minimal interference. The spread-spectrum signals add minimal noise to the narrow-frequency communications, and vice versa. As a result, bandwidth can be used more efficiently.
I think most of the others are spot on here. The Spectra Focus 30 runs on an internal 2.4Ghz radio in both the instrument and the Ranger 3. It sounds like you are using the default channels and walking on each other. To change channels on the instrument use the small screen on Face 2. To change the radio settings on the data collector, go to "Manage Instruments", "Radio/Power" and change. There are three parts to these settings. I normally go 1-1-1 or 2-2-2 and so on.
If you are not using these Robotically and are using these through the internal Bluetooth as a conventional instrument I have never heard of any problems with Bluetooth interference because of the way it works. Normally Bluetooth interference caused corrupt data to flow, the receiving Bluetooth will receive the data and request the data be reset un-corrupted. This will not normally cause Bluetooth to fail, instead it will slow down. This slow down would cause a delay in data received, but not a complete failure unless there are some environmental sources also causing issues.
Thanks guys for the feedback.
I have found the following after multiple incantations and tinkering.
You can use either Bluetooth or the internal radio for communication between the Data Collector and the Focus 30. The radio option allows you to set channels and SSIDs so as to differentiate the different pairs. This is what worked best with multiple units in the same vicinity.
Bluetooth works just as well if only one set is operational otherwise the interference from multiple devices will make short work of any attempt to control the unit consistently. I suppose this is because Bluetooth uses the same frequency or channel and so walks allover each other. The range was also impressive where I could easily clock 300m on the bluetooth.
The radio option was way more stable though.