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Explorist Bug/enhancement List Firmware-5.2.03


D0T-C0M

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well my brand new replacement e600 crapped out on me yesterday. Funny it dont seem to like the cold at all. We went out ATVing last night and the temperature was about 0c . It worked alright in the house and in my truck but after 15 min outside yesterday it would lockup or hang on the "checking media" screen. I was totally unusable. Anyway to be should I cleared the memory and took out my sd card and placed the weather screen on and put it in the freezer and the temperature dropped from 18c and when it hit 12c the unit crashed. I had to remove the battery and heat the unit up with a hair dryer before it would start back up. This is a brand new unit. My old unit was perfect even in -20c weather. This unit is ridiculous. I've read this is not an isolated issue

Edited by D0T-C0M
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well my brand new replacement e600 crapped out on me yesterday. Funny it dont seem to like the cold at all. We went out ATVing last night and the temperature was about 0c .

dot.com,

 

This is exactly what I saw on my first eXp 500. Chilly, but not cold, at ~40degF. Worked perfectly at room temp, but reliably reset outdoors in just about 5-10 minutes of exposure.

 

My new unit has been fine so far, even after a couple cold soaks in my freezer, and real world outdors usage.

 

Bummer for you! :laughing:

Edited by markp99
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Not sure how accurate it is, but I read in the Yahoo eXplorist forum that the Lithium Ion batteries have a circuit in them that is designed to cut the batteries out below a certain temperature.

 

"Well that was a very good read! I got to sit with it today during my

lunch at work and found out something about Li-Ion batteries. They

all include a shutdown circuit if they become too warm or cold.

 

Quote:

Built into each pack, the protection circuit limits the peak voltage

of each cell during charge and prevents the cell voltage from dropping

too low on discharge. In addition, the cell temperature is monitored

to prevent temperature extremes.

/Quote:

 

So this is really may be two problems. Batteries that are specificly

designed to not run in cold, and a firmware that does not handle

sudden loss of power very well."

 

Battery University

 

Doc

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Not sure how accurate it is, but I read in the Yahoo eXplorist forum that the Lithium Ion batteries have a circuit in them that is designed to cut the batteries out below a certain temperature.

 

"Well that was a very good read! I got to sit with it today during my

lunch at work and found out something about Li-Ion batteries. They

all include a shutdown circuit if they become too warm or cold.

 

Quote:

Built into each pack, the protection circuit limits the peak voltage

of each cell during charge and prevents the cell voltage from dropping

too low on discharge. In addition, the cell temperature is monitored

to prevent temperature extremes.

/Quote:

 

So this is really may be two problems. Batteries that are specificly

designed to not run in cold, and a firmware that does not handle

sudden loss of power very well."

 

Battery University

 

Doc

 

Well in this case, you can rule out the batteries being the cause because I am using the same batteries as in my original e600 that had no problems running at temperatures well below 0c

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It was just a thought. I can't dispute the battery issues. Go back into the forums and you will find my own (battery wouldn't charge AT ALL, no matter what.) Looks like a defective unit to me as well.

 

After rethinking it , the GPS was on external power when it was in the handlebar cradle of my ATV so the batteries are diffinately not the problem. I sent the unit out today so I should have a new unit by the end of the week.

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Well after 9 months and over 1300 caches I'm finally sending my exp 500 in for repair.

I sent Magellan an email 12 days ago and haven't received a reply from them yet, So I called them and got right through with THIS #1800-707-9971 received my ra # and the addy in Fortworth TX

My problems were sticky buttons, rubber membrane on joystick split, and on occasion when it was turned on my So Cal map would not be the active map, but one of the other ones would be, strange as I'm the only one to use the unit.

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well my brand new replacement e600 crapped out on me yesterday. Funny it dont seem to like the cold at all. We went out ATVing last night and the temperature was about 0c . It worked alright in the house and in my truck but after 15 min outside yesterday it would lockup or hang on the "checking media" screen. I was totally unusable. Anyway to be should I cleared the memory and took out my sd card and placed the weather screen on and put it in the freezer and the temperature dropped from 18c and when it hit 12c the unit crashed. I had to remove the battery and heat the unit up with a hair dryer before it would start back up. This is a brand new unit. My old unit was perfect even in -20c weather. This unit is ridiculous. I've read this is not an isolated issue

Hello DOT-COM!

