Cheap GPS

YachtAllegro

YachtAllegro

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27 Apr 2012
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175
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Me - Inverness / Boat - Inner Sound, West Coast
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HiOur venerable Garmin GPS128 is playing up, intermittently showing no satellites at all for hours. I suspect this may well be the aerial, and will probably try a cheapo replacement to see if that makes a difference. However, with GPS chips being found in almost everything these days I thought it might not be very much to replace the whole thing. A USB GPS dongle can be had for just £20-30, but I don't have a laptop on the boat. Anyone aware of something similar to that which instead has an NMEA output and which could be wired into the boat's electrics? It doesn't need to have a screen of its own - just output the position to the repeater in the cockpit. I was happy to pay hundreds for a marine GPS when the technology was new and expensive, but now it clearly isn't to do so seems crazy!CheersPatrick[Edit - I assume its obvious I'm not looking for anything fancy from my GPS - position, speed and course is all I ask for!]
 
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On the upside, now that the technology isn't new anymore, there are plenty of used but perfectly adequate GPS receivers on eBay. Including a GPS128 with external antenna.
 
Boat in the Inner Sound? You are aware that the military are jamming GPS for several hours a day as part of exercise Joint Warrior this week and next? !!
 
NorthUp said:
Boat in the Inner Sound? You are aware that the military are jamming GPS for several hours a day as part of exercise Joint Warrior this week and next? !!
Click to expand...

I noticed at one point I was doing 13 knots while tied up. Kept it up for about 30 seconds. Fastest I have ever gone, I think.
 
For those not aware, AngusMcDoon's YAPP described above is probably normally used in conjunction with the globalsat bu-355. This is pretty much identical to the bu-353 which is the cheap USB GPS "puck" many people use, except that the 355 has simple single-ended nmea out, albeit with a funny connector on the end which people generally cut off. There's a variety of ways to power the BU-355: I butchered an old 12v phone charger but the yapp described takes all the hassle out and puts it in a nice plastic box. The raspberry pi is overkill if all you want is GPS to one or two devices.

EDIT: Of course if you get bored and want to play with using your raspberry pi as a quite accurate time source, you don't want one of *those* GPS units, you want one with PPS output wired to one of your gpio pins (I use the adafruit "ultimate GPS" for that which I see is now available in convenient "HAT" form at £40)
 
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Pladdatoo said:
Yes, but he needs a GPS!
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Sorry, probably too brief in my post. Angus's YAPP uses the GlobalSat BR-355 GPS mouse (as do I).

It is available from eBay for around £30. It works perfectly. I have it affixed behind my instrument panel.
 
laika said:
For those not aware, AngusMcDoon's YAPP described above is probably normally used in conjunction with the globalsat bu-355. This is pretty much identical to the bu-353 which is the cheap USB GPS "puck" many people use, except that the 355 has simple single-ended nmea out, albeit with a funny connector on the end which people generally cut off...
Click to expand...

Isn't the connector a PS/2 mouse port connector?

The BU-353 (USB) is marginally cheaper, especially on Amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B008200LHW/dolcetto-21 (ignoring the Chinese sellers on eBay). It has the SiRF Star IV chipset, which is newer than III, so while it may track Galileo, it is not capable of tracking NAVSTAR, GLONASS, Compass, SBAS, and future systems. I can't find any serial devices using SiRF Star V, which is the type that will.

The BR-355 similarly has SiRF Star IV http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B004WN7YPU/dolcetto-21

[Note that there is an Amazon affiliate code after the ASIN in these links, feel free to delete it]
 
nigelmercier said:
so while it may track Galileo, it is not capable of tracking NAVSTAR, GLONASS, Compass, SBAS, and future systems. I can't find any serial devices using SiRF Star V, which is the type that will.
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My view is that at the price these are being sold at, they can be dumped and replaced by newer pucks which will pick up other systems.


Edit: One reason I like these is that they are fixed inside the boat - no wiring to go wrong to the pushpit, no having to be careful of damaging something attached to the pushpit, no extra costs in buying a mount for the rail.
 
