| | |  | Accessories - GPS | Home » » » » Garmin 18x LVC GPS Navigator Unit | | | | | | | Description: | | GARMIN 010-00321-36 GPS 18x LVC. The GPS 18x is a GPS sensor targeted to OEM clients for use in automotive, fleet vehicle, and electronics applications where a small, highly accurate GPS receiver is needed. This 12 parallel channel, WAAS enabled GPS receiver is available in either CMOS level serial or USB 2.0 full speed versions, and comes with an integrated magnetic base. The puck like receiver is 2.4 inches in diameter and weighs just ounces, making it an ideal solution in applications where space is at a premium. The GPS 18x is offered in three different cable configurations: A style USB, DB 9 pin serial with 12 volt cigarette lighter adapter /PC, or bare wire /LVC. The PC and LVC versions both default to output data in the industry standard NMEA 0183 data format, but may also be user programmed to output data in the GARMIN proprietary format. The USB version produces data only in the GARMIN proprietary format. All three versions of the GPS 18 come complete with non volatile memory for storage of configuration information, a real time clock, and raw measurement output data for sophisticated customer applications. The LVC version additionally provides a pulse per second logic level output whose rising edge is aligned to the UTC second within 1 microsecond. The USB 2.0 full speed version of the GPS18 is also compatible with USB 1.1 full speed hosts. | | | Features: | |
• High Sensitivity LVC Sensor with Bare Wire Connection
• WAAS Enabled High Sensitivity GPS Receiver
• Comes w/A Connector End that Can Attach to a CMOS for OEM Applications
• Non Volatile Memory for Storage of Configuration Information
• Raw Measurement Output Data for Sophisticated Customer Applications
| | | Product Details: | | | Product Length:
| 4.0 inches | | Product Width:
| 2.0 inches | | Product Height:
| 4.0 inches | | Product Weight:
| 0.26 pounds | | Package Length:
| 6.0 inches | | Package Width:
| 6.0 inches | | Package Height:
| 3.0 inches | | Package Weight:
| 0.55 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 6 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
 ( 6 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 found the following review helpful:
Excellent PPS time sourceApr 02, 2010
By Brian SwanSword
"Prophet of God"
The Garmin 18x LVC is a bare lead OEM GPS unit with a measurement pulse output aligned to the Universal Coordinated Time (UTC) second, within a maximum error of 1.0 microsecond (1.0 millionth of a second) Only the LVC variety outputs the measurement pulse (Pulse Per Second) signal. As a retail item this unit is primarily used for very accurate timekeeping. One could theoretically use it for navigation, but with bare leads you need to solder a connector on the unit, and there are other 18x models, not the LVC, that have connectors from the factory.
But the 18x models with connectors DO NOT output the precision measurement pulse, so they are useless as reference clocks. You may wonder why anyone would need a clock accurate to within 1.0 microsecond. The clocks inside computers are notoriously inaccurate, sometimes up to an hour off per day. So, the Internet is peppered with reference clocks. People interested in time keeping will place a reference clock server online, and thousands of Desktop PCs also connected to the Internet can poll these servers to accurately set their clocks. The reference clocks need to be accurate, because of dispersion in distribution (i.e it takes a small bit of time for the client PCs to receive the time from the time server. Having microsecond accurate time servers insures no client will ever drift past 1/2 second from UTC.
It's all automated. The user doesn't do anything. It just happens. So that is what this particular unit is for, from a retail perspective. There is a web page, [...] , explaining in very simple terms how to make a time server. Soldering skills are required for individuals to make use this unit. The 18x USB, not the 18x LVC, is handy for navigation via a laptop.
6 of 6 found the following review helpful:
Excellent for time keepingJun 22, 2010
By Fiat Lux
This unit is fine for experimenters who can manage a little soldering and a little software, too. You can provide it with 5 volt power and simply use the 1pps output, or you can also connect it to a serial I/O port (default 4800 bps) or a USB-to-serial converter.
I use it with my Ubuntu 10.04 Linux system for ntp timekeeping and for GPS position measurement using xgps and other software. See [...] and [...] for more information.
The 1 usec timing precision is nice, but with common PCs and operating systems, your software timing is subject to millisecond or greater fluctuations. The GPS clock does assure good long-term stability, however, independent of Internet connections.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Great for timekeeping, highly sensitive receiverJan 14, 2012
By Pete S.
