[howto] DJI PC Groundstation on Windows XP

The DJI Groundstation is an application to remote control a DJI copter with waypoints, flight trace and this stuff. The Groundstation is available for PC and iPad.

First some annotiations:

• You need a free CAN slot. If you do not have one, you can extend it with DJI CAN hub - but this is just an expansive box which is connecting the wires :-) So in theory you can also cut the cables and solder it.
• You need the DJI 2,4GHz datalink: This is a sender and a receiver.
• If you want to use it with your iPad you also need the DJI BTU (Bluetooth Unit)
• Make sure that your iPad supports BT 4.0. I think this is the case for iPad 3 and up. On iPad you can not install the groundstation app.
• The Groundstation for PC is only available on CD which is shipped inside the package. It looks like it is downloading the latest version from internet somehow.
• There are different versions of the datalink module with different certificates (FCC, CE) and different transmit power

Ok, now back to the topic. Since you might want to use an old notebook for the groundstation running Windows XP you need to take care about the drivers by your own. It is shipped with a Prolific 2303 serial driver, but this driver is not really fitting to the product and even downloading other versions did not solve the issue. The issue is a yellow exclamation mark in the device manager :-)

Plugging it to a newer windows version you can see, that it uses operating system included CDC serial drivers. Unfortunately the CDC drivers are not available on Windows XP (or can not be accessed automatically), but you can trick it a bit.

Microchip has an example for that. Unfortunately this is in an executable file. So download the alternative drivers from e.g. obddiag.net and unzip them to a folder. Edit the mchpcdc.inf and look for the lines where it is written %DESCRIPTION%=DriverInstall, USB\VID_????&PID_????. Change both the lines to %DESCRIPTION%=DriverInstall, USB\VID_FFF0&PID_0008. After that go to the device manager and reinstall by using the custom folder where you just edited the .inf file.

Remember the port and set it in the groundstation.