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Explorist Bug/enhancement List Firmware-5.2.03


D0T-C0M

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My Explorist 500, which I NEVER had any operation probs other then the clickstick, has been terrible since upgrading. Wacky split screens, lock ups and random shut downs. Battery time has gone down DRASTICALLY too a point that it is now very annoying. One of the reasons I did not like the rechargeable battery in the Explorist to begin with. Glad I won it -I'd be smoking mad if I'd paid for it.

 

I will say that some days we've been out in some fairly cold weather(I know this can effect battery charge). Today it was just in the 30's though and the thing kept shutting down all day.

 

I still LOVE my old original Meridian. Three plus years old and out all day today with it and NO NO NO problems in the cold(while the 6 month old Explorist flaked out all day). Last week in and out in 10degrees F all day and NO probs with the oldtimer Meridian. The Meridian is worth EVERY penny paid for it.

 

I'd hope Thales/Magellan follows these threads. I see comments in other threads about how these reported problems have strongly inluenced their possible and existing customers buying decisions.

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My Explorist 500, which I NEVER had any operation probs other then the clickstick, has been terrible since upgrading. Wacky split screens, lock ups and random shut downs. Battery time has gone down DRASTICALLY too a point that it is now very annoying. One of the reasons I did not like the rechargeable battery in the Explorist to begin with. Glad I won it -I'd be smoking mad if I'd paid for it.

 

I will say that some days we've been out in some fairly cold weather(I know this can effect battery charge). Today it was just in the 30's though and the thing kept shutting down all day.

 

I still LOVE my old original Meridian. Three plus years old and out all day today with it and NO NO NO problems in the cold(while the 6 month old Explorist flaked out all day). Last week in and out in 10degrees F all day and NO probs with the oldtimer Meridian. The Meridian is worth EVERY penny paid for it.

 

I'd hope Thales/Magellan follows these threads. I see comments in other threads about how these reported problems have strongly inluenced their possible and existing customers buying decisions.

 

I really loved the Meridian Platinum, and it was the best Magellan I ever had, but the problem of why I sold it, was the problem of file management on the GPS, and I had to convert each track on the memory card to active track, before I could upload it to the PC, but it was a good GPS.

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It's a relief to see that someone else has noticed a significant degrading of the available battery usage time since the firmware upgrade. Is there anyone else that has seen this phenomena?

Hmmm...never thought about correllating that to the firmware upgrade. I have been surprised at how low my battery indicator has been a few times lately. I had a half-full indication this past weekend heading out, and in the past, that would've been enough for an entire day of caching. However, after just an hour and a half, I was wondering if it would even last for a full 3 hours!

 

I'll have to keep a closer eye on that, TrailBuzzards...

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It's a relief to see that someone else has noticed a significant degrading of the available battery usage time since the firmware upgrade. Is there anyone else that has seen this phenomena?

When I first got my 500 (about a year ago) I did rundown tests that included a time of 16 hours 8 minutes with the backlight at lowest setting. I just repeated that test and got a rundown of 13 hours 55 minutes.

 

I don't know if that's something due to the firmware upgrade (I have 2.03), the age of the battery, or both. My test was on the desktop. When I was hiking at 25 degrees a week or two ago, the cold seemed to adversely affect the battery life...I didn't suffer a shutdown, but being out for only a two hour hike had me running pretty low at the end despite starting with a 2/3 charge by the indicator.

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I did a test today on my eX600. It's pretty new I only charged it about 3 or 4 times. It lasted about 11 hours with compass off, light at the lowest setting and stand still for 90% of the test. Pretty desapointing when you see that Magellan states it should last 17 hours. I sent them a complaint tonight.

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My battery last just under 6 hours today after sitting on charge all night and showing full charge when turned on this AM. 6 hours til DEAD just SUCKS! Temps were in mid 30's which I hardly consider cold. I received this GPS new in August so the battery should not be dying already in my opinion. I HATE RECHARGEABLE DEVICES WITH PROPRIETARY BATTERIES!

 

Never would have bought it just because of the battery. Give me my AA rechargeables any day. Our Meridian lasted all day and was still working fine. Yes, I know the Meridian is not color, etc, etc. At least the batterys are much easier to swap in the Meridian also. That cover screw on the Explorists is a real pain.

 

I'd be happy to offer this unit up to Thales/Magellan for analysis as long as they send me a loaner unit in advance to use in the meantime Let me know Magellan. Also happy to do some real world testing any time you ask as I use my GPS often.

 

Oh yeah, I HATE RECHARGEABLE-ONLY DEVICES.

