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Ok - been playing with a few toys, the latest being the ArduPilot

I haven't found a decent walk-through for this device yet, so here's what I've worked out... standard disclaimers apply.
My environment is Ubuntu 9.04 running on an Acer Aspire 5580 with 3GB ram, 120GB HD and an Intel core2 T5500.

So far I've got:

• ArduPilot v2 (Red) board. Back has an apparent build date of "1-12-09"
• EM-406A GPS
• a FTDI cable
• the power switched over from Servo (ESC) to the pin connector
• Installed the latest Arduino IDE
• Installed the latest ArduPilot code

After connecting my GPS it never seemed to lock on to any satellites - that meant a debugging exercise.

First - write any code and get it to D/L to the board. I used the Arduino Blink tutorial as a starting point and came up with this:

void setup() {
// initialize the digital pin as an output:
pinMode(4, OUTPUT);
pinMode(12, OUTPUT);
pinMode(13, OUTPUT);
}
void loop()
{
digitalWrite(4, HIGH); // set the LED on
delay(250); // wait for 0.25 of a second
digitalWrite(4, LOW); // set the LED off
digitalWrite(12, HIGH); // set the LED on
delay(250); // wait for 0.25 of a second
digitalWrite(12, LOW); // set the LED off
digitalWrite(13, HIGH); // set the LED on
delay(250); // wait for 0.25 of a second
digitalWrite(13, LOW); // set the LED off
}