Thursday, June 12, 2008

Picked up a GPS

Here is one of those much talked about GPS boards from Libelium...



The aim here is to get a real working application made with this device and maybe even datalog coordinates.. we'll have to see. I do have a jump start on the coding if I build off of Matt's code from his post GPS in less than 30 mintues.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Not really on-topic for this post, but LCD's and GPS tend to go hand in hand for the most part...

I was wondering if you could post about how you went about designing your touch shield and how to interface with other LCD's with the arduino.

I'm looking at the Varitronix VIA-415-DP-RC-S 4 digit 7 segment reflective LCD (40 pin) as a secondary display (digikey part #153-1017-ND) and am trying to minimize the digital i/o pins used for it.

Chris said...

matt,

You're right... I think it's the best way to visualize the data from those things.. I think you're reading my mind!

The thought process for the TouchShield was to actually use as many pins as possible for the OLED connections. This helps with graphics throughput. Since it's an RGB display it's kind of a different animal than the monochrome guys, but I would look to some of the LCD driver IC's from www.maxim-ic.com

Unknown said...

Oh, thanks for that link :) I'm fairly new to the whole LCD thing, so picking my way through it has been confusing at times.

I've found a 4 digit 7 segment 3-6V IC there (http://www.maxim-ic.com/quick_view2.cfm/qv_pk/1675) but how do I know if it'll work with the VIA-415-DP-RC-S?

Relatively elementary questions I'm sure...but I am a newb.

comeonrichard said...

We are using the Libelium GPS Shield to develop some auto-locate functionality to define when you are within a defined region (Geo-fence). The Shield has been great for that, but quite expensive. The new shield from Ladyada (http://www.ladyada.net/make/gpsshield) is quite a bit less expensive and has an SD slot for position logging. The GPS modules available are also SiRF III, which is a big advantage.
The Libelium Shield does integrate well with the XBee shield, so that you can transmit location all at the same time, which is one of our goals