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I contacted Magellan Support relative to the poor battery performance and asked them about battery life. I was informed that it was good for 400 charges. Since it is always charging when we go out on our caching trips and at home while doing file transfers, it could be that our battery is reaching end of life. :ph34r::o;);)

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My battery last just under 6 hours today after sitting on charge all night and showing full charge when turned on this AM. 6 hours til DEAD just SUCKS! Temps were in mid 30's which I hardly consider cold. I received this GPS new in August so the battery should not be dying already in my opinion. I HATE RECHARGEABLE DEVICES WITH PROPRIETARY BATTERIES!

Question: what was the backlight setting/activity in that time frame? If it was on full the whole time, I wouldn't be surprised at the operating span in that temp (you might not consider it cold, but your battery may have a different opinion). Under ideal conditions, I only got 7 1/2 hours out of my battery when it was new if the backlight was on high.

 

If the backlight was off for most of that time, I'd agree that it was quite, quite sucky.

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Hi,

 

Found a FAT BUG in the 5.2.03 firmware. Don't know if it existed in the previous one.

Because I bought myself a new big 1 Gb SD card, I moved all my POI's and Track Logs, that were in operational memory, to the similar maps on the SD card. (Of course, I initially formatted the new SD card in the Magellan eXplorist 600 first!)

To be sure, I backup'd 'the files to move' to my Notebook first. HOW FORTUNATE!

After the file MOVE, completely done WITHIN the x600 and without any visible problem, I found ALL the moved files on SD card, in the correct maps, BUT EMPTY! Each file ended up in ZERO bytes!

 

edited/added: I did it file after file, about 6 POI's and 6 Tracklogs. It looks like it is not possible for a group of files.

 

After restoring all the files, from the backup on the Notebook to the maps on the SD card, I finally arrived where I wanted to be. Copying from Notebook to SD card by USB connection, works flawlessly.

 

BTW, before all this, I created a track logfile from today's Geocaching trip, directly to tracklog map on the SD card. That worked flawlessly.

 

DOT-COM, please add this BUG to the 5.2.03 BUG list.

 

Please, could you, ALL READERS, try to reproduce this BUG and share your findings over here?

 

Best regards,

Rudolf.

Edited by Barjon
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Hi,

 

Found a FAT BUG in the 5.2.03 firmware. Don't know if it existed in the previous one.

Because I bought myself a new big 1 Gb SD card, I moved all my POI's and Track Logs, that were in operational memory, to the similar maps on the SD card. (Of course, I initially formatted the new SD card in the Magellan eXplorist 600 first!)

To be sure, I backup'd 'the files to move' to my Notebook first. HOW FORTUNATE!

After the file MOVE, completely done WITHIN the x600 and without any visible problem, I found ALL the moved files on SD card, in the correct maps, BUT EMPTY! Each file ended up in ZERO bytes!

After restoring all the files, from the backup on the Notebook to the maps on the SD card, I finally arrived where I wanted to be. Copying from Notebook to SD card by USB connection, works flawlessly.

 

BTW, before all this, I created a track logfile from today's Geocaching trip, directly to tracklog map on the SD card. That worked flawlessly.

 

DOT-COM, please add this BUG to the 5.2.03 BUG list.

 

Please, could you, ALL READERS, try to reproduce this BUG and share your findings over here?

 

Best regards,

Rudolf.

 

I moved one track log and a POI over to my 64MB SD card without any problems. I loaded 'em up too to make sure they were valid. I don't have that many loaded to try more.

 

Scott

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My battery last just under 6 hours today after sitting on charge all night and showing full charge when turned on this AM. 6 hours til DEAD just SUCKS! Temps were in mid 30's which I hardly consider cold. I received this GPS new in August so the battery should not be dying already in my opinion. I HATE RECHARGEABLE DEVICES WITH PROPRIETARY BATTERIES!

Question: what was the backlight setting/activity in that time frame? If it was on full the whole time, I wouldn't be surprised at the operating span in that temp (you might not consider it cold, but your battery may have a different opinion). Under ideal conditions, I only got 7 1/2 hours out of my battery when it was new if the backlight was on high.

 

If the backlight was off for most of that time, I'd agree that it was quite, quite sucky.

