Got my Amatron3 working on a £200 Garmin GPS

[NeepClatter]

Not sure if anyone interested but I bought a Amazone Profis Hydro spreader that came with an Amatron 3 control box, I took a punt and bought an off the shelf (Amazon for £200) GPS Garmin receiver which seems extremely accurate (20 to 30cm?) using SBAS for DGPS which is good enough gor spreading, cultivating etc and can take advantage of the spreader auto on/off function and area worked etc. now it’s got a GPS source.Not sure what others are using but this is a cheap and simple solution.

 

[Hampton]

Not sure if anyone interested but I bought a Amazone Profis Hydro spreader that came with an Amatron 3 control box, I took a punt and bought an off the shelf (Amazon for £200) GPS Garmin receiver which seems extremely accurate (20 to 30cm?) using SBAS for DGPS which is good enough gor spreading, cultivating etc and can take advantage of the spreader auto on/off function and area worked etc. now it’s got a GPS source.Not sure what others are using but this is a cheap and simple solution.

Alternatively, you could have bought a Trimble box and bought the spreader without the amatron 3 box.

 

[NeepClatter]

Spreader was used at £5000 and came with the Amatron3 box, so add the £200 for the Garmin GPS, I got myself auto on/off at headlands, auto boundary section control, area worked etc. I just thought I’d post as I’m not sure how many people are aware that the new cheap & cheerful GPS receivers are gathering and forwarding corrected signals to the control boxes. In days got by the only “corrected” signals those boxes accepted was base station/ntrip corrections which cost money, SBAS is free and recognised by the control box .

 

[Chae1]

Alternatively, you could have bought a Trimble box and bought the spreader without the amatron 3 box.

How much would the trimble box and receiver cost?

 

[NeepClatter]

I’m guessing it ain’t £200

 

[Hampton]

But the amatron box is £3k more than buying the spinner without it

 

[Hampton]

Ok, just read your second post, you bought spinner secondhand so already had box.
You did it cheaper way.
If you had bought new then you would have been better off doing it my way

 

[NeepClatter]

My posts was aimed at folks with non ISOBUS equipped tractors and no RRK subscriptions who like me are trying to get into precision farming using our shytey old equipment.

 

[Hampton]

Understood

 

[pjamesmk1]

Not sure if anyone interested but I bought a Amazone Profis Hydro spreader that came with an Amatron 3 control box, I took a punt and bought an off the shelf (Amazon for £200) GPS Garmin receiver which seems extremely accurate (20 to 30cm?) using SBAS for DGPS which is good enough gor spreading, cultivating etc and can take advantage of the spreader auto on/off function and area worked etc. now it’s got a GPS source.Not sure what others are using but this is a cheap and simple solution.

I like the sound of that, Have you got a model number for the receiver?

 

[NeepClatter]

I like the sound of that, Have you got a model number for the receiver?

Garmin GPS 24xd | Marine Antenna

Explore coastal waters with the GPS 24xd NMEA 2000® position receiver and antenna

www.garmin.com

Be careful to order the correct one, they come in 2 flavours, you want the HVS NMEA 0183 model and NOT the NMEA 2000

 

[pjamesmk1]

Garmin GPS 24xd | Marine Antenna

Explore coastal waters with the GPS 24xd NMEA 2000® position receiver and antenna

www.garmin.com

Be careful to order the correct one, they come in 2 flavours, you want the HVS NMEA 0183 model and NOT the NMEA 2000

Thanks how easy is it to install?

 

[NeepClatter]

Pretty easy,

Thanks how easy is it to install?

Pretty easy, i drilled a 20mm hole in the front of the cab roof in the overhang stuck the cable up thru it and attached it to the receiver and let gravity take care of it. ran the cable behind the cab roof worklight and cable tied it down the right door handrail at the door post, under the cab and I fortunately had a hole in the floor under the rubber mat where the loader cables come into the cab so i used that, routed under the mat over to the front right side of cab where i mounted the amatron3 box.

you'll use 4 of the wires coming from the receiver, they are black & red for battery + & - power and grey for the GPS NMEA 0183 positioning signals that goes on pin 2 of the DB9 connector on the GPS port on the amatrons box, and the orange that goes on pin 5. There is a slight issue with the DB9 connector going into the Amatron 3 , they only left enough space to get a premade cable and not the "wire it yourself DB9 box" its too fat to fit into the slot on the amatron box port connectors so basically you buy a premade cable, plug it into the amatron GPS port and connect the other end into that db9 connector that you've wired up coming from the receiver with pins 2 & 5 connect somewhere further down the cable (under the floor mat)??.

You'll need the following

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B09LXQW2YK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.co.uk/StarTech-com-Black-Straight-Through-Serial/dp/B00A6GIUNC/ref=sr_1_4?crid=3MMGLTTFA97XV&keywords=db9+male+to+female+cable&qid=1645477317&sprefix=db9+male+to+female+cable%2Caps%2C300&sr=8-4

and whatever you need to connect the red and black wires from the receiver to the battery, remember you will run your battery down if you don't put a switch in line to cut power to the receiver, or you could supply it with a source from the fuse box that works of the ignition.

Hope that helps

 

[aidan]

Garmin GPS 24xd | Marine Antenna

Explore coastal waters with the GPS 24xd NMEA 2000® position receiver and antenna

www.garmin.com

Be careful to order the correct one, they come in 2 flavours, you want the HVS NMEA 0183 model and NOT the NMEA 2000

Thanks how easy is it to install?

how are you getting on with the 30cm accuracy

tempted to try it with agopengps

 

[NeepClatter]

how are you getting on with the 30cm accuracy

tempted to try it with agopengps

Ran into a bit of a roadblock GPS was working fine on Amatron 3 then I upgraded the Amatron3 firmware from 1.01 to 1.09 and now the box isn’t recognizing the GPS, i think it’s looking for a baud rate of 19200 only now with the upgrade, where as before it was accepting 38400. I can’t get GPS to output at 19200.

 

[Northern farmer]

Ran into a bit of a roadblock GPS was working fine on Amatron 3 then I upgraded the Amatron3 firmware from 1.01 to 1.09 and now the box isn’t recognizing the GPS, i think it’s looking for a baud rate of 19200 only now with the upgrade, where as before it was accepting 38400. I can’t get GPS to output at 19200.

You could have used an Ardusimple SimpleRTK2B receiver and configure what ever is needed for the serial interface (and would have an RTK ready GNSS receiver). Odd if your current one cannot be programmed for 19200. Have you tried standard serial port commands?

A simple microcontroller like a Raspberry Pi could read your GPS receiver at 38400 and output at 19200 at another serial port connected to the Amatron screen. Don't know if there exists any commercial "serial port speed converter".

 

[Bob]

Ran into a bit of a roadblock GPS was working fine on Amatron 3 then I upgraded the Amatron3 firmware from 1.01 to 1.09 and now the box isn’t recognizing the GPS, i think it’s looking for a baud rate of 19200 only now with the upgrade, where as before it was accepting 38400. I can’t get GPS to output at 19200.

Have you got this working again. Considering purchasing the kit if it works?

 

[NeepClatter]

Have you got this working again. Considering purchasing the kit if it works?

Got it all working, the accuracy is spot on. The reason the box stop recognizing the gps was I bought a short serial cable to make it look a neater install, it was a cheap Chinese cable of Amazon that wasn’t properly terminated so lost connection. Ditched the cable and it all works fine as installed & described above.

 

[NeepClatter]

Edit to add, the baud rate thing was an non issue, assigned 38400 in the amatron which is what the Garmin outputs at so all worked well