Middlesex County, Ontario | TexasPecans - 3/20/2023 09:54
So using a Microsoft surface would be ideal as it has a USB 3.0 port, they arnt that much anyways.
I have a Surface. It has a nice bright screen, but it's not exactly rugged. It would be fine forever in a clean-ish cab but definitely not fine for an open cab. Some people buy rugged tablets like what is in police vehicles, they are affordable when you buy a refurbished lease return online. If you want to go down the full AOG autosteer route then you might want to try to find something with an ethernet port. All the new autosteer boards use ethernet, but you can just use a USB-ethernet adapter dongle too, that works fine. USB 2.0 is fine too.
TexasPecans - 3/20/2023 09:54
Using the f9p ublox is it just plug and play or do I have to soldier wires to it?
The one I linked is totally plug and play, no soldering required. You can pay them to solder headers to the edges, but you don't need the headers for USB lightbar useage. If you are going to build an autosteer board someday then you will need to be able to solder basic things like headers to circuit boards, or find someone who can. Soldering things to a circuit board is outside of a lot of people's comfort range, but headers are are about the easiest thing to solder to a circuit board.
TexasPecans - 3/20/2023 09:54
The second antenna you sent (the black one) is it as good as the other one? I like it as it's lower profile and that would be way better for tree limbs for me (orchard setting). So far I have not noticed the trees effecting signal yet.
Its hard to say, and there arguments online about if the round one is actually better or not. Both are sufficient to steer a tractor on RTK. The more expensive one is probably better on WAAS, but not many people use WAAS. The black one does need to be mounted to a ground plane, a flat metal surface, at least a 6" circle. There is this one too, not many people use it but those that do say it is better around trees: https://www.ardusimple.com/product/helical-antenna/ I'm not an antenna expert, if you post on the AgOpenGPS discourse and mention that its an orchard environment you'll get some better opinions. Some people mount the black one under the plastic shell of the roof, no way to snag anything then!
TexasPecans - 3/20/2023 09:54
So once set up with those bits all I would have to add to have auto steer is a WAS and a steering motor? Or would I also need a angle sensor IMU?
The big tractor installs are a way to measure the wheel steer angle (WAS) and a way to steer the tractor (motor or valve). To tie everything together you'll want to build a PCB (printed circuit board). Onto the PCB you'll plug in some different modules like an IMU, motor driver, micro controller. There are multiple free PCB designs that you can order fully assembled from a Chinese PCB manufacturer. The AIO (all in one) board is the latest design. The PCB designs are mostly designed to fit inside a nice aluminium box, or some people 3d print a box. https://discourse.agopengps.com/uploads/default/original/2X/8/86477b...
With a single GPS system you'll want to use an IMU. Some people build systems with dual GPS receivers (one on each side of the tractor mounted as far apart as possible), you don't need an IMU then. Dual works better at very low speeds than single does.
TexasPecans - 3/20/2023 09:54
On another note, I have a wheelman and it has what appears to be 4 wires going to wheel motor. Two large wires and 2 small wires. I need to bust out the multi meter but I think the steering motor used just 2 wires and the other 2 smaller wires are power wires for the "dashboard" (which is like a wifi module and buttons and such) so it would be interesting to see if I could utilize that motor one day.
That would be interesting to explore. A Trimble EZ steer's plug just has power wires and encoder wires (that aren't required by AOG). You can definitely just use a Trimble EZ steer motor, maybe you can use the Wheelman in the same way. That makes installation to the tractor a lot simpler. Fabbing up brackets for motors and WAS can take a lot of time.
TexasPecans - 3/20/2023 09:54
Also yes there is a rtk2go station near me in Austin Texas. And I would figure as a strait line is about 100 to 110km from me. So from what I have gathered is 7mm + 1mm per KM or for me about 117mm +/- accuracy. Or about 4.5 inches. Which for my operation isn't too shabby and I guess would be better than waas.
Being that far away from the base isn't likely to work very well or at all. That far away you might not even be picking up the same satellites. You'll want to be within 20 km of a base. You can use another of the same F9P board/antenna connected to a windows computer or Raspberry Pi connected to the internet as a base station.
TexasPecans - 3/20/2023 09:54
Also wondering, since I am in the tree business. Would putting a metal "cage" around a gps antenna effect the signal much? Just something to keep a limb from breaking or knocking it off the cab roof.
Putting a metal cage around the antenna would have a big effect on the GPS signal, would probably totally kill the signal. Some people mount the antenna under the plastic roof shell or mirror shell where it is totally out of the way, that probably has some effect on signal too but it seems to work.
This is the other F9P board that the AgOpenGPS community has latched onto, its been out for a year or so: https://www.ardusimple.com/product/simplertk2b-micro/ Its the same chip with a much smaller footprint, but it doesn't have a USB port so if you wanted to use it for a light bar you are going to need some more hardware.
Right now today there are up to date autosteer board designs released for both the larger F9P and the smaller F9P. There are also some older designs for the larger F9P. Future development of autosteer boards will likely favour the smaller one more so than the large one.
Edited by WildBuckwheat 3/20/2023 12:13
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Gps antenna for tablet
