Update GPS firmware with JUST your arduino board. No FTDI cable required. Talk to serial devices easily.

Hi everybody.

I would just like to help any others who are having trouble talking to the EM-406a GPS module. You can talk directly to it, even upgrade the firmware, with JUST AN ARDUINO BOARD an FTDI cable is NOT required. It's very simple but took me days and days to find it.

You just remove the ATMEGA328 chip from the board, then you may talk directly to the GPS via the arduino boards serial pins 0 and 1.

So remove the chip, plug your GPS into the two serial pins, 0 and 1 on your UNO or Duemilanove board and connect it to your PC. Use the same port that you talk to the board with to talk to devices connected to arduino board.

Test the board is talking ok with either the mini GPS software or Sirfdemo first to be sure. Then go ahead and follow the upgrade instructions given on this site for using the flash tool.

Hope this saves some frustration.

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vbeeeks February 26, 2012 at 8:57am

I am not able to flash with any f/w supplied till date, after 100% completion, there is that infamous "brom" failure. What to do ? Otherwise see the beautiful fix I got on the MiniGPS utility with the above configuration. Is the flash installed in the GPS incompatible with Flashtool (see brom.ini)? Niether does the APM1280 see the device at the same time. Somehow my gut feeling after reading so many comments in DIYDrones is that some functionality should have been there in AM-Planner for h/w probing specifically for peripheral devices like sonar, magnetometer, GPS, Telemetry etc add-ons. Anyway anyone with the same problem?
Troublemaker April 17, 2011 at 5:23am

I'm glad I helped someone!
Russell B. Sutton April 16, 2011 at 10:21pm

This is just what i was looking for thanks.

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Update GPS firmware with JUST your arduino board. No FTDI cable required. Talk to serial devices easily.

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