 | RE:GPS units on epods, how does it work? (modified 0 times) | zhensel | |
1) just head to wallmart/compusa/whatever and find the cheapest gps that outputs in NMEA format to a serial cable. It will probably have either a power adapter or a battery slot (preferably both.) They make some really cheap ones to attach to laptops and the like. $100 bucks is probably a rough estimate. I have a Lowrance Airmap 100 that is made for personal navigation (intended for use in aeronautics judging from the graphics they use on the screen.) It is really overkill for this application - it has an external antenna you can plug-in, a backlit screen of decent size, heavy-duty rubberized buttons. Really all you need is a little box that gets the sat. info and passes it up the serial port to the epods. The cheapest is probably the best in this case. Also, they might make one that draws power from the serial port which would probably be a big plus (it won't draw much power, so it isn't a big deal.) Most GPS receivers can run on a variety of power levels, but check the documentation. You might wonder why I said Wallmart above - they sell a fine selection of "fish-finder" GPS receivers for low, low, prices that could probably do your job.
2) Map size depends on the application. I have Pharos GPS up and running, but don't have access to the maps, so who knows. I'd imagine it can vary quite widely depending on the program. You could have a program that uses massive bitmaps coupled with some sort of pixel-based location finding or you could have a vector-based map format that would have much smaller file sizes. Either way, they'll still be reasonably large (especially for somewhere like NYC), and 32MB flash cards are pretty cheap given their prevelance in the whole flash-based mp3 player market. I'm sure you'll appreciate the extra memory at some point. I doubt the map itself would be bigger than 16megs (though there's a definite chance.) If you want to put any other programs on your epods like books, games, spreadsheet apps, etc, you definitely would regret not having gone for the 32meg card. | |
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