Tinkerlog

Two weeks ago I posted about how to interface an AVR microcontroller to a Telit GM862. You can read it here: Interfacing an AVR controller to a GPS Mobile Phone.
That post got listed on Hack-A-Day, Engadet and Makezine among many others! w00t! Thanks for posting and reading it, I really appreciate it.

This post will show you, how to use this equipement to send an SMS with your current position and how to display it in Google Maps.

(more…)

I had some problems with the avrdude 5.3.1. It complains about reading the fuses properly.

Verify error - unable to read lfuse properly. Programmer may not be
reliable.

A workaround is to use the -u switch to override this check. As the new version with this bug fixed is not available for windows, I tried to compile it myself. I used MinGW and MSYS and it worked, at least for me. I can now even omit the -F switch, which I had to use before, as the device signature was not read properly. If you want to try it, here you go.

Download: avrdude 5.4 windows

Please note, that this comes without any warranty and is not completly tested or verified.

Update: Part II Using Google Maps with a Mobile GPS Tracker is online.

My goal is to build a kind of a mobile tracker. There are many different use cases you can think of but one of the obvious is a device, that is able to report where it is. This device can be put in your car and it could trigger an alarm, if the car got stolen. Actually it could tell you where it is.

There are already mobile tracking devices out there, but they seemed to be too expensive and too closed for my needs. Another option is one of these new Nokia N95 which have built-in GPS. They are really nice, but about 600€, which is not a bargain. So I decided to do my own.

(more…)