This is a well known problem on a german forum - you are not alone. Isn't it funny. all around the world - the same problem - depending on wintertime.

http://www.naviboard.de/index.php?showtopi...indpost&p=77067

 

I changed my problems from Magellan to Garmin :)

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Well after 9 months and over 1300 caches I'm finally sending my exp 500 in for repair.

I sent Magellan an email 12 days ago and haven't received a reply from them yet, So I called them and got right through with THIS #1800-707-9971 received my ra # and the addy in Fortworth TX

My problems were sticky buttons, rubber membrane on joystick split, and on occasion when it was turned on my So Cal map would not be the active map, but one of the other ones would be, strange as I'm the only one to use the unit.

 

I finally sent it in this morning, insured for $400.00 maybe I'll get lucky and it will get lost in the mail.

Will post any info I get, and how long it takes to get back from Magellan

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well my brand new replacement e600 crapped out on me yesterday. Funny it dont seem to like the cold at all. We went out ATVing last night and the temperature was about 0c . It worked alright in the house and in my truck but after 15 min outside yesterday it would lockup or hang on the "checking media" screen. I was totally unusable. Anyway to be should I cleared the memory and took out my sd card and placed the weather screen on and put it in the freezer and the temperature dropped from 18c and when it hit 12c the unit crashed. I had to remove the battery and heat the unit up with a hair dryer before it would start back up. This is a brand new unit. My old unit was perfect even in -20c weather. This unit is ridiculous. I've read this is not an isolated issue

Hello DOT-COM!

This is a well known problem on a german forum - you are not alone. Isn't it funny. all around the world - the same problem - depending on wintertime.

http://www.naviboard.de/index.php?showtopi...indpost&p=77067

 

I changed my problems from Magellan to Garmin :)

 

Well I got a new unit again and this time it works to -18c. They also shipped me a new battery so now I have two original and two replacement batteries for it. I can't say enough about Bill's Electronics which does the Magellan Canadian warranty repairs. I got fast and prompt service from them, the parent company could learn a thing or two from them.

 

While I will tuff this GPS unit out for awhile, I dare say that this will be my last Magellan product. My decision is based on lack of customer and product support from THALES. I hope things turn around for them. I longed (too long) to recieve the same support that Garmin gives there customers in both firmware and software updates.

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The only thing I have noticed on my 600 since firmware upgrade is a decrease in battery charge. Went out the other day for 3 hrs. and was down to 1/2 charge and that was after an overnight charge. Other than that, still works good.

I second Bills for repairs as they are fast and good. :laughing:

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The only thing I have noticed on my 600 since firmware upgrade is a decrease in battery charge. Went out the other day for 3 hrs. and was down to 1/2 charge and that was after an overnight charge. Other than that, still works good.

I've noticed this, too, but attributed it to the battery getting old. Haven't really checked it against one of my backups.

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Hmmmm.

 

Thought I had this one in the list, but I don't see it so I'm going to add it again;

 

When searching for a Detail Map POI Alphabetically, results should be returned sorted by distance from current position.

 

For example, when searching for a "Tim Horton's" in a 50MB file of Southern Ontario, I'll typically get several hundred matches. It's irritating that I have to scroll down for 20 minutes to get to the one that's 2km away because the ones hundreds of kilometers from my current position are returned higher in the list.

 

I suspect the Alphabetical results are being sorted alphabetically, by city. This should be a simple sort, and the functionality to look for a far away POI is already in the unit. Generally, when using the Detail Map POI search for things like Gas Stations or Restaurants, I'm going to be interested in the nearest ones first - and sometimes a nearest specific name.

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Hmmmm.

 

Thought I had this one in the list, but I don't see it so I'm going to add it again;

 

When searching for a Detail Map POI Alphabetically, results should be returned sorted by distance from current position.

 

For example, when searching for a "Tim Horton's" in a 50MB file of Southern Ontario, I'll typically get several hundred matches. It's irritating that I have to scroll down for 20 minutes to get to the one that's 2km away because the ones hundreds of kilometers from my current position are returned higher in the list.

