Well the excitement finally got too much for me. Sparkfun do not sell all the bits (and the delivery is mental for UK). Cool Components do not sell all the bits (mediatek not there). Active-Robots sell random parts none helpful.
Ive gone through the manual and threads on it and am so excited I do not know if I am gonna be able to wait for the restock of Media GPS. I have also noticed the problem threads for MediaTek GPS, where comms arent working and such but have not seen any about the uBlox.
Is this because the uBlox is not being used with the APM by anyone yet or that the uBlox works so easily it has no problems?
What is the better GPS platform for UK? (given we do not have WAAS :( )
I know its still alpha but I couldn't care less being a home tinkerer and coder (.net so this is way different but I'll love doing my best).
Replies
DIYdrones has only been offering the MediaTek beginning this summer, maybe within the last month. There were some minor issues as people learned to use them. But the uBlox has had more than its share of problems, usually from physical issues -- fragility of antenna connection, misalignment of the GPS to adapter connector. If you step back and look at the situation over the last 12 to 18 months, so far the MediaTek has been more user friendly especially to those with less experience and with less test equipment. People report problems more than successes so it is hard to tell if we have resolved an issue or if someone just gave up and left the forum but my gut tells me that the MediaTek is going to be a winner.
I have been using EM-406As for years and love them, however my vehicles have very low velocity and dynamics but operate in physically and electrically harsh environments (dirty power). The added performance (update rate) of the uBlox was never worth the extra cost and fragility for me. Since the MediaTek is soldered to the adapter board I think it will be more robust than the uBlox, and it is smaller and lower cost than the EM-406A, so I may have a new favorite. We're going to play with it for a while and see how durable it is, how it recovers from power glitches, brownouts, brief signal loss due to antenna obstruction, etc.
We've got several hundred MediaTek modules in hand, and they just need to be mounted on the adapter. That will probably happen later this week and it will be back in stock. They're popular and move fast!