Thought I'd throw my experience out there; the more data the better. I have an eXplorist 400, so it's a different unit with different firmware and B&W display, but same battery. I started out this morning with a full charge, temperature was 16F. By the time I turned the unit off 7 hours later, the temperature was 41F. The battery meter showed half-full after 7 hours out in weather conditions similar to Maleki's. The manual lists a battery life of 14hrs with backlight on low. I had the backlight completely off the whole time. My 400 is fairly new, bought in October, so it hasn't gone through too many charge/discharge cycles. Can't say I noticed any change in battery life with the new firmware.
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Hi,

 

Found a FAT BUG in the 5.2.03 firmware. Don't know if it existed in the previous one.

Because I bought myself a new big 1 Gb SD card, I moved all my POI's and Track Logs, that were in operational memory, to the similar maps on the SD card. (Of course, I initially formatted the new SD card in the Magellan eXplorist 600 first!)

To be sure, I backup'd 'the files to move' to my Notebook first. HOW FORTUNATE!

After the file MOVE, completely done WITHIN the x600 and without any visible problem, I found ALL the moved files on SD card, in the correct maps, BUT EMPTY! Each file ended up in ZERO bytes!

After restoring all the files, from the backup on the Notebook to the maps on the SD card, I finally arrived where I wanted to be. Copying from Notebook to SD card by USB connection, works flawlessly.

 

BTW, before all this, I created a track logfile from today's Geocaching trip, directly to tracklog map on the SD card. That worked flawlessly.

 

DOT-COM, please add this BUG to the 5.2.03 BUG list.

 

Please, could you, ALL READERS, try to reproduce this BUG and share your findings over here?

 

Best regards,

Rudolf.

 

I moved one track log and a POI over to my 64MB SD card without any problems. I loaded 'em up too to make sure they were valid. I don't have that many loaded to try more.

 

Scott

 

This snowy Sunday morning I gave it another try and I must confess: I cannot reproduce it! It's not a (bad) dream, I'm sure I lost the content of all moved files. I must have performed a certain sequence, which I cannot reproduce at the moment.

When I do it now, in the most 'basic' way, nothing goes wrong.

Create a POI, save as, new POI, name TST, it's saved in memory: \Internal Memory\My POIs\TST.

Then: Menu, Pts of Interest, My Pts of Interest, Position, [up One Level], mark TST

Then: Menu, Move, Up One Level, Up One Level, SD Card, Move To Here, it's saved on SD Card: \SD Card\My POIs\TST.

It works flawlessly now.

 

I keep on trying to retrieve the way it went wrong...

DOT-COM, please, set this BUG report on hold.

 

Best regards,

Rudolf.

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Just adding another confirmed Cold Weather Reboot problem.

 

My brand new eXplorist 500 reboots repeatedly when exposed to ~40degF temps this weekend. I saw teh "Configure NAND" message as well as "No Maps in Memory" message. Very frustrating.

 

I opened antother thread here: http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=125541.

 

I contacted LLBean and they will provide a replacement via overnight delivery, no charge. Hopefully the new unit will function better outdoors.

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I was out over the weekend and was able to predict my eX500 failure before it happened purely on the fact that it was fairly cold and the geocache location took us up a hill into strong cold winds. Sure enough eX500 rebooted itself and got in a right state but thanks to assistance recieved from this thread, I was able to reformat the internal memory (Nav+Pwr then menu item 95) and then had to go home and re-install the base map.

 

The unit worked OK for a while and then failed again, this time the re-format seemed to coax the unit back to life and despite making references to not having a base map, the unit fired up eventually.

 

I am seriously considering deploying with a laptop so that I can perform open heart surgery in the field from now on - I will not be defeated by the eX500's inability to withstand the cold.

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I know this is mostly for the other eXplorist models, but I thought I would post a narley bug I found in my XL about a week after I had it. I had not realized I left the unit on with rechargable batteriers, so when I turned it on it said "power extreamly low, shutting down", but it locked up at that point. I pulled the batteries and put in fresh and it said "NAND corrupt, click ENTER to repair or ESC to cancel (either option caused unit to reset). So I did a XL reset of Goto-IN-power and it rebooted, but nothing was in the basemap on screen. If I tried to route with a direct route map, it would start to route and then say "checking media" and then reset.

 

So my week old unit is off to Magellan for reflashing...

 

So letting the batteries run all the way out, then turning unit on, bad on eXplorist XL with version 1.05 firmware. Sigh.

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Uh,

 

Two weeks ago I bought myself a 1 Gb Kingston 'Hi speed' SD card. (If I knew what I know now of any performance, I had bought a 'normal' one).

Since I use the 1Gb, after formatting it IN the eXplorist600, so now and then I get spontanious 'resets' and/or 'switching off', switching screens without manipulating the buttons and pc-interfacing problems like with the old firmware, i.e. during PC-communication: 'lost power' and eXplorist switching off.

