Monday, September 21, 2015

A Nearly Perfect U-blox GPS Breakout

Here's a quick post about a breakout board I made for the U-blox NEO-6M GPS. U-blox makes many excellent GNSS modules. The NEO-6 series is not their latest and greatest. However, the NEO-6M in particular strikes a great compromise between price and performance. It is an excellent GPS-only receiver that can be had in the $10 range online. Small breakout boards can be found for as little as $12.

My issue with the commonly available NEO-6 boards is that most do not break out all of the features of the module. The cheapest ones bring out the serial pins, but do not utilize the USB functionality. Also, few (if any) provide a buffered PPS signal through an SMA connector. These two features in particular are why I decided to design my own.

My u-blox NEO-6M breakout board.

The board has USB for monitoring and configuration via u-center. It also has a buffered PPS output, a backup battery holder, and it works with active antennas. GPS reception on this board is just as good as with any other breakout or Eval kit I've tried.

I'm very happy with how this board turned out. I will be re-using much of this layout in my development of a retrofit GPS board for the Lucent KS-24361 REF-0.

Thanks for reading!

- Dan W.
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9 comments:

  1. Pa N4TVCOctober 2, 2015 at 3:29 PM

    Fantastic, as usual, Dan. Nice looking board. I'm looking forward to the next cool thing you do!

    73, Randy, N4TVC

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  2. UnknownOctober 7, 2015 at 7:21 PM

    Dan -
    Do you think there would be unterest in a bare "breakout" board for uBlox LEA-6T or newest 8T version -- for time / gpsdo experimenters??

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    Replies
    1. Dan WatsonOctober 10, 2015 at 8:41 PM

      Possibly. My NEO-6 breakout is my go-to GPS board now, I use it every day. It works really well. I also just finished up a breakout board design for the LEA-6T, which would be pin compatible with the LEA-M8T. I'll have those boards back in a couple weeks to start testing.

      Delete
  3. Thomas V.February 23, 2016 at 2:10 AM

    Hi, I'm looking for a NEO/LEA-M8T breakout board. Is this something you would sell in small quantity?

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    Replies
    1. Dan WatsonFebruary 25, 2016 at 4:58 AM

      Hi,

      I did a PCB for an LEA-M8T breakout around the time I made this NEO-6 board. I recently ordered some of those modules, so if I get that tested successfully I'll post back here and let you know. It's similar to this board, but with both Time Pulse signals broken out to SMA connectors.

      Thanks

      Dan

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  4. TomMarch 29, 2016 at 6:24 PM

    Hey Dan,
    I could use something just like this for some CSAC testing I'm doing. I need a PPS out and haven't found it on any other board for the M8T. Did you ever decide if you were willing to sell one of these boards (or provide a gerber file)?
    Thanks
    Tom

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    Replies
    1. Dan WatsonMarch 30, 2016 at 11:43 AM

      The boards and modules will be here this week, so after testing I'll let you know. Thanks

      Dan

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    2. Andreas EdvardssonMay 19, 2016 at 11:22 AM

      I have just found your blog Dan, and I really like it. I immediately subscribed to the feed!

      However, I found this article searching for Ublox boards (specifically models providing RAW-output), finding out that you happen to design just that. If those will ever be available for sale I'd definitely be interested.

      Once again, Great blog!
      /Andreas

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  5. SUNNY MARELLAApril 3, 2016 at 2:08 AM

    Hey Dan! Great work on the breakout board. Is there some tutorial you would recommend on the track thickness for passing the GPS signals? Im not sure if you want the designs open source, but some help on the learning path would be helpful. Thank you.
    -Sunny.

    ReplyDelete