GPS logger

2 Articles

TickTag, a tiny GPS logger with 3d printed case, LiPo battery and a 1 Euro coin for size reference

Tiny GPS Logger For The Internet Of Animals

September 18, 2022 by 35 Comments

[Trichl] has created a tiny GPS logger, called ‘TickTag’, designed as an inexpensive location tracking option for animal studies. The low cost, tiny form factor, and large power density of the LiPo battery give it the ability to track large populations of small animals, including dogs and bats.

The TickTag is capable of getting 10,000 GPS fixes from its 30 mAh cell. Each unit is equipped with an L70B-M39 GPS module controlled by an Atmel ATtiny1626 microcontroller and sports a tiny AXE610124 10-pin connection header for programming and communication. GPS data is stored on a 128 kB EEPROM chip with each GPS location fix using 25 bits for latitude, 26 bits for longitude, and 29 bits for a timestamp. Add it all up and you get 10 bytes per GPS data point (25+26+29=80), giving the 10k GPS fix upper bound.

To record higher quality data and extend battery life, the TickTag can be programmed to record GPS location data using variable frequency intervals or when geofencing bounds have been crossed.

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A Simple Runner’s GPS Logger

November 23, 2014 by 13 Comments

[Daniel] received a grant from the University of Minnesota’s ECE Envision Fund and was thus responsible for creating something. He built a runner’s GPS logger, complete with a screen that will show a runner the current distance travelled, the time taken to travel that distance, and nothing else. No start/stop, no pause, nothing. Think of it as a stripped-down GPS logger, a perfect example of a minimum viable product, and a great introduction to getting maps onto a screen with an ARM micro.

The build consists of an LPC1178 ARM Cortex M3 microcontroller, a display, GPS unit, and a battery with not much else stuffed into the CNC milled case. The maps come from OpenStreetMap and are stored on a microSD card. Most of the files are available on GitHub, and the files for the case design will be uploaded shortly.

The CNC machine [Daniel] used to create the enclosure is a work of art unto itself. We featured it last year, and it’s good enough to do PCBs with 10 mil traces. Excellent work, although with that ability, we’re wondering why the PCB for the Runner’s GPS is OSH Park purple.