dictum9

I have a dead 60CSx. The power button completely disintegrated. I took it apart and found the 2GB MicroSD card. Can I take it out and insert it into the Montana 650t without causing any damage. I have lots of waypoints saved that I don't want to loose.

Feels like you are holding a shoebox vs a matchbox. After the initial shock wears off, you notice the screen is much bigger, the resolution is better. Most of the problems with the 60 series have been addressed: The pathetically tiny screen and poor resolution. Dual battery system is a good idea, although given the size, I would have expected a 3000 to 4000 mAh Li-Ion cell, not a 2000 mAh one. I got a solid 12 hour runtime on Li-Ion and a little more on Sanyo Eneloops NiMH cells. No runtime test on Lithiums or alkalines but expect to get more. Given the size, I would expect 4xAA capacity for better runtime. I think with a new Li-Ion cell and no backlight, you can probably get 17 hours out of it as an estimate. In the 70-80% range, the backlit screen is very impressive. Montana screen is nice but you pay a price for it, you cannot get 24 hour runtime like on 60CSX. You get used to the size. It's durable and it's how smart phones should be built. My 60CSX wore out the power button after about 4 years. Will see how this one holds up. The biggest annoyance with Montana is apparently you cannot switch with one click between maps and waypoints. If in the map section, you have to quit out of it, and then select waypoints. In 60CSX, you could mark a waypoint with one click. I realize you can define the power button, i.e. double tap equals to some fuction but I am worried about overloading it and wearing it out, as I wore out the power button on 60CSX. So you can use the power button shortcut sometimes but I would be concerned about using it on a daily basis. Another annoyance is that track color cannot vary between day/night modes. You have to pick one color fits all. If you pick red/black/dark blue, it's very visible in the day map, but poorly in the night navy blue colored background. If you pick orange/green/yellow for the night mode, it's highly visible there but doesn't work well at all in the day mode. So for optimum visibility, you have to change the track color as it switches between modes, or always stay in particular mode. The pointer size is huge. Any way to shrink it? All the other choices are ridiculous. The camera application is not visible at all in the "Recreation" profile. Weird. It's just gone. Any way to make it available in the Recreation profile mode? The 100K map that came with it was horribly inaccurate. Way off. 24K topo is much more accurate, I only saw it wrong once or twice and even then marginally. Running on stock 3.60 software. All in all, a huge step in the right direction and a very impressive device.

I want to try these new cells. I usually use Eneloops (and before them, Maha Powerex 2700 mAh) and found out that 1.2V do not power all AA devices, in other words, it's not a straight swap. My remote controls for example refused to work with Eneloops. So if these new cells work everywhere, that's a huge advantage.

Tried a few springs from ball point pens, nothing works. Borrowed one from another power supply, it kind of works, but goes on/off constantly. What a POS. Will have to get another one.

I lost the little spring that was inside the car power supply for the Garmin 60CSx. The fuse I replaced but it's making poor contact without the spring. I tried to improvise and borrowed springs from several pens to no avail, the contact is intermittent, constantly cycling shore power/battery with that annoying beep. Any idea what that spring is and where can I get it or what I can use to duplicate it?

http://www.gpscity.com/ram-mount-gpsmap-60...tion-mount.html Looks like this package has all I need? The base plus the cradle for 60CSx.

About 2 years ago... Unable to turn on/off, have to hit it about 50 times to do so. Finally stopped turning on/off completely. Got a replacement from Garmin, works well for 2 years thus far. They obviously had a bad supplier of switches.

FWIW, I have a voltmeter but have no way to check the voltage under load, which is the only meaningful way. I have some CR123A cells and they are dead but still measure pretty high without any load. In many devices I use, I switched from NiMH chemistry to Li-Ion 18650 cell, the same stuff in laptop battery cells. I think they are more flexible than NiMH. Of course, when you standardize on AA, they are not an option. Garmin 60CSx will run happily on any AA chemistry: Alkaline, Lithium, NiMH, Carbon Zinc even... Obviously the runtime would differ greatly. I haven't seen any issues at all with AA Eneloops.

Eneloops are 2000 mAh and Maha or Sanyo are 2700 mAh. You only begin to see advantages of Eneloops if you store your cells for 90 days. They make sense in rarely used devices. You get low self-discharge. Otherwise, use higher capacity NIMH cells. I think I want to get some Sanyo cells this time, they are supposedly just as good as Maha. One thing I heard is that low-capacity cells such as Eneloops at 2,000 mAh get a higher number of recharge cycles than high-capacity cells. Not sure if it's true, but my 1 year old Eneloops work just fine and hold full charge. Whereas my 2.5 year old Maha Powerex cells are completely dead and won't power up anything but the dimmest LED lights. They certainly don't power up Garmin 60CSx which doesn't have a lot of drain to begin with. And if it does power it up somehow, it soon cuts off. In a mission critical situation, I would take L91s for sure... i.e. Lithiums. Pretty much everything else doesn't work in really cold weather, except for 3.7V Li-Ion cells which won't work in this device anyway.

AA Lithiums (L91) are great for cold weather and long term storage, with 20 year shelf life. Alkalines are great for every day backup,... cost effective. I used Maha Powerex for about 2-3 years but they cells are worn out and no longer hold a charge, not even power up the device. So I moved them to really low drain devices like flashlites. I currently use Eneloop AA cells...

I would assume they look better on the higher-resolution Colorado vs. 60CSx? Only reason I haven't gotten the Colorado yet is because I couldn't get 24K maps for it. Getting the higher resolution device seems pointless without higher - resolution maps.

.............

At this point I am just waiting for Garmin to release a DVD for the East coast. Looks like they are slowly working from the WEst coast to the East coast, some southern states have been added recently.

Looks real good, thank you.

what is this then? http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/maps/view/202/ It does not specifically state that it's 24K or mention any resolution. If you look at other maps, some of them explicitly say they are 24K, in the absense of that statement, I have to assume it's not.

As of now, nobody has 24K of some East coast states, specifically Maryland, which is rather amazing.

RAM mounts looks just like what I am looking for. I want to get one for 60CSx. It appears they have one for Colorado as well.

How do you mount inside a car, on the dashboard?

When you say "OEM mount" do you mean the Garmin mount that's designed for your unit? Yes, that one. It's total junk. All plastic which cracked at the point where the screws tighten to prevent rotation up/down. Lasted about a year which is all you can expect from disposable overseas products. https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=1007 Automotive windshield mounting bracket with suction cup mount Part Number: 010-10457-00

Nope, nothing for maryland in 24K. And what's there is not even clear what resolution it has.

Would it look any different from Garmin maps?

My OEM car mount broke, is there a better alternative for 60CSX?

I am waiting for them to become available for the East coast...

TOPO U.S. 24K I am surprised they released DVDs with SouthEast like Arkansas and such but no east coast? I think these maps should look really sharp on Colorado. When they come out, I will upgrade my 60CSx to Colorado.

Without backlight, the display seems to be dimmer on Colorado but the added resolution and detail is worth it.