we have been using the SparkFun GPS-RTK-SMA Breakout ZED-F9P for some time now (currently still as a prototype for one of our products) and are currently planning to develop a motherboard on which the Sparkfun board can be mounted for easier handling.
Put a couple of header options on your motherboard, chose what to fit/populate.
Edit: Apparently Mouser doesn’t like deep-linking to facilitate sale of product. Is there some short-cut / link / affiliate method anyone is aware of for them?
Thank you for your reply, yes I am aware that there are still some available from other suppliers. I am more concerned with ensuring long-term availability. The stocks are slowly running out. A statement from Sparkfunk would be helpful as to whether the boards are still in active production.
We’re temporarily out of stock as we staff up production. We will be carrying the ZED breakout boards for as long as u-blox can provide the ZED (which currently has no EOL) and people wish to purchase the board.
As the ZED variant is cheaper to make than the stacked NEO, I’d expect the ZED’s in various forms to exist LONG TERM. There’s enough space to accommodate a migration to newer technologies in the foot-print. And several other vendors also now use that LGA pattern for their GNSS.
As indicated before, you don’t need to paint yourself into a corner here either. It’s easy enough to add different pin foot prints to a cheap PCB fab, russian doll fashion, or a simpler headerized connector to facilitate power and uart(s) from any manner of receiver options. If you need IMU / Dead Reckoning, also ZED-F9R options.
If vendor lock-in is a concern, use something that more immovable, like a RPi or Arduino header configuration. The RPi header is also used for NVIDIA JETSON
General rule of thumb, don’t cause unnecessary dependence on singular third-parties. Their goals and priorities, are NOT your goals and priorities.
Thank you for your detailed answer. We are indeed also trying to produce independently of manufacturers (it just doesn’t always work out the way we want it to )
In any case, thanks for the tips. I will take them to heart.
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