My previous SD card was also a Kingston, a 'normal' 256 Mb one. No eXplorist problems then (after the FW update).

 

Bye,

Rudolf.

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Thought I'd add just a bit of positive news:

 

My replacement eXp500 worked wonderfully today. No glitches, no reboots. Yay! <_< My original unit's cold weather failure/reboots has not aappeared on this new unit. Thanks LLBean for the overnight, no questions asked replacement.

 

I was out for 4-5 hours today, battery displayed somewhere just under ~75% remaining. This is what I'd expect to see.

 

I need to get the bike mount. Spent a bit too much time walking to that last cache, but it was a nice day to be out in the woods :(

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Hiya,

Maybe not a bug, but a problem, but after doing the firmware upgrade on my explorist 600 as magellan describes, all i get now is an endless cycle of checking media reboots. I did as the web page says but no-joy, I have tried it several times now to no avail. Any ideas short of sending it back??

chip

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Hiya,

Maybe not a bug, but a problem, but after doing the firmware upgrade on my explorist 600 as magellan describes, all i get now is an endless cycle of checking media reboots. I did as the web page says but no-joy, I have tried it several times now to no avail. Any ideas short of sending it back??

chip

From the power-off state, try a hard reboot: simultaneously press GOTO + OUT + POWER.

 

If that doesn't help, then try instead (from power off) GOTO + IN + POWER (hold 10 sec).

 

Both of these are to clear memory and reset factory defaults; I think the second one is a bit heavier-duty.

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Hiya,

Maybe not a bug, but a problem, but after doing the firmware upgrade on my explorist 600 as magellan describes, all i get now is an endless cycle of checking media reboots. I did as the web page says but no-joy, I have tried it several times now to no avail. Any ideas short of sending it back??

chip

From the power-off state, try a hard reboot: simultaneously press GOTO + OUT + POWER.

 

If that doesn't help, then try instead (from power off) GOTO + IN + POWER (hold 10 sec).

 

Both of these are to clear memory and reset factory defaults; I think the second one is a bit heavier-duty.

 

Tried that earlier today, and again now, no luck. gonna leave the battery out all night to see what happens. Earlier this afternoon i had it out for 2+ ours and it stayed on almost getting sat lock for about 20 mins

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A couple more Explorist issues (Ex 500 user):

 

I too have seen battery life dwindle precipitously since the firmware upgrade - a fully charged battery goes to about 45% in less than 3 hours. I routinely got 13-15 hours before the upgrade.

 

I think this has been noted, but it's soooo far off, that I'll mention it here. I did a hike today where I reset the trip and deleted the historical track and track log. Upon completion of the hike, the trip odemeter read 2.7 miles. The vertical profile indicated that the total trek was 4.2 miles - this 4.2 miles jibed with another cacher with an Etrex - his was 4.2 as well. How in the world can the trip odometer be that far off?

 

Last item that I've noticed - every so often (happened twice yesterday on a long day of caching) after I turn off the GPSr and restart it later, the detail map I had been using is no longer selected, leaving me with only the basemap for use - of course, I could re-select it, but has anyone else seen this issue, and/or have a solution?

Edited by Dosido
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I think this has been noted, but it's soooo far off, that I'll mention it here. I did a hike today where I reset the trip and deleted the historical track and track log. Upon completion of the hike, the trip odemeter read 2.7 miles. The vertical profile indicated that the total trek was 4.2 miles - this 4.2 miles jibed with another cacher with an Etrex - his was 4.2 as well. How in the world can the trip odometer be that far off?

 

On my Magellan, the Trip Odometer becomes more accurate, the faster I travel, and most accurate, when I'm driving, but the way Magellan computes the Trip Odometer, it is just about useless when Hiking, and why is there no Trip Timer(elapsed timer), to help out with keeping hikes to a certain amout of time spent?

 

Magellan will have to change the way the Trip Odometer is computed for it to be of any value for hiking, and I think Garmin may be leaning a bit on the tracklog itself in the computing of the Trip Odometer, because they are always pretty close together in values.

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A couple more Explorist issues (Ex 500 user):

 

I too have seen battery life dwindle precipitously since the firmware upgrade - a fully charged battery goes to about 45% in less than 3 hours. I routinely got 13-15 hours before the upgrade.

