Adafruit GPS with Spark core

Continuing the discussion from GPS module for SparkCore:

Hi, was wondering it you had tried the adafruit gps with the spark core. I'm facing compiling errors with the adafruit lib, hoping to you could help me.

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@kcinimod, I have used TTL UART GPS receiver for one of my sample project. This one is working correctly and real-time updates too. The one you mentioned above uses HardwareSerial or NewSoftSerial library, If you convert the library to Spark Core it should work. Otherwise you can use TinyGPS, I converted it to Spark Core and is working correctly, it is available as Library also.

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@krvarma, could the same lib be used for the MTK3339 ? I forked your example and somehow the big LED on spark core did’nt light up anymore.

@kcinimod, it should work with MTK3339 also since the library only parsing NMEA string. The big LED not light up means you are not able to connect to cloud?. If the core is blinking cyan, can you check you are able to see real-time location update? You can check it by opening spark_location.html file, you have to replace the devieid and accesstoken tokens with ydevice id and access token.

@kcinimod not sure if I can help or not because I used the Adafruit library without changes, but maybe if you posted whatever your compilation errors were they may mean something to someone here.

hi @Dave and guys!

I also have the adafruit Ultimate GPS module, do you have any further info on how it should be connected with the spark core? I would love to test it out and get gps signal for the spark baby core :smiley:

Kind regards,
Noten

Heya @noten,

Nice! Here’s how I had mine wired, just power, ground, and tx/rx

Good luck! :slight_smile:

Thanks,
David

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hey Dave!

Wow, this is super easy! :smiley:

Which code did you use? Do we have a ported library for spark or something like that?

r,
Noten

Heya @Noten,

I did a really basic port, nothing fancy… it’s here:

Enjoy!

Thanks,
David

hey Dave!

Thank you! I added the .h file from the Arduino library, and the .cpp from you file, do you have an ino file around for the spark web IDE? Tried Adafruit’s example files, but don’t really know which one would suit for this setup (RX/TX).

Any help would be cool, thank you all so far!

Noten

Heya @Noten,

Scroll all the way down in the gist I linked, all three files should be there. :slight_smile:

Thanks,
David

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hey @Dave!

Thank you very much!

Tried with that as well, but unfortunately the web IDE generates a bunch of errors. Do you have any idea what could possibly go wrong? I can’t “decode” these error messages :frowning:

http://pastebin.com/cdNAbKnh

Kind regards,
Noten

Heya @Noten,

Looks like the Network local ip call changed on me, I updated my gist so just pull in the new app.ino from the same link :slight_smile:

Thanks,
David

Hey, thanks for providing the Adafruit_GPS and sample sketch.

I got it compiling on my end, but I can’t seem to get a GPS fix and it just returns 0.0,-0.0 coordinates.

One thing I noticed on your breadboard was that you have SparkCore (RX) -> GPS (TX) and SparkCore (TX) -> GPS (RX). Is this correct?

I’ll try when I’m in a better area to see whether I get coordinates back.

Hi @gotnull,

That sounds correct, generally the tx / rx connections should be swapped with Tx1 -> Rx2, and Rx1->Tx2, etc.

Thanks,
David