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Mediatek GPS not working (bricked?)

Posted by Graham Dyer on February 13, 2011 at 12:28am

I plugged my Mediatek GPS into the Remzibi OSD with an adapter making very sure the pinouts matched (apparently not sure enough, they didn't). The OSD didn't recognise the GPS but now when I plug the GPS back into ArduPilot everything on the serial monitor is small squares and I also can't upload to ArduPilot with the GPS connected dispite having a v2 shield.

 

Help please?

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Replies

  • Larry Baraniuk March 27, 2011 at 10:40am

    I also am trying to get my Mediatek EM406 GPS that I bought 3 weeks ago and tried most of the tricks.

    I tried the 1.6 Protocol and the old MTK Protocol in the APM Configuration, tried different test programs ,

    put the GPS out in open sky etc.

    We are not the only ones dealing with this problem, I've been checking the threads on RC forum and there's

    allot of posts about GPS problems and there are allot of comments on the DIY Drones website.

    This is going to be a tough one to fix but I will find a solution and post it.

     

     

  • Moderator
    Graham Dyer February 16, 2011 at 11:25pm

    I seem to have the knack as now both my GPS's (Mediatek and EM406) appear to be bricked. Neither will respond to commands, programming, etc and just output garbled stuff, the EM406 actually outputs nothing at all but it's LED is very dim presumably indicating that it's in binary mode. The Mediatek's battery has been removed as it was flashing at 0.5Hz (battery read 2.82V) but interestingly it still got a lock/LED went solid outside.

    The problems may have arisen from the Tx/Rx wires being reversed when connected to the OSD.

    I've tried Ken's reset (here), SiRFDemo's "Initialize Data Source","Switch to NMEA protocol","Switch to Sirf protocol", etc.

    I have also researched & then tried everything I can find/think of in Real Terminal but neither respond eg. $PMTK001,101,0*33 and $PMTK314,1,1,1,1,1,5...........,1*2C, etc, etc.

     

    Does anyone think these GPS's are rescuable or should I just throw them away and buy new?

  • 3D Robotics
    Chris Anderson February 13, 2011 at 12:46pm
    The new MediaTek are shipped with V1.6 firwmare, which is not supported by the old ArduPilot. If that's what you've got, you need to change the firmware to 1.4 as instructed here:

    http://code.google.com/p/ardupilot/wiki/MediaTek
  • Ken February 13, 2011 at 12:37pm

    I plugged my Mediatek GPS into the Remzibi OSD with an adapter making very sure the pinouts matched. The OSD didn't recognise the GPS

     

    Then possibly "very sure" was not sure enough. The MediaTek outputs RMC and GGA, that is all Remzibi needs. But read on... 

     

    everything on the serial monitor is small squares

    By any chance, is the blue light on the GPS blinking unusually slowly? Like 1 second on, 1 second off (1/2 Hz) (rather than 1/2 sec on, 1/2 second off (1Hz)) ...and never getting a lock (solid blue)?

     

    (A MediaTek doing this would also prevent Remzibi from working.)

     

    I also can't upload to ArduPilot with the GPS connected dispite having a v2 shield.

    This is odd. But you can still upload if you unplug the GPS?

     

     

     

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