Don't know if this is a stupid idea, but is it possible to solder up an battery to the little external gps connector to provide power to the on board gps, so it doesn't take so long to lock?
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The short answer is no.
Looking at the schematics of the APM2.0... GPS/UART1 (and all the UART connectors) have pin 3 connected to the APM Vcc. It is a buss connection and not broken out to individual parts.
If you did this, you would be powering the entire APM through the employed connector..
(click for larger image)
This has been kicked around before. One solution was cutting the power trace to the GPS and wire it separately.
The GPS lock time varies for several reasons. Flying the other night from my driveway, I had a lock in less than 2 min. Go figure. I have had the lock take 15 minutes but the aircraft was inside a building. It was amazing it locked at all. Once it did lock, it made my presentation to a group way cooler because the MP screen updated the Google Earth display to show the quad over the building we were in.
Now to rephrase your question.. "Is it possible to use one of the external connectors to power the onboard GPS.."
Longer answer: Not without modifying the connector and the GPS power traces.
-=Doug