Project Drogheda (GPS RTK)

Helgen Technologies' HBOX RTK GPS tracker fleet for Hutchison Ports heavy equipment (ICAVE / TIMSA / EIT / LCT) — centimetre-class position over 4G, streamed to the Helgen backend (retranslator → Wialon/Traccar → VERONICA), built to survive a hot, salty, high-vibration port environment.

New here? Read 00-Project-Management/Engineering-Handover.md first. It is the deep context: product, failure analysis, fixes, repo map, open items, glossary. This README is the 2-minute orientation; CLAUDE.md is the terse machine index.

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Where we are (2026-06-20 · updated 2026-07-02)

2026-07-02: backend deployed + stable; thermal chamber run done; 3-board protoboard campaign in flight (units to ICAVE 7-jul). Watchdog v3 PROD schematic is complete (ERC 0) — LTC4040 battery-backup sized to the 12 Ah pack, fail-safe Modo-B relay bypass — and the PCB is now a 120×100 carrier board: Blackpill + simpleRTK2B Pro (UNO-shield sockets) + 4G NTRIP Master (on-board XBee socket) all on female headers. Layout in placement review; fab gate = proto bench validation. Canonical: 03-Architecture-Hardware/watchdog-electrical-design-state.md.

We deployed a first batch of HBOX trackers on ICAVE machines in Veracruz. They worked "ish," then failed. We are mid-crisis, hardening for scale — target 30 units by August. The failure is three independent fronts, fixed in parallel:

1. Backend (confirmed in code) — retranslator.py head-of-line blocks the whole fleet on slow upstream, and an anti-jump filter can permanently black-hole a healthy unit.
2. Thermal — an ASA case (UV-stable, ~95–100 °C — adequate) sealed in a sealed IP67 cabinet that also holds the heat-generating Mean Well PSU, in full sun → nested heat trap for the battery / boost / modem (not the case).
3. Prototype hardware — Dupont + hand-wiring + 18650/PowerBoost; fragile under vibration.

Units: all pulled — 4 in hand (3 dead, 1 working-ish) in Veracruz; team in Querétaro → remote debug. Field firmware is v1 (no thermal log).

Free triage: a unit ONLINE in htracker but OFFLINE in Wialon is a backend victim, not dead hardware. Check that before condemning a radio.

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The product in one breath

Rover (HBOX) on the machine + Base Station (Ardusimple AS-PRO-CORS, 110/230 V) publishing RTCM3 corrections over NTRIP. The rover gets corrections over the 4G modem, not the GNSS → recover a dead link by power-cycling the 4G stack, never a GNSS reset. HBOX core: simpleRTK2B Pro (ZED-F9P) · 4G NTRIP Master · STM32F411 watchdog · Mean Well SD-15B-05 (24→5 V) · PowerBoost + 18650 · GX16-5 to the cabinet. 24 V is the production variant.

Invariants (never violate)

1. Power-off is the safe state. 2. Never vanish, never loop. 3. Corrections ride the 4G modem, not the GNSS. 4. No material that softens below ~80 °C (PLA-class) in the thermal path — the ASA enclosure complies; design to measured cabinet temperature. 5. Backend forwards without head-of-line blocking; anti-jump never locks out a healthy unit. 6. No secrets in the repo (the committed MSSQL password is a live violation to rotate).

Repo layout

00-Project-Management (plan, ethos, financials, handover, Drive tooling) · 01-Requirements (SRS, product spec, tracker) · 02-Architecture-Software (backend review) · 03-Architecture-Hardware (cabinet/HBOX, BOM, PCB brief, watchdog, manual) · 04-Source-Code (firmware/ · htracker/ · notifications/) · 05-Analytics-Reports (SQL views — placeholder) · 06-Testing-Validation (RCA, diagnostics) · Marketing (datasheet, brochure) · _brand (LaTeX style) · 99-Archive (raw inputs).

Quick start

# Branded docs (XeLaTeX; League Spartan + MADE Evolve Sans):
cd 01-Requirements/HBOX-Ficha-Tecnica && latexmk -xelatex main.tex

# Firmware (own repo 'hbox-firmware', at 04-Source-Code/firmware):
#   open blackpillrtkcode_v2/blackpillrtkcode_v2.ino in the STM32duino toolchain.
#   ⚠ Bench-test before any field flash — the sandbox cannot build STM32.

# Backend: 04-Source-Code/htracker  (ssh://git.helgen.dev:6611/htracker, feature/test500unidades)

Storage model (one home per artifact)

This repo = working source of truth (editable .md/.tex, code). Google Drive Drogheda (GPS RTK) = finalized exports (branded PDFs, native Docs/Sheets). Second Brain vault = distilled decisions/lessons. Author in repo → export final to Drive → distill to vault. Drive upload how-to + mapping: 00-Project-Management/Drive-Upload/README.md. Never change Drive sharing — that's Leo's call.

Go deeper

• Deep context / onboarding → 00-Project-Management/Engineering-Handover.md
• Current priorities → 00-Project-Management/PLAN.md
• Machine index → CLAUDE.md
• Failure analysis → 06-Testing-Validation/RCA-2026-06-field-failures.md