 

I think this has been noted, but it's soooo far off, that I'll mention it here. I did a hike today where I reset the trip and deleted the historical track and track log. Upon completion of the hike, the trip odemeter read 2.7 miles. The vertical profile indicated that the total trek was 4.2 miles - this 4.2 miles jibed with another cacher with an Etrex - his was 4.2 as well. How in the world can the trip odometer be that far off?

 

Last item that I've noticed - every so often (happened twice yesterday on a long day of caching) after I turn off the GPSr and restart it later, the detail map I had been using is no longer selected, leaving me with only the basemap for use - of course, I could re-select it, but has anyone else seen this issue, and/or have a solution?

 

I'm not crazy then. Your battery is acting the same way!

 

I do not bother to look at the odometer any more because it really doesn't mean anything to us. We tend to go on long hikes we a lot of elevation changes, so we know the odometer reading will be wrong.

 

And lastly, I have seen what you are describing relative to the detail maps. At one time I think I was able to explain what happened, but I don't remember. This has happened more than three times that I remember. Do you think it has to do with the fact that we are using both Topo and DR? I do know that if I delete a geocache file [on the SD card] that is assigned as the default, it changes it to the memory based default file. I wonder if once in a while the unit doesn't see the detail map file and defaults it to NONE.

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A couple more Explorist issues (Ex 500 user):

 

I too have seen battery life dwindle precipitously since the firmware upgrade - a fully charged battery goes to about 45% in less than 3 hours. I routinely got 13-15 hours before the upgrade.

 

I think this has been noted, but it's soooo far off, that I'll mention it here. I did a hike today where I reset the trip and deleted the historical track and track log. Upon completion of the hike, the trip odemeter read 2.7 miles. The vertical profile indicated that the total trek was 4.2 miles - this 4.2 miles jibed with another cacher with an Etrex - his was 4.2 as well. How in the world can the trip odometer be that far off?

 

Last item that I've noticed - every so often (happened twice yesterday on a long day of caching) after I turn off the GPSr and restart it later, the detail map I had been using is no longer selected, leaving me with only the basemap for use - of course, I could re-select it, but has anyone else seen this issue, and/or have a solution?

 

 

I had that happen a few times, I had a small map of about 5 megs of Santa Barbara Ventura and a portion of LA county and then my larger chunks. On occassion when I turned the 500 back on it would be set to the small chunk instead of the usual So Cal/AZ map. I replaced my 256meg card with a 1 gig card and I redid my maps to include the small chunk into my socal/AZ map and haven't had that problem since.

 

On the Battery I have noticed that the meter seems to drop to about 50% in about 3 hours, but I still get over 14 hours of usage before I get the low battery warning.

Edited by vagabond
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On my Magellan, the Trip Odometer becomes more accurate, the faster I travel, and most accurate, when I'm driving, but the way Magellan computes the Trip Odometer, it is just about useless when Hiking, and why is there no Trip Timer(elapsed timer), to help out with keeping hikes to a certain amout of time spent?

 

Magellan will have to change the way the Trip Odometer is computed for it to be of any value for hiking, and I think Garmin may be leaning a bit on the tracklog itself in the computing of the Trip Odometer, because they are always pretty close together in values.

This matches with my experience. One thing I see on my 500 is that hitting menu/tracklog and then hilighting the active track will display the distance accumulated with the active track log. So at least that number is available on the GPS now. (Wish it was a field I could use to customize a screen)

 

I don't know if that was there in the first firmware; I only just noticed it.

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On the Battery I have noticed that the meter seems to drop to about 50% in about 3 hours, but I still get over 14 hours of usage before I get the low battery warning.

Hmmm...interesting - I had charged the unit fully, and then after we had been out awhile noticed that it was only about 1/3 on the battery meter - but I had not brought the charger with me, and was worried that I'd run out of battery so I turned it off for awhile - however, I didn't actually ever run the battery to zero - so it's possible that in this instance, the battery life is longer than the meter would indicate - Trail Buzzards - have you run yours to the point where it shuts off, or were you just estimating battery life via the meter?

 

I do not bother to look at the odometer any more because it really doesn't mean anything to us. We tend to go on long hikes we a lot of elevation changes, so we know the odometer reading will be wrong.

TB - does this mean that the odometer is actually only giving me information about my 2D trip, and not computing total distance covered on the ground?

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On the Battery I have noticed that the meter seems to drop to about 50% in about 3 hours, but I still get over 14 hours of usage before I get the low battery warning.

