I recently added two RAK12500 GPS module to my RAK19700 base boards. I knew the battery drain was going to be substantial going into it, but I didn’t expect it to take things down from ~30 days of runtime to just 7 days…but I can work with that by wiring in a defeat switch to power the module, so that’s not why I’m writing today.
Performance though, is not great. It takes a good ~5 minutes, under wide-open clear sky, (yes my receiver is the right way up), to get a lock…sometimes. Other times, it’ll spin for hours…overnight even, and never get a lock.
Often I can “force” a lock by rebooting the thing over and over again…it’s to where if it wont grab lock in a few minutes, I know it’s never going to and the best option is to reboot, wait 3-5 minutes…if no lock, reboot again…
Even once it obtains a lock, it’s really inconsistent. Sitting completely motionless, outdoors, with a clear sky picture, and 6+ satellites tracked, I can watch my pin-point on the map “dance” around every time the GPS updates. I’m talking a radius of about 100 meters with a similar change in altitude between any two readings. I do have High Precision enabled for the channel, so that’s not the problem.
All in all, I feel really disappointed by the RAK12500, but I"d be happy to find out I’ve done something wrong in the configuration or set.
FWIW, I’ve tried the 12500 on both ports A and D with equal results on each.
I’ll admit there maybe more going on here than I’m aware and if you folks have had different experiences with the 12500, let me know…but I’ve got the exact same behavior on two independent units now.
Current Firmware: 2.3.8.d490a33
Similar experience on:
Thanks!
Pol