Dexter dGPS - Information Please!

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Greetings!

About a year ago, I bought a Dexter dGPS module, intending to fit it to Charlie. Unfortunately, it appears to have been designed to plug into the Mindstorms NXT ecosystem.

Here it is:

Dexter dGPS-2
Dexter dGPS-23264×2448 1.57 MB

Dexter dGPS-4
Dexter dGPS-43264×2448 1.64 MB

Dexter dGPS-3
Dexter dGPS-33264×2448 1.18 MB

  1. The dGPS, according to its descriptions, is supposed to come with a “firmware file” and perhaps other software. It didn’t. Caveat: The module I have looks nothing like the modules illustrated in the instructions - it appears to be a “next generation” module and perhaps the updates and such are automatically included.

  2. I was able to find some pinouts for the offset connector on a few sites:

NXT Pinout

NXT Pinout-2

Spec sheets were conspicuously absent.

  1. I was able to deduce the pinout for the RJ connector by comparing it to the listed pinouts.

RJ Connector Pinout
RJ Connector Pinout1171×502 153 KB

Note the presence of a set of six through-holes on 0.100 centers that could be used for a header. With the exception of the GND and +5v pins, none of the RJ connector’s pins are connected to any of the through-holes. I have absolutely no idea what they do, though some of them go directly to the ATMEL MEGA chip directly above them. They could be serial I/O, GPIO pins, or a JTAG-like programming connector.

  1. I have found two sites that have information on the dGPS, but it really doesn’t go into much detail about what the command set for the device, or how to read/write to it.

Viz.:

There is a Dexter Industries GitHub page that contains little else than NXT/Mindstorms scripts for various sensors.

============================================

This is everything I have discovered so far.

If anyone has any additional information, particulary spec-sheets, pinouts for the header through-holes, as well as programmng/usage instructions, they’d be gratefully appreciated.

One additional question:

In Bloxter, the “serial” port appears to be dedicated to a “GPS” module of some sort - as that’s the only choice listed there. I would be interested in knowing what the expected GPS module is as there are a number of different serial GPS modules on the market.

Thanks for any assistance you can provide.

P.S.
Includng @cleoqc and @mitch.kremm in the thread.

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