 

I suspect the Alphabetical results are being sorted alphabetically, by city. This should be a simple sort, and the functionality to look for a far away POI is already in the unit. Generally, when using the Detail Map POI search for things like Gas Stations or Restaurants, I'm going to be interested in the nearest ones first - and sometimes a nearest specific name.

 

I've always sorted by NEAREST, when looking for a business or other POI, but Alphabetical is only good for searching for certain named businesses in a list, so I think you should switch to NEAREST.

Edited by GOT GPS?
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The only thing I have noticed on my 600 since firmware upgrade is a decrease in battery charge. Went out the other day for 3 hrs. and was down to 1/2 charge and that was after an overnight charge. Other than that, still works good.

I second Bills for repairs as they are fast and good. :laughing:

My 500 was doing the same thing and I ran a couple of tests on it and found that the battery life was still 12 to 14 hours, but the batt icon was showing about 45% left after 3 or 4 hours

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Tuesday May 9th

 

I have a question about the odometer readings on my 600.

I have over the last 10 years run hiking merit badges for my troop.

We have hiked on trails that I always know the total distances of. I'll use an AMC trail book or maps detailing the lengths of the trails we hiked. Because I use my 600 more for hiking and backpacking, I tend to pay more attention to how far off the odometer is from the distances listed in the trail books or maps I use. Point in case: I've hiked 4 times on the last 4 Saturdays, 10-1/2, 11-1/2, 13, and last Saturday 15.7 miles. Last weeks odometer read 12.1 miles at the hikes end, but when I loaded the track points to Topo 3-D it registered 15.7 miles, a difference of 3.6 miles. Overall, the maps stated the hike should have been just over 15 miles.

The other 3 hikes where also off by approximately 1-1/2 to 3+ miles. The difference was between what was listed on the odometer on my 600, what the Topo 3-D said after loading to that program on my computer and what the trail books and maps stated was the actual miles over all.

 

Should't my GPS unit be telling me exactly the distance I walked, if I had satellite coverage the whole hike?

 

I usually set the track points on the HIGHEST readings (.01 miles) available and store them to my SD card.

 

Thanks in advance for any help,

Boyscoutbuzz

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The Trip Odometer is one flaw with most Magellan units, in that the slower speeds like hiking show up on the low end. All my magellans would have a Trip Odometer reading of about 85 percent of the actual distance indicated by the Tracklog itself, and it is as if there are a few teeth missing from a gear, causing the Trip Distance to indicate a lesser value than the true distance. When you are driving in a car, the GPS units act like none of the teeth on the gears are missing, giving you a more accurate Trip Odometer.

 

I have had a 4000XL, ColorTrak, GPS315, Meridian Platinum, and I now have the SporTrak Color.

All these units have reported Trip odometer, as if they had the same number of teeth missing from a gear, of about 85 percent the true distance, while hiking at a 3 or 4 mph pace. The slower your pace, the greater the error with the Trip Odometer.

 

The Trip Odometer, is one thing that Garmin had gotten right some time ago.

Edited by GOT GPS?
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After enduring the overly conservative odometer for years I discovered that you can get an accurate reading on the explorist, at least, by going to the track menu and highlighting the active track. The readout at the bottom will give you an accurate distance.

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The Trip Odometer is one flaw with most Magellan units, in that the slower speeds like hiking show up on the low end. All my magellans would have a Trip Odometer reading of about 85 percent of the actual distance indicated by the Tracklog itself, and it is as if there are a few teeth missing from a gear, causing the Trip Distance to indicate a lesser value than the true distance. When you are driving in a car, the GPS units act like none of the teeth on the gears are missing, giving you a more accurate Trip Odometer.

 

I have had a 4000XL, ColorTrak, GPS315, Meridian Platinum, and I now have the SporTrak Color.

All these units have reported Trip odometer, as if they had the same number of teeth missing from a gear, of about 85 percent the true distance, while hiking at a 3 or 4 mph pace. The slower your pace, the greater the error with the Trip Odometer.

 

The Trip Odometer, is one thing that Garmin had gotten right some time ago.

 

Thanks GOT GPS,

 

I too have had a GPS315 and a Meridian Gold and noticed the same odometer flaw. I'll just have to hike faster. Oh, Magellan-a little help here PLEASE1

 

Buzz

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After enduring the overly conservative odometer for years I discovered that you can get an accurate reading on the explorist, at least, by going to the track menu and highlighting the active track. The readout at the bottom will give you an accurate distance.

