| Electronics > Beginners |
| Helper to Configure U-Blox Clone For GPS Clock Project |
| (1/1) |
| t1d:
Background: I am making a GPS Precision Clock using a U-Blox NEO-M8N (Clone?) Receiver, Pic18F4550 MCU and 2004 HD44780 (Clone?) LCD Display. My objective is to display the UTC Time, Local Time, Day, Month and Year. Future developments will include Battery Powered Portability and Multiple Alarms. Learning how to set the U-Blox configurations is its own large learning curve (400+ page data sheet.) I have so many learning curves already underway - Electronic circuit design, Microchip PIC MCUs, KiCad, Coding in C, etc. - that I thought it actually smart to reach out to someone else that has already conquered the U-Blox U-Center and get some help. I can hear you thinking "Aren't there already turn-key GPS Clock projects out there?" Yes, and know. I can find bits and pieces, but nothing that suits my desires completely. What is so unique about what I want that another program can not do the job? Well, I have not found the first one that addresses (battery) power management and MCU capability management from a GPS Module Configurations basis. Meaning, a whole lot of battery power and MCU processing overhead can be gained by simply turning off a lot of the GPS Module's functions... Examples - The GPS Module may need to keep up with the lat/lon for calculating the local time, but it does not need to display the coordinates. - Maybe only time sentences need to be processed. $GxZDA will work best for this application. - Maybe only one type of satellite group needs to be tracked. - Etc. As you can tell from the examples, I am well into the GPS/U-Blox learning curve. But, I am getting swamped. So, I need a person to help specifically with the U-Center configurations for the project's limited purposes... To simply go through the U-Center Configuration Menu and tell me what needs to be done for each setting, with the stated objectives in mind. That's it. If you are interested in joining in, please send me a private message. I would be glad to give/send/gratis you one of my "Pinquino-stlye" PIC18F4550 Demo Boards (USA/48/Mailing) for use in development (and to just plain keep.) Otherwise, if someone knows of a U-Blox U-Center Configurations "For Dummies" source, please tell me. I will keep trudging along, until a volunteer is found, or the project is finished. Thanks for your consideration. Progress Pictures |
| awallin:
FWIW on linux with a recent version of gpsd (https://gpsd.gitlab.io/gpsd/index.html) there is a simple tool called "ubxtool" which allows reading/writing settings (over UART aka RS232) on a ublox receiver. This allows scripting of all the settings in a file that you can run e.g. at bootup. For the LCD display you don't need the final tens of nanoseconds of precision that fancy settings might provide - so just using the defaults should work? |
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