I purchased the GPS 18x LVC for NTP timekeeping purposes due to its highly-accurate 1-pulse-per-second output. This output is not available on the other GPS 18x models. For those interested only in navigation and not precision timekeeping, the GPS 18x USB model is probably the best option.
As the LVC model is a "barewire" model meant for OEM integration, it requires a little bit of soldering to get setup the way one wants. I opted to connect the GPS to a small circuit board that supplies power to the GPS, has a fuse, and has indicator LEDs to show the state of the GPS: one LED shows that power is applied, with another LED shows when the PPS signal is transmitted. The circuit board has a DB-9 serial connection to the computer. Other people I know have connected the PPS and data wires directly to a DB-9 serial port and the power/ground wires to a male USB-A plug without any LEDs. Either way works fine -- the GPS draws about 60mA by itself (mine draws 75mA with the LEDs) and so can be powered easily off of a USB port (which can supply 100mA without the device needing to ask for more power).
It's difficult to rate the GPS unit itself as it's so simple and there's not a whole lot of features: supply it with power, let it see the sky, and it starts outputting data. It managed to find an initial lock and output PPS signals within about 3 minutes of when I turned it on for the first time. Since then, it's able to reestablish a lock within about 5 seconds after being powered down and turned back on again. For testing purposes, I have it inside my apartment on top of a box placed next to my northeast-facing window and it is able to see between 5 and 9 satellites depending on the time of day. While no GPS receiver is meant to operate indoors due to the very weak strength of the GPS signals, the 18x is quite sensitive and gets quite reasonable signal indoors.
The receiver is WAAS/EGNOS-enabled for improved precision (~3m vs. 10-15m). As the window in my computer room is on the northeast side of my apartment, the receiver cannot see the WAAS/EGNOS satellites in the southern sky.
For those interested in setting up this GPS receiver for either navigation or timekeeping, the GPS 18x technical specification document, available from Garmin at [...] is of invaluable help, as well as the Garmin configuration software SNSRXCFG (Windows only, but supposedly works under WINE for Linux) which is available at the "Software" link at[...] . The out-of-the-box configuration for the GPS 18x was quite good, and I only changed a few settings with SNSRXCFG to reflect my specific needs (e.g. increasing the PPS duration from 100ms to 200ms, turning off the PPS signal if GPS lock was lost so that I don't inadvertently use bad timing information, etc.).
Once I constructed the circuit board and soldered all the necessary components (about an hour or so), I simply followed the directions at [...] (specifically setting the "low_latency" flag with setserial, installing and configuring gpsd, and configuring NTP), and I had everything working in about 15 minutes. The GPSd software makes interfacing the GPS 18x with the computer trivial. After connecting the GPS to the computer and letting NTP run and stabilize for a few hours, ntpq -p reported that the clock had an offset of 0.000 +- 0.003ms. That is, the clock was syncronized to the correct time with an uncertainty of three microseconds. That's excellent, and about a thousand times better than using only internet timeservers.
In short: this GPS receiver is well-suited for precision timekeeping, and is quite inexpensive. A person with basic soldering skills can fabricate the necessary connector with little trouble. The configuration software from Garmin makes it very easy to change any settings on the device itself, and the device is compatible with GPSd and NTP. If you're interested in GPS timekeeping, this is almost certainly the best option.
Update Jan 28, 2012: This unit only supports the L1 C/A GPS signal and WAAS/EGNOS-compatible augmentation systems. It does not support the new L2C or L5 signals, nor does it support Galileo or GLONASS. The modernized L1C signal transmitted by new GPS satellites will also support the existing L1 C/A signal, so existing receivers like this device will continue to work.
3 of 4 found the following review helpful:
Works greatOct 19, 2009
By T. Shearer
This unit performs well, no trouble getting a signal indoors.
It quit working after 13 months.
UPDATE: failure found due to broken wire, not GPS unit. Unit is still functional.
2 of 3 found the following review helpful:
Great Boat GPSJul 28, 2010
By Grady Morgan
This little GPS is great. It plugs straight into my existing NMEA systems. It is extremely accurate, gets a fix within seconds of turning on, and has a great update rate.
I upgraded to this from a 2 year old garmin hand-held. The tracks on the hand-held only had points once every 20 seconds (verses this units once per second), and often had times with large errors. This unit makes very smooth, accurate tracks. It gets great signal, even being mounted in the lazarette under a layer of fiberglass.
See all 6 customer reviews on Amazon.com
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