ZoneMikel's Blog

After battling with these modules for a few days (after burning up my first pair) I have finally gotten them to work. There is very little info out there on how they actually work so I’ll try and sum it all up here, I hope it helps someone.

GP-GC010
Cy2196R_chn
Cy2196R Datasheet (translated to english, thanks google)

What Model do I have ?

The boards i bought on ebay were supposed to be “GP-GC010″ and they give a link to the pdf for that model. However, after much headache I realized on the board itself is printed Cy2196R. The Cy2196R model is a little bit different than what they have for that “GP-GC010″ module. The funny thing is the “GP-GC010″ is not mentioned anywhere in the forums on the sure electronics website except to buy it but, the Cy2196R is mentioned several times. I dont know if they just thought the Cy2196R got a bad rap and renamed it so no one would know its the GP-GC010 or what but its really confusing. The datasheet for the GP-GC010 is crap and the datasheet for the Cy2196R is non existent in English. If you want the datasheet for the Cy2196R do a search for it in google then have google translate the Chinese pdf to English.

This was my main problem, I was reading the datasheet they provided instead of the real datasheet for my device. Its funny if you look at the datasheet for the GP-GC010 it even has a diagram interfacing with a cy2196TR. Why they changed the name IDK but I would not even bother with the GP-GC010 datasheet, just go straight to the Cy2196R datasheet. Unless your board does not say Cy2196R (or TR) on it.

Ok so how do i connect it ?

The main difference in the two datasheets is that with the GP-GC010 there is a “reserved pin” and a busy pin, and in the Cy2196R datasheet those same pins are CTS and RTS. Which in case you dont know are “Clear to send” and “Ready to send”. So basically the RTS is a output and CTS is input. The unit gets data till its 64byte buffer is full then it trips the RTS line, from this point it will wait for the CTS line to become active and then it will send the data. So if you dont hook these up right it never sends the data. The easiest way is just put the CTS pin to ground, this means its always clear for the transmitter to send. These lines are very useful for handshaking and trying to avoid collisions. For example if your currently receiveing data you could hold the CTS line because you dont want to transmit to a transmitter who may be transmitting data to you, thats if you plan on doing syncronous mode. I need to get my telecom book out and start thinking about all that.

Anyway here is the real pinout for the Cy2196R

pin1 – Vcc
*I would use about 4v here, their webpage says 2.2-5.4, GP-GC010 datsheet says 2.4-4.2v, Cy2196R datasheet says 3.4-5.4v
The data is very inconsistent, to be safe just always use between 3.5 and 4v

pin2 – ground

pin3 – RX this is whats being sent through the air, so this connects to whatever is transmitting at that unit (mcu tx pin) INPUT

pin4 – TX this is whats coming in through the air (mcu rx pin) OUTPUT

pin 5 – Enable (low for on, high for standby mode) to make it work just put it to ground INPUT

pin 6 – RTS (this gets low when the unit is ready to send) OUTPUT

pin 7 – CTS (when this goes low the unit is allowed to send) INPUT

pin 8 – FQ Set( this is for setting the channel, to set channel make it ground for the unit to run put it high) INPUT

the configuration i had working was just like in the diagram

Except i had pin 8 high, and i had no max202 the rx and tx pins went to my mcu. Thats all for now I gtg, I havent even connected it to anything to see if the data is coming through ok i just know the data is coming through (eg im getting output on the receiver when i transmit).

Update

Well after getting them to transmit I connected one to the pic and the other to a max232 signal level converter that is connected to the serial port. I had the pic transmit data to the computer basically. I did not use any pull up/down resistors in any of the tx/rx lines on the pic or the computer side. I got it to transmit from at least 100ft away, through walls and everything. The performance of these devices is great once you get them to work, since they are running at 19200 baud or 19.2k baud and the distance achievable is great. When I went about 100ft away and on the other side of my neighbors house i would start to get some garbage and the data seemed to come in bursts. But that was just using basic uart rs232 8n1, I plan on implementing packets of 64bytes with crc so errors will be ignored. I want to use 64 bytes because that is the buffer size of the modules.

I might look into setting the frequency (the channel) but thats kind of out of my scope for now.

MSI GPS Receiver

I dont have built in gps in my HTC 8525, so I ordered this to connect with my phone. On ebay it cost me about $50 with shipping.

It has proven to be very versatile. It connects to the satellites quickly and works in the car. I have had it in places where my cell does not even work and it works, granted not in 3d but it worked in 2d.

About the mini usb port

Unless you have a bluetooth on your computer there is no connectivity.  The mini usb port is for charging, but it also transmits the GPS information through uart via the usb port. So if you want to connect this GPS module to a microchip it works great.

Pins one and four are power and ground respectively. Pins 2 and 3 are rx and tx @ uart levels. It transmits at 38,400 baud on the mini usb , which is much faster than the 4,800 baud via bluetooth.

I for one would rather have it this way, I can just get a $5 bluetooth for the computer if i want to communicate via bluetooth. This uart communication hidden in the mini usb allows for much more versatility and customization.You can connect it to a MCU, or you can connect it to a MAX232 converter and then to the serial port. I should also add it is easy to develop your own applications to process the gps data.

NMEA

The protocol that GPS devices use is called NMEA, it looks like this
$GPGGA,023530.379,2917.1882,N,09448.0603,W,0,00,,47.5,M,-23.9,M,,0000*72
$GPGSA,A,1,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,*1E
$GPGSV,3,1,10,14,54,009,,31,65,209,,22,57,100,,30,28,092,*7C
$GPGSV,3,2,10,18,24,117,24,05,20,065,,11,14,305,,12,12,055,*70
$GPGSV,3,3,10,32,12,312,,19,00,254,*71
$GPRMC,023530.379,V,2917.1882,N,09448.0603,W,,,190109,,,N*64

This information tells you all about your location, the time, your speed and the satellites you have connected to. I’m not going to explain it all here, but here is a pdf explaining NMEA. nmea0183

Conclustion

While this device was a little pricey, it proved to be a great addition to my electronics. It works great with programs like IGO to make sure I never get lost.