 

Thanks Embra, I hadn't thought to look there. 'll try Saturday after my 17 mile hike.

 

Buzz

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I've always sorted by NEAREST, when looking for a business or other POI, but Alphabetical is only good for searching for certain named businesses in a list, so I think you should switch to NEAREST.

 

Exactly my point. Alpha search is for finding a specific business. Sure, looking for "Radioworld, Inc" isn't going to come up with to many matches, but other companies are going to be huge datasets. For example, go into any major city and try to find the nearest Subway, McDonald's, Petro Canada or Tim Horton's by using "Find Nearest". Unless you're standing beside one, you'll find lots of other closer businesses listed first.

 

On a recent trip to Niagara Falls, I tried to find a Tim Horton's using just my eXplorist, so I could rendezvous with other cachers in the area. Closest one I could find with the GPS in 20 minutes was 17.9 km away. Later that night I discovered that I was within 700M of a Tim Hortons when I did the search. I had plenty of matches for the 800 or so Tim Horton's locations around Toronto though.

 

Find Nearest will be no help in that situation, as the find nearest has a limited number of entries returned, and scrolling down a couple hundred times is annoying anyway. Sorting the Alpha results by name and distance isn't that big a deal, and the Garmin eTrex units support that feature, as do the TomTom units.

 

Sorting the Alpha POI's by distance should not be that difficult to implement, and makes the unit much more useful. It will also reduce the number of clicks on the joystick and that should help the rubber coating a bit.

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Monday May 15th

 

A couple of questions on my Explorist 600.

This weekend the rubber covering the "Enter" button cut and is now ready to fall off completly.

Does this compromise the water proofness of the unit?

If yes, the unit is a year old this month, is it still covered under warranty?

If yes I know this a Magellan number to call for an RMA.

If not, where can I send it to get fixed?

 

Thanks,

Buzz

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Monday May 15th

 

A couple of questions on my Explorist 600.

This weekend the rubber covering the "Enter" button cut and is now ready to fall off completly.

Does this compromise the water proofness of the unit?

If yes, the unit is a year old this month, is it still covered under warranty?

If yes I know this a Magellan number to call for an RMA.

If not, where can I send it to get fixed?

 

Thanks,

Buzz

Call Magellan and give them the date of purchase, very possible that they will cover it, if it is out o warranty And if the membrane is ripped or torn it will probably lose its integrity.

Good luck

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Well after 9 months and over 1300 caches I'm finally sending my exp 500 in for repair.

I sent Magellan an email 12 days ago and haven't received a reply from them yet, So I called them and got right through with THIS #1800-707-9971 received my ra # and the addy in Fortworth TX

My problems were sticky buttons, rubber membrane on joystick split, and on occasion when it was turned on my So Cal map would not be the active map, but one of the other ones would be, strange as I'm the only one to use the unit.

 

I finally sent it in this morning, insured for $400.00 maybe I'll get lucky and it will get lost in the mail.

Will post any info I get, and how long it takes to get back from Magellan

 

For general information, My 500 was returned today by ups. When I first opened it up 1 was surprised by a new case I think everything is new except the circuit board The membrane was replaced, the click stick works very smoothly in all 8 directions all the other buttons work like they should.And they sent a extra battery. I am one very happy customer.

Just a little over 2 weeks can't do much better then that. :D:laughing::lol::lol::D:D:rolleyes::lol:

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I have a Clickable Thumbnail image below, of my eXplorist XL:

th_eXploristXL2006May25-MapScreenScale.jpg

 

The Problem is the Map Scale, and all the main roads in the image above are one mile apart, and I copied and pasted the mapscale to line up in the middle with a couple Mile roads, and the Scale should say |--1.6mi--| and not |--0.8mi--|.

 

Has this ever been a problem for the eXplorist 500 or 600??

The loaded Map is Version 1.5 of TOPO 3D.

 

Funny thing I just noticed while playing around with the GPS indoors, is that it thinks it is in Manitoba Canada(1066 miles away)

Edited by GOT GPS?
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My wish-list.

enhancement for the explorist 600:

 

1) selectable automatic electronic compass switchoff at travelspeed above 5-10Km/h. With an icon in the compass screen indicating state.

