So today @PotatoFarmer came in to my work and really got me thinking on getting RTK into my existing raven(smarttrax) auto steer. I’m very green with this so don’t know all the knowledge and lingo. Just looking for insight, what i need, how to do it, where to buy and so forth. I understand that if I put in a base station then I will be able to run RTK free of charge? Farthest field away from where I would install base station is about 20Km’s away. Thanks and I’m excited to get this up and running.
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Hahahaha, that was quick.
By reading the AOG forum for roughly 5 to 200hrs, you will learn a pile of all the cool stuff you can do with RTK when it is affordable.
It will be free to cheap depending on how you send your corrections, there are many ways with benefits and drawbacks. Cellular is the easiest, but can cost $600/year for a static sim, or packaged in with your home internet using a free caster service like emlid provides, or the esp32 caster project outlined in this forum. One base can send corrections to multiple rovers simultaneously.
20km baseline is not a challenge for dual band rtk, tried 50km baseline without issue though diluted to around 2" accuracy.
You are in luck with your smarttrax as it will accept generic NMEA, here are a couple of links describing the how to of how the conversion is done.
The F9P variant rover or base units you can choose from that would work with your sprayer currently, and AOG in future because it is really that good, are;
Ardusimple F9P
Sparkfun F9P
Emlid M2 / RS2
All of these units are based of the Ublox F9P chip they all can send corrections to one another, they all have no additional unlocks, but the Emlid m2 has an added benefit of sending corrections to unlocked trimbles as well.
Hopefully you will poke around this forum, considering you have a mechanical background building the full AOG system has some major cost savings and is a fun project.
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When you are talking unlocked trimbles are you talking the 150 and 250 you have been referencing in other threads? Or Trimble monitors that have had the rtk purchase unlock? Been doing lots of research, the emlid reach m2 has my attention. Just got to keep Doing research on everything or all the components I need to make this work.
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150 and 250 cannot do RTK without an external receiver like a 372 sending position data.
The 150 will accept NMEA from anything for steering, Its 20 years old but the guidance works if given good data.
The 250 requires position by TSIP to steer, that is trimbles data protocol. So no easy conversion.
The 372 receiver unlocked to RTK can get corrections from an M2.
For feeding NMEA to a raven, two m2 would be easiest. They have built in wifi capability, to use your phone or homes connection.
If you use AOG then you can easily use ardusimple or sparkfun because the windows tablet with AGio handles relaying the corrections to the f9p. AgOpenGPS accepts any NMEA input.
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