The Bad Elf GPS Pro+ and GNSS Surveyor are capable of supplying data directly to a windows machine using the supplied USB cable. After connecting your Bad Elf to a Windows Machine it will be detected if you have an appropriate driver installed. Opening the Device Manager you will see the Bad Elf device show up as a Generic USB Serial Device with an associated COM Port, as seen below. Please note this COM Port as it may be needed later for configuration of your software.
If you don’t see an entry here for your Bad Elf, it most likely means you don’t have a driver on your machine appropriate for detection. Should this be the case please use the directions below to install the driver appropriate to the architecture of your operating system.
Installing a Bad Elf Compatible Driver
The driver you need is based on what type of operating system you are running whether you are running a 32-bit or 64-bit operating system. If you aren’t sure Microsoft has a help article here that will help: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/827218
Download this zip folder from our website: http://epo.bad-elf.com/drivers/BadElf-VirtualCOM-drivers-win-xp-7.zip
This has a few files in it, a version.txt, a readme and two drivers VCP_V1.3.1_Setup_x64.exe and VCP_V1.3.1_Setup.exe If you are running a 64 bit operating system; you will select “…Setup_x64.exe”. If you are running a 32 bit operating system you will select “…Setup.exe”
Double click the file you need – you will get a self-extraction and the windows install wizard will start.
Configuring your application
There are two classes of applications that exist in regards to configuration; 1. Those that open the serial connection directly and 2. Those that are Windows Sensor aware.
If your application allows for direct serial connection, you will need to configure it based on the needs of the application. The following details may be needed, how many and which ones will be dictated by the specific application:
COM Port - variable and is listed with the details in Device Manager
Bits per second: 9600
Data bits: 8
Parity: NONE
Stop Bits: 1
If your application is Windows Sensor aware you will need to configure a program to map the Bad Elf as a data source. GPSComplete from TurboIRC (http://www.turboirc.com/gps7/) is a good solution for this task. There is an evaluation copy that can be downloaded. If you find this useful in your workflow please consider purchasing a license from TurboIRC.
After downloading GPS Complete you will need to run the above "driver" to map our data stream as a sensor
- Open up GPSComplete
- Select SensorDriver and then Install
- Enter the COM number assigned to your Elf in the top text bar. If the COM port that was assigned to your device was larger than COM10, you will need to type in this value because it is not part of the pull down list.
- After his initializes the elf will be seen as a sensor. You can test this from inside GPS Complete. From the menu select Tests > Sensor Explorer ON. Then mouse over the GPS Direct Sensor and select the entry this allows the right half of the screen to display the data that is flowing from the Bad Elf.
