PA1010D GPS Breakout

by Pimoroni

Let your project know its place in the world with this tiny but ultra-sensitive global positioning breakout!

This I2C breakout houses a PA1010D GPS receiver module with inbuilt ceramic antenna, which will let you extract date and time, latitude, longitude, speed and altitude data from satellites. We've supplemented this with a supercapacitor, which acts like a short term backup battery for your GPS data, enabling the module to lock back onto signals much more quickly after a power down. There's also an indicator LED, which will flash whenever the module has a satellite fix.

You could hook one of these up to a weather station or other measuring device to give your data really accurate time, date and location stamps - or go a step further and team it with one of our display breakouts to build your own modular GPS navigation system or treasure hunting device. (Please don't rely on this breakout as your sole navigation device at sea or in the wilderness!)

You can attach it to your Pi's GPIO directly or via a breadboard with the included headers, but it's also compatible with our fancy solderless Breakout Garden, which makes it easy to use several different breakouts at the same time.

Like solar panels, rocket ships and humans, these GPS modules work best when they have an uninterrupted view of the sky. If it's taking a long time to get a satellite fix, try taking it outside or pointing the antenna upwards or towards a window.

Features

  • PA1010D GPS / GLONASS / GALILEO* receiver module with inbuilt ceramic antenna (datasheet)
    • Supports up to 210 PRN channels with 99 search channels and 33 simultaneous tracking channels
    • Ultra-high sensitivity: -165dBm
    • High accuracy 1-PPS timing support (±20ns jitter)
  • Super capacitor, which saves satellite locations and status in the event of a power down. It also lets the GPS module run its internal clock, with about 1 hour of 'battery capacity'.
  • Green LED indicator, connected to the PPS output of the GPS module. It's possible to disable the LED (or change the PPS output behaviour) with software.
  • 2x M2.5 mounting holes
  • I2C interface, with a default address of 0x10
  • 3V to 5V compatible
  • Reverse polarity protection
  • Raspberry Pi-compatible pinout (pins 1, 3, 5, 7, 9)
  • Compatible with Raspberry Pi computers.
  • Compatible with Arduino.
  • Compatible with CircuitPython.
  • Python library
  • Schematic

Kit includes

  • PA1010D GPS Breakout
  • 1x5 straight male header
  • 1x5 right angle female header

We've designed this breakout board so that you can solder on the piece of right angle female header and pop it straight onto the bottom left 5 pins on your Raspberry Pi's GPIO header (pins 1, 3, 5, 7, 9).

Software

We've put together a Python library to extract all that juicy GPS data with a minimum of fuss, together with an example that shows you how to format the data so it's easily readable.

It's also possible to use this breakout with Arduino using Adafruit's GPS library, or with CircuitPython.

Notes

  • It's not possible to connect an external antenna to this breakout.
  • It's not possible to change the default I2C address.
  • * To detect GALILEO satellites, you may need to update the shipping firmware on the GPS module to the most recent version. This process involves soldering wires to the TX and RX pads on the back of the breakout and using a manufacturer provided flash tool (available for Windows and as Linux source code). Drop support a message if you'd like us to send you the files.
  • Dimensions: approx 28x21x9mm (LxWxH)