today i wanna show you how i embedded a GPS Chip on my LAL5 and howto configure it in Betaflight 4.1
I will try to discribe it as briefly as possible. This tutorial should work for 90% of the quads and flightcontrollers on the market. I hope you gonna learn smth. today ;)
Thats simple! For Longrange FPV pilots its a really handy feature to have Long - Lat. and an arrow pointing to your home direction. Also you get your current speed and many more! You get all this info displayed in your OSD - FPV Headset.
Also you can use the "Return to Home" Failsafe function which is probalby the best feature. If you flying longrange its a must have!
Here is a small list what you gonna need:
I usually start with a drawing on my Ipad. I take a screenshot / photo of my FC and GPS chip and draw the correct wiring on a sheet. I don´t wanna risk to destroy the chip right on first initial so safety first!
After getting clear the cable situation you can start soldering the correct cables to the connectors.
5V -> 5V
GND -> GND
RX -> TX4 (UART4)
TX -> RX4 (UART4)
Make sure to get them as clean as possible, dont use to much solder iron!
Now its connected and we can give power to the chip. Be advised that some FC need a battery in order to activate 5V. Sometimes its also working with just a USB Cable, it depends on your FC...
IMPORTANT: RX goes to TX and TX to RX on the FC!
The first setup will need about 5-10mins to initialize the GPS Location. I suggest to turn of the VTX and everything in else in order to prevent overheating of your drone while waiting for a GPS Fix.
With telemetry enabled you can also use the log file to generate a 3D flightpath in google earth. Thats also handy if you cant find your drone in the wild, but wanna see the latest position, curve on failsafe. With this its alot easier to locate the drone!
The settings in Betaflight are also very simple. Turn on GPS with the correct Model under Settings (usually UBLOX with AUTO Baud rate)
Make sure to give it some time at first startup to find the GPS location. It should be quicker on the next runs. You can also remove the VTX for that process to prevent any overheating of your components.
Happy Flying!
