I am interested in using Arducopter 3.x (esp. 3.1) and an APM2.5 with GPS units other than the 3DR GPS. In particular, I want to use the much less expensive ublox NEO-6M gps rather than the LEA-6H.
I've seen a few threads about this, but they are all unconclusive and very unclear.
Will this work OK? Will I need to configure the GPS with the ublox configuration center and 3DR config file?
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Thank you very much.
My multi-rotors are running 3.1 and my plane is running 2.78B.
I have one 3DR setup with the LEA-6H and 3 rctimer setups using the NEO-6M.
As far as actual GPS performance goes, there's really nothing in the specs of the 6H which makes it better than the 6M for our use.
One thing to look out for. Most of the 6M boards don't come configured for 38.4 kbaud operation and may seem a bit flakey on power-up. Connect it via u-center/FTDI to your PC, change the configured baud rate on the GPS and make sure to save changes. Modern code on the APM will change everything else needed for normal operation.
Two of my NEO-6Ms are in multi-rotors and work fine for auto, loiter etc. The third one is in a plane and I've seen up to 15 satellites locked when higher up in the air.
I believe most GPS all output their coordinates using the NMEA ( think its that) standard at a configurable baud rate. The autopilot doesnt really know or care whats on the other side as long as it can read the coordinates and other meta data (stuff like quality or accuracy, number of sats etc).
The problem with lesser GPS is they arent as accurate, which of course means the A/P will not be able to be as accurate in multicopter modes like loiter.
Both products contain UBLOX chips. Ive only used the 6H. In the end the price difference is at most $20, so why be cheap when you have invested hundreds for the remainder.
Part of the reason is that I don't actually fly in GPS modes very much, though Drift mode interests me.