Hmmm...interesting - I had charged the unit fully, and then after we had been out awhile noticed that it was only about 1/3 on the battery meter - but I had not brought the charger with me, and was worried that I'd run out of battery so I turned it off for awhile - however, I didn't actually ever run the battery to zero - so it's possible that in this instance, the battery life is longer than the meter would indicate - Trail Buzzards - have you run yours to the point where it shuts off, or were you just estimating battery life via the meter?

 

What level wereyou running your backlight, I was running mine at medium and low.

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I've done the firmware upgrade to my eXplorist 500 and I'm seeing great battery life. Most of the time, I have the backlight on bright and I'm seeing 6-7 hours easily. In fact, I haven't run the battery all the way down yet. I love the use of the Lithium-Ion rechargeable battery instead of AA cells.

 

For those of you that deplore the use of the Lithium-Ion rechargeable battery in the eXplorists.......get an extra battery. I got one from this ebay store:

 

GSM Ebay Store

 

The cost with shipping was $12.25. It's the high capacity battery for the Motorola T720 Cell Phone

 

Now, I have at least 12-14 hours with the backlight on bright and I don't have to be concerned with buying new batteries for a good long time.

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I've done the firmware upgrade to my eXplorist 500 and I'm seeing great battery life. Most of the time, I have the backlight on bright and I'm seeing 6-7 hours easily. In fact, I haven't run the battery all the way down yet. I love the use of the Lithium-Ion rechargeable battery instead of AA cells.

 

For those of you that deplore the use of the Lithium-Ion rechargeable battery in the eXplorists.......get an extra battery. I got one from this ebay store:

 

GSM Ebay Store

 

The cost with shipping was $12.25. It's the high capacity battery for the Motorola T720 Cell Phone

 

Now, I have at least 12-14 hours with the backlight on bright and I don't have to be concerned with buying new batteries for a good long time.

 

I had a negative experience with that vendor. After a week of waiting for the delivery they said they mailed USPS, I still hadn't received the order. I tried to contact them several different ways (phone, several email addresses), with no luck. I had to have PayPal get the money back. I received the order the day after my money was returned. It appears they had sent the lower capacity "A" version. I clearly bid on the "B" version. Buyer beware!

 

As far as battery life is concerned, I am in the middle of a battery rundown test. Three hours into the test at low backlight, it appears to be at 45%, which is in alignment with others. I will report back when the test is finished.

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I picked up an XL around Christmas and found a couple problems with it. I was hoping the was going to be a firmware update similar to the 500, and been going back & forth with them.

 

Here is a couple emails. I removed the Magellan persons name.

 

From: Someone There On Behalf Of Magellan Support

Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2006 4:37 PM

To: Don Forman

Subject: eXplorist XL North America

 

we are not given a time when firmware released are available. When there is a change or a reason for a firmware update, it will be released and posted on our website.

 

From: Don Forman

Sent: Thursday, March 09, 2006 7:17 PM

To: Magellan Support

Subject: eXplorist XL North America

Hi,

 

You state “When there is a change or a reason for a firmware update, it will be released and posted on our website”. There is a REASON for a firmware update. Is there a person that would have an idea when it will happen? Why are the updates sooooooo sloooooooooow on coming? On the Geocaching forums they have the updates as 10 months after the product needs it. That was for the 500 tho. You think the update for the XL will be quicker? I keep checking daily and have not seen any updates yet.

 

Thanks, Don

 

From: Someone There On Behalf Of Magellan Support

Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2006 2:37 PM

To: Don Forman

Subject: eXplorist XL North America

 

Good day-

 

There is no time frame I can give you for firmware updates done to the units. Sometimes they are done once a year, sometimes a few updates can be done.. there is no set time frame for these firmware updates to be released. There has not been a needed firmware update release for the XL since its release in Dec '05. Updates are sometimes used for enhancements, to have the unit acquire faster, or possibly compatibility with mapping software. Again, there is not a time frame I can tell you when a release of a firmware is released.

 

Thanks again

tec support

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I've done the firmware upgrade to my eXplorist 500 and I'm seeing great battery life. Most of the time, I have the backlight on bright and I'm seeing 6-7 hours easily. In fact, I haven't run the battery all the way down yet. I love the use of the Lithium-Ion rechargeable battery instead of AA cells.

 

For those of you that deplore the use of the Lithium-Ion rechargeable battery in the eXplorists.......get an extra battery. I got one from this ebay store:

 

GSM Ebay Store

 

The cost with shipping was $12.25. It's the high capacity battery for the Motorola T720 Cell Phone

 

Now, I have at least 12-14 hours with the backlight on bright and I don't have to be concerned with buying new batteries for a good long time.