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nigelmercier said:
Isn't the connector a PS/2 mouse port connector?
Click to expand...

It is, but plugging it into a PS/2 mouse port on any other piece of equipment won't do you any good because it doesn't talk PS/2 mouse protocol. So in this context it's really just an arbitrary "funny connector" that you'll cut off to reveal the "standard" NMEA 0183 system of bare wires.

Pete
 
nigelmercier said:
(ignoring the Chinese sellers on eBay)
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There's a lot to be said for the Chinese sellers on ebay. Mainly that if you don't need it tomorrow it's more than a fiver cheaper for one of these GPS thingies. I think we're all probably a bit iffy about buying from random supplier in China the first time but so far (touch cheap plastic) I've not had a bad experience. Both my BU-355 and BU-353 were from China or Taiwan. Given the number of suppliers offering the same goods at the same price they're probably too worried about their feedback ratings to mess people about.
 
laika said:
There's a lot to be said for the Chinese sellers on ebay. Mainly that if you don't need it tomorrow it's more than a fiver cheaper for one of these GPS thingies. I think we're all probably a bit iffy about buying from random supplier in China the first time but so far (touch cheap plastic) I've not had a bad experience. Both my BU-355 and BU-353 were from China or Taiwan. Given the number of suppliers offering the same goods at the same price they're probably too worried about their feedback ratings to mess people about.
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Yes, for small things where there is no worry about import duty, I use Chinese ebay sellers a fair bit.
Not quick, but otherwise more reliable than UK ebay sellers IME.
 
I replaced my gps with a (I think) br355 from ebay and used a YAPP power converter. It works outputting a nmea message showing lat and long. But unfortunately it doesn't output a nmea message showing COG that my venerable Stowe Dataline instrumentation system can pick up. I have looked in to this and the relevant message can be switched on but only by doing it on boot up from a pc/laptop; it forgets this setting and so has to be has to be done every time ( a right pain in the ar*e).

So ultimately what I'm saying is be careful. Make sure your new gps outputs the nmea message types you need with the minimum of set up!
 
lw395 said:
Only had time for a quick look on the bay of thieves:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/GY-NEO6MV...t=LH_DefaultDomain_3&var=&hash=item4636157337
Under £15.
Need to check that includes the antenna, and the baud rate is right or you can change it easily.
You can get data for the ublox module it's based on from their website, along with some test apps.

The ublox modules are used in McMurdo EPIRBs, work well for me.
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I used one of these along with an Arduino Nano copy, and an 8 digit 7 segment LED (both also from eBay). I put the whole thing together including a plastic box from Maplin for less than £15.

It is possible using this setup to have an output to a DSC VHF with a slight modification to the GPS board, although I'm not using that. I have speed and heading on this version, but the GPS can output loads more useful info including steering instructions!

The system is powered by USB via a cheap cigarette lighter USB socket.
DSC_0014.jpg
A slight modification from the picture is that I have covered the display with a red acrylic screen to give better contrast from the LEDs
 
lw395 said:
Only had time for a quick look on the bay of thieves:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/GY-NEO6MV...t=LH_DefaultDomain_3&var=&hash=item4636157337
Under £15.
Need to check that includes the antenna, and the baud rate is right or you can change it easily.
You can get data for the ublox module it's based on from their website, along with some test apps.

The ublox modules are used in McMurdo EPIRBs, work well for me.
Click to expand...

I used one of these along with a Arduino Nano copy and an 8-digit 7-segment LED display (both from Chinese eBay sellers!) to create GPS speedo. Including a £7 enclosure from Maplin, the whole setup cost me less than £15.

I have speed (knots) and heading (degrees) displayed, but the GPS unit outputs loads of other bits of data. The whole unit is powered by USB via a car cigarette lighter charger.
DSC_0011.JPG
Since this photo I have put in a red acrylic screen to get better contrast from the LED
 
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