Problem connecting to sensors using SoftwareSerial

Other Hardware Sensors
1

Hello everybody,

I am trying to make my arduino board take a picture with a JPEG camera (https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10061) with gps info linked to it (20 Channel LS20126 GPS Receiver - GPS-09838 - SparkFun Electronics), and eventually save it on an SD card, which i haven't bought yet. All this i'm doing on a lilypad arduino board (LilyPad Arduino 328 Main Board - DEV-13342 - SparkFun Electronics), not because it should be sewn into fabric, but because the round shape of the board is fitting for the project.

I connected the RX and TX from the GPS sensor to pin 5 and 6, and the enable pin to 7, and use the following code: Arduino program GPS - Pastebin.com . my power supply is 3.3 V, I was told that any higher would ruin the lilypad board.

the problem is, i cannot get any kind of communication to the sensor, if i do a check using gpsserial.available(), it won't go out of the loop. However, setting pin 7 (enable pin) to high does make the GPS LED burn.

The program runs with the following output gives the following output:

     -1
     lat: 999999999 long: 999999999

I have a similar setup with the JPEG Camera, where the SoftwareSerial.available() would also never go true, what did I do wrong/ can I do to fix this?

Many thanks,

Hihaatje

2

How did you connect it to the Arduino? The linked datasheet doesn't contain pinouts for the sold product. Where do you know from that it's driven by 3V3?

void loop()
{
   
    int c = gpsSerial.read();
    Serial.println(c);
    if(gps.encode(c)){
      Serial.println(c);
     }
    gps.get_position(&lat,&lon, &fix_age);
    Serial.print("Lat: "); Serial.print(lat); Serial.print(" Long: "); Serial.println(lon);
    blink(5);
 
}

After reading 1 (one) character you try to decode the GPS position?
And then you print it using lot's of characters to a serial interface only 4 times as fast as your GPS. Within no time the buffer of the gps serial object overflows and you loose characters.

3

I found the datasheet on the sparkfun page to be lacking indeed, but one for the LS20026(Dropbox - Error) was better, and they said this sensor is pin to pin compatible.

As for the code, how would you suggest i go about getting the info? im quite new to serial communication.

4

As for the code, how would you suggest i go about getting the info?

You didn't provide a link to the GPS library you use. I don't like to guess which one you might have downloaded. Is Long/Lat the only information you're looking for?