2) Directroute: selectable routing for wandering, bike, car (fastest, shortest)

3) Configurable directroute sounds: 1 beep, 2 beeps ,etc ,default continuous beeps (current)

4) In the mark screen, after save or save-as, an extra question 'goto' yes/no

 

--

 

Greetings,

 

Roel

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Christmas 2005 DOT_COM compiled the various wishes in this thread to the top of this thread. (Long time ago in Bethlehem...)

Are there no more/new wishes to be compiled since then?

Is Magellan still reading this thread? Who knows?

Did anybody "hear rumours" of an upcoming eXplorist SW update?

 

So sorry, but I've only questions.

 

Barjon.

Edited by Barjon
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I was told point blank from a magellan tech that no future SW releases are anticipated. I've actually come to the point that I have accepted that magellan doesn't really want to put the man power into developing the explorist line any further. Maybe with the new company stepping in, it might change but for now I will continue using my e600 and when time comes to upgrade to a new unit you can be sure I will be eyeing the competition.

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I was told point blank from a magellan tech that no future SW releases are anticipated. I've actually come to the point that I have accepted that magellan doesn't really want to put the man power into developing the explorist line any further. Maybe with the new company stepping in, it might change but for now I will continue using my e600 and when time comes to upgrade to a new unit you can be sure I will be eyeing the competition.

 

*sigh* I may be going the same route on my next unit. I bought into the eXplorist based on the ideal that they represented the direction Magellan was going with their consumer units, and that Magellan had the better ones on the market. It really seems sometimes like they are planning to exit the consumer market altogether. Especially with their arrogant attitude toward Mapsend releases/pricing.

 

As a Canadian, there are still things that leave a bad taste in my mouth, things like the Canadian base map handling that does not clearly show major highways but shows me every rail line in the Province. The Mapsend DVD was a nice concept, but Magellan seems to want every penny from my wallet - remember DirectRoute 3.0 came out about 6 months after Thales had me shell out more than I paid for my GPS for the two Canadian map products, then they want me to pay almost that much again for the current product only a couple months later.

 

When I buy a product like Microsoft Office 4 months before the next version, I can usually expect an upgrade credit or even a free upgrade to that version. No, Magellan instead implements a draconian "send us your old disc before we'll give you a tiny upgrade discount - and no loading your wife's GPS with a map you pirate!".

 

Since I got my GPS, Garmin Mapsource has had two X.0 release points that were free upgrades, and Garmin added nRoute as a free upgrade to the lineup. Yes, Garmin has their flaws and licensing issues as well - but my day-to-day experience with my ancient eTrex Legend has been far more pleasant when it comes to updates, fixes and upgrades.

 

Hopefully the new company will understand customer service, and try to remain in the consumer space. The current Magellan company will exit it - either by it's own choice, or by driving their customer base away.

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What are the remaining issues? In other words, what's still broken? On my eXplorist 400 everything works correctly. Any further firmware updates would be icing on the cake in my opinion.

geognerd,

 

I'll second that I cannot see any glaring issues (or even not-so-glaring issues) with my eXplorist 500. I've been using the unit very frequently this spring and summer with no complaints.

Edited by markp99
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I'll second that I cannot see any glaring issues (or even not-so-glaring issues) with my eXplorist 500. I've been using the unit very frequently this spring and summer with no complaints.

Apparently the 400 and above have a feature where you can mark a cache as "found"... I'd like to see that on my 210. I've also had the unit freeze on me to the point where I had to remove the batteries. So there's a few things that could be improved.

 

dave

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And I guess this one is more of a "major overhaul" rather than "bug fix", but I'd very much like them to fix the brain-dead memory model that the Explorists have. I've got nearly 22MB of free memory, so why should I have to split my caches up into blocks of 200? And when I do so, why do they allocate precious bytes to useless information such as "Cache owner" and chop off useful information, such as the hint? I'm sure every Explorist owner as had at least one experience standing in the middle of the forest trying to make sense of a hint that has been truncated to "To find the cache, you should look under the"

 

22MB of free memory, but they can't give me the full hint.

