Arduino GPS – Ublox NEO-M8N Flight Controller GPS w/Protective Shell for PIX PX4 Pixhawk

Hey everyone,

I recently purchased this GPS unit on ebay: http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemVersion&item=272492032614&view=all&tid=1865626885017

Unfortunately, I didn’t do a lot of research before getting it and had a bit of trouble finding any spec sheets or documentation. Just in case anyone else has the same problem I’ve listed out everything I needed to get it running below.

This is the wiring info you’ll need for an Arduino:
– VCC: red
– GND: black
– TXD: yellow
– RXD: white
– SCL: green
– SDA: blue

And while this post is mostly targetting Arduino, the following wiring can be used for a RaspberryPi3:
– VCC: red => pi 3.3v
– GND: black => pi gnd
– TXD: yellow => pi rx (GPIO15/Pin #10)
– RXD: white => pi tx (GPIO14/Pin #08)
– SCL: green => pi scl (GPIO3/Pin #5)
– SDA: blue => pi sda (GPIO4/Pin #7)

For the Pi, the following commands might come in handy if you’d like to see the output in the console:

# Set the baud rate
stty -F /dev/ttyS0 9600

# View output
sudo cat /dev/ttyS0

The default baud rate was 38400.

This is the example I ended up using to get a quick test up and running. Ensure that you map the rx and tx pins correctly (arduino tx to gps rx, arduino rx to gps tx).


v#include
#include
/*
This sample sketch demonstrates the normal use of a TinyGPS++ (TinyGPSPlus) object.
It requires the use of SoftwareSerial, and assumes that you have a
4800-baud serial GPS device hooked up on pins 4(rx) and 3(tx).
*/
static const int RXPin = 11, TXPin = 10;
static const uint32_t GPSBaud = 38400;

// The TinyGPS++ object
TinyGPSPlus gps;

// The serial connection to the GPS device
SoftwareSerial ss(RXPin, TXPin);

void setup()
{
Serial.begin(115200);
ss.begin(GPSBaud);

Serial.println(F("DeviceExample.ino"));
Serial.println(F("A simple demonstration of TinyGPS++ with an attached GPS module"));
Serial.print(F("Testing TinyGPS++ library v. ")); Serial.println(TinyGPSPlus::libraryVersion());
Serial.println(F("by Mikal Hart"));
Serial.println();
}

void loop()
{
// This sketch displays information every time a new sentence is correctly encoded.
while (ss.available() > 0)
if (gps.encode(ss.read()))
displayInfo();

if (millis() > 5000 && gps.charsProcessed() < 10)
{
Serial.println(F("No GPS detected: check wiring."));
while(true);
}
}

void displayInfo()
{
Serial.print(F("Location: "));
if (gps.location.isValid())
{
Serial.print(gps.location.lat(), 6);
Serial.print(F(","));
Serial.print(gps.location.lng(), 6);
}
else
{
Serial.print(F("INVALID"));
}

Serial.print(F(" Date/Time: "));
if (gps.date.isValid())
{
Serial.print(gps.date.month());
Serial.print(F("/"));
Serial.print(gps.date.day());
Serial.print(F("/"));
Serial.print(gps.date.year());
}
else
{
Serial.print(F("INVALID"));
}

Serial.print(F(" "));
if (gps.time.isValid())
{
if (gps.time.hour() < 10) Serial.print(F("0"));
Serial.print(gps.time.hour());
Serial.print(F(":"));
if (gps.time.minute() < 10) Serial.print(F("0"));
Serial.print(gps.time.minute());
Serial.print(F(":"));
if (gps.time.second() < 10) Serial.print(F("0"));
Serial.print(gps.time.second());
Serial.print(F("."));
if (gps.time.centisecond() < 10) Serial.print(F("0"));
Serial.print(gps.time.centisecond());
}
else
{
Serial.print(F("INVALID"));
}

Serial.println();
}

Output should be something like this:

DeviceExample.ino
A simple demonstration of TinyGPS++ with an attached GPS module
Testing TinyGPS++ library v. 0.92
by Mikal Hart

Location: -27.427371,153.028945 Date/Time: 9/10/2017 06:04:21.40
Location: -27.427371,153.028945 Date/Time: 9/10/2017 06:04:21.40
LocatiaonfTGS+wh atahdSmlesiTiGS+bay .2b a at
ain Da/ie/ ai .Da/Te 1tion: -27.427371,153.028945 Date/Time: 9/10/2017 06:04:21.60
Location: -27.427371,153.028945 Date/Time: 9/10/2017 06:04:21.60
LocaS+bay .2b a at
ain Da/ie/ ai .Da/Te 1tion: -.aeTm1.
ti:.atTm:7cation: -27.427370,153.028945 Date/Time: 9/10/2017 06:04:21.80
Location: -27.427370,153.028945 Date/Time: 9/10/2017 06:04:21.80
Location: -27.427370,153.028945 Date/Time: 9/10/2017 06:04:22.00
Location: -27.427370,153.028945 Date/Time: 9/10/2017 06:04:22.00
Location: -27.427370,153.028945 Date/Time: 9/10/2017 06:04:22.20
Location: -27.427370,153.028945 Date/Time: 9/10/2017 06:04:22.20
Location: -27.427370,153.028945 Date/Time: 9/10/2017 06:04:22.40
Locat/Te:/ an:3aTi: /1ain.atTm:7atn 3Dtie 1.cto.3teim 1.
ti: .aTim1aton: -27.427370,153.028945 Date/Time: 9/10/2017 06:04:22.40
Location: -27.427368,153.028945 Date/Time: 9/10/2017 06:04:22.60
Location: -27.427368,153.028945 Datn 3Dtie 1.cto.3teim 1.


One final thing to note is that the blue light will start to flash once the GPS has a lock. You’ll need a pretty open space, mine didn’t work inside but got a lock within 60 seconds outside.

Let me know if you have any questions or links to better doco!