Wednesday 4 June 2014

NavSpark Arduino compatable GPS receiver

Before Christmas I saw a posting for NavSpark on the crowd funding site indiegogo.com.  From the web page https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/navspark-arduino-compatible-with-gps-gnss-receiver  "NavSpark is a small, powerful, breadboard-friendly, 32bit development board that is Arduino compatible, with a world class GPS receiver as on-board peripheral, and under $15".  At that price I ordered one, especially as it came with a dual band patch antenna for $19.
 
It arrived last week, the board looking like an Arduino micro with the dual band active antenna.  Heeding the warning that the U-FL connector can only be used a dozen or so times, I mounted the Board and antenna in a plastic box.
 
 

The Arduino IDE, viewing software programming guide and documentation are all at http://navspark.mybigcommerce.com/resources/    The USB chip is by Prologix, the unit appearing as a serial port (defaults to 115200Baud). After installing the drivers and software and putting the receiver out on my south facing balcony, it found GPS and GLONASS satelites
 
 

The map shows the correct relative position of the satellites, but the map is based on Taiwan (where the units are made) and isn't currently changeable. Not surprising the locked satellites are all to the South with the system on a south facing balcony.

 

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