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And I guess this one is more of a "major overhaul" rather than "bug fix", but I'd very much like them to fix the brain-dead memory model that the Explorists have. I've got nearly 22MB of free memory, so why should I have to split my caches up into blocks of 200? And when I do so, why do they allocate precious bytes to useless information such as "Cache owner" and chop off useful information, such as the hint? I'm sure every Explorist owner as had at least one experience standing in the middle of the forest trying to make sense of a hint that has been truncated to "To find the cache, you should look under the"

 

22MB of free memory, but they can't give me the full hint.

 

I actually stopped using the Geocaching feature on my 600. With GSAK I can set different icons to handle the new waypoint types (like parking) that Magellan will never add to the lineup. I also put in the description the actually useful information, like cache size. I really don't care in the field if the cache was hidden on July 2 2002 by geocaching joe. The 200 POI/Geocache limit really bites and I've been hit more than a couple times in the field that way. Don't get me started on how utterly useless Topo Canada is in Ontario.

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Christmas 2005 DOT_COM compiled the various wishes in this thread to the top of this thread. (Long time ago in Bethlehem...)

Are there no more/new wishes to be compiled since then?

Is Magellan still reading this thread? Who knows?

Did anybody "hear rumours" of an upcoming eXplorist SW update?

 

So sorry, but I've only questions.

 

Barjon.

I am still watching this thread.

 

I switched on january 2006 to a garmin gpsmap 60 csx (previous ex 600)

There were a lot of firmware-updates with the garmin firmware.

The ex-people are still waiting for an update. (current v2_03)

http://www.magellangps.com/news/releases/v...ease.asp?id=486

What's going on now.

Keep on waiting or be active. :P

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I have had many 'cold' related problems and my Ex500 is now in a state where when you switch it on, the screen says:

 

‘Press ENTER to configure NAND Press ESC to cancel’

 

– whichever button you press, the Ex500 switches off.

 

On 14 Jan 'DocW' said:

Mine stayed inside the car for a night at 0°C: Next morning the flash was corrupt ("Press Enter to configure NAND"-forever) , I had to format the flash and reload the base map.

 

 

The quote above suggests that I can correct this, can someone please tell me how ?

 

Thanks in advance

 

Yes, sure:

 

First step: Reformat the flash (assuming that the unit is back to normal temperatures):

- swittch the unit on

- press NAV + PWR button (goes into hdden menu)

- select menu 95

- select format, press enter

 

Then the unit is ready for work again, but it does not have a basemap. To reload the basemap,

connect it to the USB-cable and then swithc it on, so that it startsup in the file-transfer mode.

 

Just copy the basemap (it must be named basemap.mgi) into the "background-map"-folder on the explorist.

 

The basemap can be found here (but it seems to be down actually), give me a PN

 

Hope that works for you!

 

 

I tried the above mentioned steps. I have downloaded the basemap and now it says "base map security error". What do I do now??

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I tried the above mentioned steps. I have downloaded the basemap and now it says "base map security error". What do I do now??

Did you follow the directions in the readme file about stting the systems attribute? I'm not sure if that's the problem or not; I don't know offhand what causes the error message you're seeing. About the only other thing I can think of would be downloading the basemap for the wrong model.

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BUG? Explorist 600

 

The electronic compass is not really switched off when you switch off the compass in the power management menu.

 

Try the following:

1) switch off the electronic compass in the Pwr Management menu

2) navigate to the compass screen

3) customize this page by displaying the heading field

4) read the heading field and then turn the explorist600 (e.g. 90 degrees clockwise) and watch the heading! (=+90 degrees)

 

The compass needle is not moving when the e-compass is turned off, but the e--compass is still working!

 

Is this power saving?

 

--

 

greetings,

 

Roel Hoek

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First: GREAT THREAD !!!!

 

I am new to the geocaching and purchased the Explorist 400. I really like this so far. As I use it more I realize there are a few concerns.

 

Is there a way to:

- import LOC/GPX files

- display cache sizes

 

I am now using GSAK (GPS Swiss Army Knife) utility and it works nicely. Is there a way to use this tool to replace the "Owner" field with the "Cache Size" Field?

 

Thanks, in advance.

Edited by CopperPenny
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Here are a couple things that I would like to see changed/improved on the Explorist 500:

 

1. In point to point mode, the initial path to the waypoint stays on the map and never gets updated. :blink: This should erase after you move closer to the cache, or get updated.

