DIY serial rs232 Holux GM-210 GPS connector.

Here's the story. The cheapest GPS reciever I could find was the Holux GM-210 unit. It's a great unit since it supports both RS232 communication as well as TTL. This makes the unit very suitable for application with microcontrollers. Unfortunately the GPS reciever requires a seperate supply voltage, and has an irritating mini-DIN connector. Of course you can buy a special cable to wire up the GPS unit with a computer. This cable has a regular D-SUB 9 pins serial connector to fit into your PC, and it draws power from your PS2 port. This cable costed almost the same as the GPS reciever, and buying an off-the-shelf cable is just not my style. I therefore decided to make a breakout-board from the mini-DIN to a proper D-SUB 9-pins RS232 connector, in order to make some perliminary tests with the GPS reciever connected to my computer, before starting interfacing with the GPS reciever through a microcontroller. Power is supplied directly from the breakout-board with a 9v battery. Here's what I came up with: click to enlarge... With this board you're able to the GPS unit with both commercially available and your own homemade software. If you consider playing around with a GPS reciever, I can definatly recommend you to buy the Holux GM-210. It's very robuste, and has no problem getting a satelite fix even in tough conditions. To help you save some money, or maybe to ease you in your work with interfacing this GPS unit with a microcontroller, I'm happy to be able to share my eagle schematic and board with you. click to enlarge... Well... That's all for now. I hope you will find my work usefull. October, 2007. Written by David