RCT GPS now tested with BN-220 GPS

I got a lot of question during this winter about RCT-GPS with BN-220. Apparently people had some issues with it. So I got myself a few of those little rascals.

RCT-GPS works great with BN-220

No issues with the sensor. Only thing to mention is that first GPS fix took a VERY long time. One of my units took good 45 minutes! So take your time when using it for the few first times.

And it really is small!

RCT-GPS w. BN-220

And the sideview:

RCT-GPS w. BN-220

You really don’t get smaller than that with Arduino!

Some notes

  • Weight with 45 cm cable is 14 grams
  • Weight without cable 8.3 grams
  • BN-220 takes a good time to get GPS fix
  • All the RCT-GPS speed optimizations work with BN-220 (It’s a NEO-M8N)

Enjoy!

10 thoughts on “RCT GPS now tested with BN-220 GPS

  1. Bonsoir Taro,
    Merci pour cette info. mais j'avais tenté hier un montage avec le BN-220, hélas ça ne fonctionnait pas, je suis passé avec un NEO-M8, ça ne fonctionnait toujours, alors je suis passé sous IDE Arduino et un ancien de vos firmwares, là j'ai compris que l'on m'avais vendu des Atmega 328 Pro Mini 3.3V 8MHz au lieu de 5V 16MHz (grrrrr……) je viens de refaire une autre commande.

      1. Hello Taro, (Deepel translation)
        Thank you for this information. But I had tried yesterday to assemble with the BN-220, alas it did not work, I switched to a NEO-M8, it still did not work, then I switched to IDE Arduino and an old firmware of yours, then I realized that I had been sold Atmega 328 Pro Mini 3.3V 8MHz instead of 5V 16MHz (grrrrr……) I just made another order.
        Best Regards

  2. Hello Taro,
    I just mounted a GPS set, Atmega 328 Pro Mini 3.3V 8MHz, firmware V2.2
    It works, except the vario function (m / s) which does not react at all when I make an altitude variation of +/- 2m ??? ….
    If you have an idea, thank you.

    Best regards

  3. Hello Taro,
    I just made another GPS with an Atmega 328 Pro Mini 5V 16MHz with a BN-220 sensor, same result, the vario still does not work.
    I am abandoning that option. I would continue with the vario / alti that they work super well

    Best regards

  4. Hi Tero, not sure if you are still monitoring this.

    I have build the amp sensor previously but this one is giving me trouble.
    I built it with the bn220, and programmed the nano sucessfully (second time I used avrdude just to get confirming diagnostic messages.

    I get nothing on the radio, I have tried both version of the GPS old and new, to no avail.

    I have tried two different resisters one at the higher end of the resistance, and a 3.3k in the middle.

    Jetibox does not see it, a refresh of telemetry does not see it. with 2.x version I had ext port set to exbus, for 1.x version I had set to Jetibox/servo

    When I use radio jetibox, going to M screens just hangs. Using jetixbox directly connected to GPS it gets connection error.

    I would have thought this one was too simple to F up :) But I was wrong.

    Thanks for any help or diagnostics approaches. I connected the serial monitor, but just got binary data.

    Mike

    1. Hi, Nano is not the same as Pro Mini, the hex for Pro Mini does not work with Nano. I will send you a ”Nano-hex” to try.

  5. To close the loop, the ebay "pro mini clone" was not a clone. Switching to actual board resolved the problem.

    Mike

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