 

2. Again in point to point navigation mode, when you zoom in to 100 feet, then try to zoom in closer the screen now has multiple highlighted paths on the screen. :blink: Zooming out then back in fixes this.

 

3. The screen light should shut off completely when you are not doing any functions, instead of just low light.

 

4. The zoom range would be nice if you could zoom down to 20 feet instead of only 100. Granted it really doesn't matter if you use the compass to locate a cache, but it helps to separate close waypoints on the map.

 

Otherwise I am very happy with my 500!

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Super thread, wish I'd seen it before!

 

Since upgrading my 500 to 5.2.03 last summer, I've seen two problems:

 

1) "Save Error" message when I was moving POIs around in internal memory. I was reorganizing my folders and had just moved maybe 15 or 20 POIs when I got this error. The device switched off and when I turned it back on again I'd lost everything (maps, POIs, etc).

 

2) Corrupted LCD display

I first noticed this last year, can't remember if it was before or after the upgrade. Then it happened to me yesterday twice within an hour or so. What happens is the data on the LCD rotates by 90deg, and is flipped so the text all reads like you're seeing it in a mirror. The colours also changed (red became orange, blue became green and so on). Very bizarre! Had to cycle the power to clear it. One time the device was in my pocket, the other time I was holding it in my hand approaching a cache final -- no buttons pressed or anything.

 

Anybody seen these? Maybe I just have a hardware problem? Sadly my device is 18 months old and out of warranty.

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Let me try to cover a couple of sets of questions/comments...

 

Is there a way to:

- import LOC/GPX files

- display cache sizes

You can't import them directly, but must use something like Geocache Manager, GSAK, EasyGPS, or GPSBabel to import the gpx/loc and export the upt/gs files.

 

On GSAK, at least, the icon should be associated with a particular cache type.

 

In point to point mode, the initial path to the waypoint stays on the map and never gets updated. huh.gif This should erase after you move closer to the cache, or get updated.

In the map screen, press menu/map setup/right-click to Display, toggle off Depart-Dest line and toggle on Pos-Dest line. The complaint you (and I) will still have is that the Pos-Dest line is more difficult to see than the Depart-Dest line.

 

"Save Error" message when I was moving POIs around in internal memory. I was reorganizing my folders and had just moved maybe 15 or 20 POIs when I got this error. The device switched off and when I turned it back on again I'd lost everything (maps, POIs, etc).

Things like this occasionally happen. You're better off keeping POIs on the SD card, as you can then easily re-load them after a system reset.

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Super thread, wish I'd seen it before!

 

2) Corrupted LCD display

I first noticed this last year, can't remember if it was before or after the upgrade. Then it happened to me yesterday twice within an hour or so. What happens is the data on the LCD rotates by 90deg, and is flipped so the text all reads like you're seeing it in a mirror. The colours also changed (red became orange, blue became green and so on). Very bizarre! Had to cycle the power to clear it. One time the device was in my pocket, the other time I was holding it in my hand approaching a cache final -- no buttons pressed or anything.

 

Anybody seen these? Maybe I just have a hardware problem? Sadly my device is 18 months old and out of warranty.

 

I've had this prob a few times quite recently again. Could be somewhat cooler weather related(it really has not been what I'd consider cold this winter yet).

 

Mine has also been shutting down randomly quite often lately.

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Let me try to cover a couple of sets of questions/comments...

 

"Save Error" message when I was moving POIs around in internal memory. I was reorganizing my folders and had just moved maybe 15 or 20 POIs when I got this error. The device switched off and when I turned it back on again I'd lost everything (maps, POIs, etc).

Things like this occasionally happen. You're better off keeping POIs on the SD card, as you can then easily re-load them after a system reset.

 

OK I've moved all my data to the SD card and will try using just that. But, this doesn't give me too much confidence -- if the device can't save to its own internal memory, the SD card may be even more problematic ...

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OK I've moved all my data to the SD card and will try using just that. But, this doesn't give me too much confidence -- if the device can't save to its own internal memory, the SD card may be even more problematic ...

Yeah, it's not a confidence booster. I'd say the safest reorganization would be using the PC while in data transfer mode.

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