Tech Smart Tips

PLENIO VXA-3000 (480x234)

Features/Specifications:
Plenio 7-inch Widescreen Touch Screen GPS Navigation System


General Features:
Easy installation
Microsoft Windows CE.NET 4.2 operating system
Samsung ARM9 Core processor (32bits, 300 MHz)
64 MB of built in RAM
512 MB built in NAND flash memory
SD slot (2 GB max supported)
Clear, crisp, and bright display
7-inch color TFT LCD touch screen wide screen display
MP3 Player, JPEG Image Viewer
Resistive film type touch Panel
Outstanding response speed
Simple touch screen interface
Turn-by-turn voice guidance available in multiple languages
Automatic re-routing
Smart Detour
Automatic zoom feature
2D and 3D maps supported + day / night view settings
Entire US map provided on DVD
Can be used as in-car display for DVD players, gaming devices etc. . .
MP3 player, photo slide show, puzzle game supported


Audio Features:
MP3 playback
Internal speakers (1 Watt)
Line-out


GPS Features:
US map preloaded
SiRF star III GPS engine, internal type
First start sensitivity: -135 dBm
Restart sensitivity: -153 dBm
Sensitivity in motion: -156 dBm
Built-in GPS Antenna
Atmel, SIRF2, SIRF3 Support


Input Power:
12V, 1A


Input/Output Connectors:
Audio out
Audio/video in
COMM port
USB host port
Power connector
USB slave port


Unit Dimensions:
4.9 x 7.25 x 1.5-inches (H x W x L approximate)
1.2-pounds


Regulatory Approvals:
FCC
CE
MIC

Package Includes:
Plenio 7-inch Widescreen Touch Screen GPS Navigation System
Wind shield mount
12V car power adapter
USB cable
Hand brake connection cable
A/V cables
1 GB SD card (US map pre-loaded)
Installation DVD-ROM
Users manual

Additional Information:


Notes:
Model: VXA-3000
P/N: VXA-3000-112P-01
UPC: 8 00652 00631 9


Product Requirements:
Available 12V power outlet

I think Plenio vxa 300 is fully hackable, theres a script somewhere to enter window ce.
Will try to get Destinator, IGO8/OCN8, or Navigon 6.52 on this 7" monster and also the
ability to add a back up camera too.

This is not a new device. It has been around for at least a year. Not very good specs either. It's got a physically large screen, but that's about it. The resolution is low, the CPU is not that fast, and it looks like it doesn't support SDHC. It also doesn't have a battery so you have to have it plugged in all the time. the only interesting thing about this device to me is that is says it has a USB host port. If so, it might be possible to add an external hard drive. This could make it a nice in-car movie player.

Yes its been out sometime, the big screen drew my attention with the capability of a back up camera and much much more. So far I was able to get ICN8 and Iguidance4 working but cannot get active sync to work.

The backup camera would be a nice feature. Does the device have 2 usb ports? The specs say 1 usb client and 1 usb host. For ActiveSync, you need to connect to the client port. It could also be that the port is blocked. I saw a review on this thing before that indicated the port was meant for upgrades only. If you are able to get other programs working using the card, you don't really need ActiveSync. You could also try installing a registry editor and looking at the registry. It could just be the port is not configured for ActiveSync and needs to be configured properly.

I'm waiting for the backup camera to arrive to test. There's one usb mini-b just like the pharos/omnitech. I've took the easy way using Wincedesktop.exe. I havn't modify anything yet, it doesn't have the nk.bin like pharos. you can modify via morph script. was able to get icn8 and ig4 to work, it doesn't recognized other gps softwares. I'm using a year old unit without tts. the new unit may have tts, newer software perhaps open up active sync i hope. just order one.


http://www.buy.com/prod/plenio-vxa-3000 ... 76394.html


update: buy.com sold out! I was lucky to order one early yesterday for $106 will have to test any diff. versus the old one.

I did a little research on this device and it appears that you can modify the OS by installing an NK.BIN file onto the SD card. The device will see the file and update automatically. You then need to delete the file or it will keep updating. You can download the file from their website.

www.dvssales.com

I've downloaded the file and will look into the registry to see if I can unlock Activesync for you. It might be a hardware lock so no promises.

Great news b5fan just like custom mods for the Omnitech. Doesn't look like V 1.62 have the completed wince on it. Is it the same step taking to modify the nk.bin in Omnitech/Pharos? if so the possibilities are endless like installing windowce 5.0.

I looked at the NK.BIN from the download site. It does not appear to be the same type of NK.BIN file as for the Omnitech. I am not able to view any of the contents. I'm going to do some more research to see if it might be a different kind of file that was just renamed NK.BIN to throw off people like us.

Also, the possibilities are not completely endless. I still can't get WinCE5 on the old Omni. If I were a programmer that had access to Visual Basic and Platform Builder, I might be able to do more.

Thanks for trying b5fan, will have to see what's the next updates from dvs.

