Building your own GNSS receiver (Part List)
In this blog post I am listing the parts that I have been using to build a high-precision GNSS receiver.
Over the past couple of weeks and months I have been evaluating and building a somewhat affordable high precision GNSS solution to achieve centimeter-level accuracy in order to track the collection of plants in my garden. I am not going much deeper into the functional aspects of the project. For that please refer to my recent presentation slides from SpringOne 2020. But I will provide a list of parts that I used to build the project.
Almost all items were ordered via Amazon or Ardusimple.
As there are no usable NTRIP servers here for in Hawaii, I have to use a Base Station + Rover (Field device) setup. I started out with the Ardusimple simpleRTK2B - Starter Kit LR, which is a good way to get started (The also come pre-configured) but I ultimately upgraded my antennas for the Survey GNSS Multiband antennas as they can be more easily mounted on the surveyor pole and standard tripods. So here is my current setup:
Base Station
Thread adapter for Survey antenna (For mounting on tripod)
Ultra compact (flat) USB power bank (E.g. 5000mAh is sufficient)
Rover (Field device)
Ultra compact (flat) USB power bank (E.g. 5000mAh is sufficient)
Pelican 1060 Micro Case (The Pelican 1020 would be sufficient)
Ultra compact (flat) USB power bank (E.g. 5000mAh is sufficient)
As I am using the Ardusimple Shield for second XBee Socket with a first generation simpleRTK2B, I need to provide power to both boards and therefore the use of the Micro USB Cable Y Splitter.
With the latest versions of the simpleRTK2B board, this is not needed. Also, if you wire the Bluetooth module manually without using the shield, you only need power once, also. That is of course a slightly less clean design. Some wiring instruction are available in another blog post of mine.