 

I had a negative experience with that vendor. After a week of waiting for the delivery they said they mailed USPS, I still hadn't received the order. I tried to contact them several different ways (phone, several email addresses), with no luck. I had to have PayPal get the money back. I received the order the day after my money was returned. It appears they had sent the lower capacity "A" version. I clearly bid on the "B" version. Buyer beware!

 

The same thing happened to me, with regards to receiving the A battery instead of the B. I contacted Motorola and they said the only difference between the A and B is that the B is a newer lot. They added that the A is still 1100mAH, like the B.

 

Scott

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I completed my eXplorist 600 battery run-down test last night. The Low battery alarm came on at 9 hrs. 38 minutes and it shutdown at 10 hrs. 40 minutes. Backlighting was at its lowest setting for the complete test.

 

I was surprised that the unit kept going for a full hour after low battery alarm. I wonder is the gps accuracy is affected similar to other GPSRs when the battery is in a run down condition. In which case, I would say that I am only getting 9.5 hrs on my battery after 10 months of heavy use.

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I completed my eXplorist 600 battery run-down test last night. The Low battery alarm came on at 9 hrs. 38 minutes and it shutdown at 10 hrs. 40 minutes. Backlighting was at its lowest setting for the complete test.

 

I was surprised that the unit kept going for a full hour after low battery alarm. I wonder is the gps accuracy is affected similar to other GPSRs when the battery is in a run down condition. In which case, I would say that I am only getting 9.5 hrs on my battery after 10 months of heavy use.

 

I've used mine pretty heavy since July 22 which was the date of my first find with it, and have hit around 1200 found caches with it.

Now that you've done a complete discharge and are recharginging it why not try it again,I've heard that the battery should be completly discharged or almost completly discharged on ocassion and they will take a better recharge.

I'm getting ready to run a max backlite on mine today and will post the results when it dies.starting the test at 6 AM PST

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Well I have to give credit where credit is due. Most everybody who has needed Magellan's customer support here has lamented at how long emails go unanswered and how long they listen to the "on hold" music for hours at a time but at least here in Canada the hardware support is by far the best I've ever seen ever. Bill's Electronic located in Mildmays Ontario (which are Magellan's autorized repair facility) recieved my old e600 unit this past monday march13 (as per the online tracking from my shipper) and I had a new unit in my hands 2 days later on march15. This is just incredible IMO. I had had clickstick issues since day1 but kept the unit because I figured I would lose the unit for at least 3 weeks and at the time I couldn't do without it because it was hunting season, and I was doing alot of ATVing, so I didn't send it out till now. Anyhow I get a brand spankin new unit and the click stick works great. Also the electronic compass is much more precise than my old unit.

 

I have always been frank about my opinions of magellan and their support but in this case its all thumbs up. Now if only Magellan's customer support could be as good as Bill's Electronic.

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Uh,

Two weeks ago I bought myself a 1 Gb Kingston 'Hi speed' SD card. (If I knew what I know now of any performance, I had bought a 'normal' one).

Since I use the 1Gb, after formatting it IN the eXplorist600, so now and then I get spontanious 'resets' and/or 'switching off', switching screens without manipulating the buttons and pc-interfacing problems like with the old firmware, i.e. during PC-communication: 'lost power' and eXplorist switching off.

My previous SD card was also a Kingston, a 'normal' 256 Mb one. No eXplorist problems then (after the FW update).

Bye, Rudolf.

March 13 2006 I mailed Magellan this:

Half a year ago I started my X600 with a Kingston 256 MB SD card.

Christmas 2005 I updated X600 to fw 5.2.03. So far so good (more or

less; read forum at Geocaching.com, thread Buglist!).

One week ago I replaced 256 Mb SD card for 'fast' Kingston 1Gb SD card,

which I formatted in X600. Since then I experience all kinds of trouble

such as spontanious shut off in standalone mode, spontanious shut off

and/or broken PC communication via USB.

What should I do to correct this?

----------------

March 16 2006 Magellan mailed me this reply:

Thank you for contacting Thales Navigation Customer Support.

I would advise you to reset your unit. This may solve the problem.

In order to reset your GPS unit, we recommend that you follow the instructions below:

*** WARNING : ALL data (waypoints, routes ...) will be deleted ***

- Switch the GPS unit off.

- Press the "Menu" and "Power" buttons simultaneously.

- The following message appears on the screen: "Clear all memory and shut off unit?"

- Select "Yes" and press "Enter".

Once GPS memory is cleared, start it again and set it up. Let it track satellites signals in an open space. This might last 30 minutes up to 2 hours.

