T-Echo repair

[Phil Plane]

Hi All,

I have two T-Echo devices. One given to me because it didn't work very well and the owner got frustrated with it. I had a look at it and the only problem I found was the GPS took a long time to get a valid signal, and needed a good look at the sky. I tried an external antenna, and just on the bench inside a house with a tin roof, as soon as I plugged in the antenna it got signal. So I drilled a hole, mounted a ufl to SMA pigtail and attached a antenna. Works great. Gets GPS in seconds after powerup.

Now I'm looking at my other T-Echo, which I used until replacing it with a T-Beam, and remembering how long it took to get GPS signal. Time to order some more pigtails and try the same thing again.

The difference was immediate and dramatic. Good antennas for the win.

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Phil Plane

[Moshe Braner]

The GPS in the T-Echo usually works amazingly well, but of course if the internal antenna goes bad, it can't. 

Which model external GPS antenna did you attach?

[Phil Plane]

The pigtail was from a LilyGo LORA32 board that died. The antenna was from my junk collection, probably from a nav computer at least a decade old. The sort with a 3 meter cable and a plastic cover wrapping the antenna. I have since replaced that with a ceramic patch antenna that has a short lead. Both worked very well. The ceramic patch antenna came from AliExpress and only cost a few dollars.

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[Moshe Braner]

I've had good luck with cheap 25x25mm ceramic antennas with built-in preamp.  But bad luck with the tiny U/FL connector on the boards, those rarely last more than 2 or 3 insertions.  Best results on a T-Beam were with an add-on GPS module of the "VK2828" type that has the 25x25mm antenna integrated with a Ublox Neo7 module with a TTL serial interface, completely bypassing the on-board Neo6 module.  See my documentation for instructions on how to connect it.  But that is on a T-Beam not a T-Echo.  Good to know you can at least add a better GPS antenna to the T-Echo.