Just received the latest vxa 3000, came with the following:

*TTS(text to speech)
*2007 smart2go Navigator software
*2007 map
*Firmware version 1.64


Dvs should update their website to include the latest firmware!
btw back up camera works great!

Unlocking Plenio vxa-3000:

http://rapidshare.com/files/174711708/P ... s.rar.html


update: works on Plenio vxa-2100 too!

I was able to run WinCE desktop on it then then OCN8 using the unlock I got from elsewhere (the link above is dead), the only thing is there's no Text to Speech function, anyone can help?

but I can't make Navigon software to work. I like Navigon better than OCN8 because of the reality view in the intersections. b5fan, will you be able to help? thanks a lot in advance.

b5fan, hope this helps:

http://www.hpcfactor.com/forums/forums/ ... =3&start=1

I have been working on building a new ROM for the Plenio VXA-2100 GPS running WINCE 4.2

** special thanks to hpcmonex for her site and tutorial.

I have successfully created one minor tweak to the registry file and successfully uploaded the image once, but I haven't been able to add files or do major changes to the ROM.

I am looking for some help with adding softkb.dll and changing the registry to activate the SIP keyboard.

Here is the background on the unit and the steps that I have taken so far.


The ROM tools (bksamsung/bkondisk) designed to dump NAND ROM's do not work on the Plenio units. You can dump the kernal (nk.exe) from the 8Meg nor flash using Grabit.

Luckily Plenio has a nk.bin file on their support site that you can use.

Download the latest nk.bin from

http://www.dvssales.com/support/Downloads_files/NK.bin

Note that this ROM is for VXA-3000 but if you want to load it into the VXA-2100 then rename it to NK2100_.bin. (I have done this on my VXA-2100 with no issues, but the next time you upgrade the ROM you will need to name the file nk.bin since you now have the VXA-3000 ROM loaded)
My understanding is the the 3000 and 2100 are identical except the GPS antenna on the 2100 is detachable.


The ROM Dumping tools will not work on the downloaded file without removing some leading bytes.

I opened the nk.bin file with a HEX editor and removed everything before BOOOFF (28 bytes I think) and save the file under a new name, I used nk_edited.bin.
(thanks to andrewnprice on ppcwarez for this tip!)


The output of viewbin now looks like this.


ViewBin... nk_edited.bin
Image Start = 0x8C200000, length = 0x010F2050
Start address = 0x8C201000
Checking record #83 for potential TOC (ROMOFFSET = 0x00000000)
Found pTOC = 0x8d2f0544
ROMOFFSET = 0x00000000
Done.

Using the following I converted the file to RAW format

cvrtbin nk_edited.bin -r -a 8c200000 -w 32 -l 010f2050 nk_edited.bin

Then finally - Dumped the files contained in the ROM.

dumprom -d c:\tmp\vxa-3000 nk_edited.nb0

I now now have all of the files in the ROM extracted.

Using the perl scripts from hpcmonex's site I converted the default.fdf to default.reg and made a minor change to some text in one of the time zones.

I checked to make sure that the modified default.fdf file was the same size as the original and I then used binmod to put the default.fdf back into the bin file.

Loaded up the nk.bin file using the OS update tool in the Plenio and all was good.


binmod -i nk_edited.bin -r default.fdf
BinMod V1.0 built Apr 5 2006 11:32:47

Checking record #83 for potential TOC (ROMOFFSET = 0x00000000)
Found pTOC = 0x8d2f0544
rom offset = 0x00000000
Found 'default.fdf' in the image! - located at 8ce19d40, size 00007d26 compressed
Assuming pagesize of 00001000 for compression!
New file compressed = 00007d26, uncompressed = 000266c3
Original record checksum: 0x128a191
New record checksum: 0x128a191
New data written to image!
Original record checksum: 0x90a78
New record checksum: 0x90a78
TOC updated!
Done!

My challenge now is that I can not make any other changes to default.fdf and get the nk.bin to load on the GPS.

I have also tried the following tools to make changes, but I get the same results.


Adding default.fdf with dumpromx

dumpromx -v -f default.fdf -a default.fdf nk_edited.nb0
img 00000000 : hdr=8d2f0544 base=8c200000 commandlineoffset=8c200000
block 1 added buf=00440020 010f2050
ERROR: could not find pointer for ofs 00000000
Successful file default.fdf inserting
default.fdf.nb saved successfully

xipbin edited.nb0 0 edited.bin 0
Hooray, now all we need is some patience!
Input: Offset 0x00000000 in EDITED.NB0
Output: Offset 0x00000000 in EDITED.BIN
(0x is okay here because I say so)
....................................................................

My apologies: operation completed successfully. Maybe I can do worse next time!


Can anyone point me in the right direction to be able to make more substantial changes to default.fdf and successfully get them into a working nk.bin file? I suspect that I have an incorrect offset or checksum issue that I don't have enough experience to figure out.

Any help appreciated.

Paul