If it still doesn't work after this manipulation, don't hesitate to contact us again.

----------------

Yesterday I followed their instructions and from now I will pay extra attention if it's all right now. In some time and also after some Geocaching, I will report my findings here. My postings #163 and #166 could be the result of "not doing a fresh initialisation" after replacing the SD card. In that case those postings are invalid. So sorry.

 

Best regards, Rudolf.

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Saturday 3/11 I took 12 boys from my troop hiking and Geocaching. The weather was gorgeous for early March. There were blue skies and a temperature of 64°. We found 4 caches. One was a virtual and traditional cache in the same place. I set the go-too for each cache and gave the boys my Explorist 600 so they could find the cache. I had gone out two days earlier on March 9th and done the same hike and found the four caches so I knew where they were for the 3/11 trip with my troop. The boys found all three caches quickly. They had come within about 15-20’ of all the caches. They only needed a hint for one cache and they were as close as 15’ but did not see it. All in all it was a great day for everyone and my Explorist 600 worked fine. I wanted to check the battery after this trip as I had been reading about short battery life on this forum, but I forgot too. Thursday March 16th my daughter who is 19 asked to go Geocaching so she could see what it was like. I took her to the same 6 mile hike and four caches I had done twice in the last week. I set the go-to for the caches and gave her the Explorist 600 so she could find the caches on her own. As she was approaching the first cache I asked how much farther and she said 150’. We were right on top of the cache. I let her continue on and it was at least 150’ from the cache. I checked the accuracy and it was bouncing between “about 25-35 ft”. I had her try coming back and when she got to the cache it was still about 150’ off according to the GPS. We tried coming in from two different directions with no improvement in accuracy. I had to show her where the cache was. She enjoyed finding the cache but if I hadn’t been there before we would not have found it with the coordinates I got from my Explorist. The same thing happened when we tried to find Caches # 2 & 3 which were together at a different location. I had to show her they where located-hey it was a great spot for lunch so we eat. The only difference between the two days I went out to find these caches was the weather. On Saturday March 11th as I stated earlier the skies were clear and the temperature was 62°-and all was well! When my daughter and I went out yesterday the skies were clear but the temperature was 40°. Now in all fairness, I set-the go-to for the last cache and gave the unit to my Emily and she walked to within three of the cache and found it. I checked the satellite screen every time we came to a cache and there were at least 5-6 tracking. So I don’t know why at the last cache the coordinates were right on. We where out for 4 hours in 40° temps and then, leaving my Explorist on in the car and home at approximately 68° the fully charged battery went dead in just under 7 hours. The light was on low 95% of the time and the compass was set to off.

 

I have a brand new battery that I bought last week and charged over the weekend and I’m letting it run in my house at 68°. I’ll see how long that lasts.

 

On a final note, I noticed yesterday while walking in to the caches that I had no tracks showing on the map screen. I checked the Map set-up, Format screen and found that the Track mode was set to OFF. I remembered that Saturday it was off also and I needed to reset it. I checked it twice more last night and both times I powered the unit down it defaulted to OFF. I don’t remember this happening before the upgrade, but I may be wrong. I thought that once I set the track mode to Auto detailed it stayed there as the default setting. Does anyone have an answer to that last question?

 

Finally, finally any ideas besides the temperature difference why my GPS would have been off by so large a distance?

 

Thanks in advance for everyone’s help.

Buzz

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I can confirm the the track logging does work properly in this version. earlier versions defaulted to "on" when power cycling but in the latest firmware the tracklog on/off works well. If your doing backtracking and/or routing I believe the tracklogging is turned off automatically.

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Finally, finally any ideas besides the temperature difference why my GPS would have been off by so large a distance?

Double-check that the scouts didn't change the datum from WGS84.

 

Embra I checked that the WGS84 was still on and also when we went to the last cache of the day with nothing being cahnged the 600 was right on the money. Thanks for the two links I'll go thru them again.

 

Buzz

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[Embra I checked that the WGS84 was still on and also when we went to the last cache of the day with nothing being cahnged the 600 was right on the money. Thanks for the two links I'll go thru them again.

 

Buzz

It may have been satellite geometry or other atmospheric conditions, enough possibilities that it's hard to determine just on the one day that the unit is funky. If it seems to still be off by that much (which is more than it should be), then clearing all memory and reinitializing might help. Guess you can cross that bridge when you come to it.

 

At any rate, if you suspect the accuracy of the reading, check the position screen to see what what the Accuracy data field is giving you.

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