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60c Vs. 60cs


krisse

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Since the search feature is down atm I decided to go ahead and make a new thread.

I'll try and make it short. :o

 

This will be the first unit I own.

 

My need for a GPS unit springs from a love for mountain hiking and caching. So I will need a unit that is reliable, waterproof, easy to read and with a lasting power supply for those weeks out in the wilds.

 

To sum up the differences between the two units;

60C

- 30h battery

 

60CS

- 20h battery

- Compass

- Altimeter

 

I know the compass would be great for geocaching, where you have to locate something within one meter (or less), but I wont have much use for it on the long walks in open terrain where I will bring my 'analogue' compass anyway. So my questions are as follows:

 

- Is it possible to turn the compass and/or altimeter off to get longer battery life?

 

- How much more accurate is the altimeter compared to the GPS's elevation measurement?

 

- How accurate is the digital compass, and how quickly does it align?

 

Any other opinions will be gladly welcomed. <_<

 

Price tags are of no importance.

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The Map60C is a better unit as far as battery life is concerned, and simplicity.

The 60CS will use up the tracklog faster, because it uses the Tracklog for it's Altimeter history screen, so it will use up trackpoints even with the Receiver portion turned off.

 

I got the 76S and this is the case with that, and I remember the problem early on, when the 60CS gobbled up trackpoints too quickly, and my 60C never had this problem.

 

- - - - -

 

If you are going to hike in areas with a bit of elevation gain, you can wait, and get the Map60CSx, and then the sensors would be a good idea for these kind of hikes.

Edited by GOT GPS?
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Yea.. I was planning on getting a x-model anyway. Lets just hope they get in stores before summer. <_<

 

If it uses up trackpoints when the receiver is turned off is that because it reserves space for reading that aren't there? - I didn't quite get that.

 

Still not sure if I want to sacrifice the 10h of battery time for some elevation sensors.. For hiking at least.

- I'm not even sure I would use it very much, well its fun to look at afterwards of course but the topo mapping is whats really interesting.

 

Is there no way to be selective about the features? I imagine it would be pretty easy to make a function to turn off the compass or altimeter and by that save some power..

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The Altimeter is always ON, even when the Receiver is in DEMO Mode(Receiver OFF), and each time the altimeter takes a reading, it saves that to a trackpoint, with the Trackpoint at the last known Latitude and Longitude, and saves the Altimeter derived reading as the Elevation in the Trackpoint.

 

It is possible to turn off the compass to save battery, also to turn off the Altimeter readings in order to avoid using up trackpoints.

 

Geoff

Edited by GOT GPS?
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Turning the compass off will allow for longer battery life. So will turning down the back light at night.

 

But I routinely run the GPS all day long on one set of batteries. I don't know if the additional life for not having the compass and altimeter is worth the trade off. I use the compass on a regular basis and have also used the altimeter as a weather predictor.

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It would also seem logical that not leaving the screen on the MAP page would cut down on battery usage seeing as it wouldn't have to constantly refresh the page as you moved along. Also the map page is in color which may increase battery drain.

 

Keep in mind that in winter your battery life will definitely be WAY down. I use quality rechargable batteries and the other day on a 6 hour hike I had to replace them twice. Which ever model you get (I have the 60CS) consider using rechargables. I got a pack of 24 on eBay for less than $30.

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The Altimeter is always ON, even when the Receiver is in DEMO Mode(Receiver OFF), and each time the altimeter takes a reading, it saves that to a trackpoint, with the Trackpoint at the last known Latitude and Longitude, and saves the Altimeter derived reading as the Elevation in the Trackpoint.

 

It is possible to turn off the compass to save battery, also to turn off the Altimeter readings in order to avoid using up trackpoints.

 

Geoff

Don't know where you're getting your info from but it doesn't jive with real usage. If I leave my altimeter on all night, with the gps off, there is no "track log" usage The track log indicator is at zero, yet I have all the barometric readings recorded on the atimeter page for those 8 hrs....If you have tracklog on, say while hiking, track points are being recorded anyway, and the altimiter "portion" is just part of the normal tracklog. You have 10,000 trackpoints..with or without the altimeter portion of the data.

 

In my usage, the bigger power draw is the electronic compass.....I never leave it on...the gps derived "compass" is more than adequate when you are on the move...when I do come to a stop the unit has a tendency to "rotate" the map page back and forth as "wandering" trackpoints from the STD accuracy sometimes confuse the direction you are facing , but turning on the compass re-orientates the map page to my track-up view and makes life easier when you are trying to figure out where you are heading....if you use the GPS with a map, turning on the compass and laying the GPS on top of the map helps you orient the gps and map to the surroundings....when I'm done and ready to move I turn the compass off, as once again the GPS derived compass takes over. There really is no practical reason to have the compass on when you are moving......used this way the compass is of practical use and uses very little battery power.

 

In real life usage, the backlight is by far the biggest power draw, and both the 60c and 60cs have backlights.....If one where woried about battery life, this is probably where you should pay attention to using it sparingly.

 

Steve

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Thanks for all your replies.

 

I guess it all boils down to the definition of 'typical use', and how much use of the compass is included in Garmin's 'typical use' of the CS.

- Sent them an e-mail a min ago asking that question.

 

The compass will only be used for caching - when I go hiking I'd rather have a small transparant compass to put on my paper maps. The GPS is more of an advanced topo backup map.

 

Wikipedia has some very nice articles on the different battery types and ways to handle them for maximum performance.

 

Oh, btw - I have just pre-ordered the 60CSx.. :lol:

Looks like I'll have to go pick up a decent 'intelligent' charger and some Li-Ion's to go with it.

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Edit: Sorry for double post..

 

Think I'll pick up some rechargeable 2600 mAh - and a good charger to.

- Any suggestions?

 

Maybe buy some lithium for longer trips where I don't have access to electricity.

Edited by krisse
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<snp>In my usage, the bigger power draw is the electronic compass.....I never leave it on...the gps derived "compass" is more than adequate when you are on the move...when I do come to a stop the unit has a tendency to "rotate" the map page back and forth as "wandering" trackpoints from the STD accuracy sometimes confuse the direction you are facing , but turning on the compass re-orientates the map page to my track-up view and makes life easier when you are trying to  figure out where you are heading....if you use the GPS with a map, turning on the compass and laying the GPS on top of the map helps you orient the gps and map to the surroundings....when I'm done and ready to move I turn the compass off, as once again the GPS derived compass takes over.  There really is no practical reason to have the compass on when you are moving......used this way the compass is of practical use and uses very little battery power.

I generally agree with you but...you can set up the 60CS to only turn the compass on when you are below a certain speed. If you set that value low (e.g. 2 mph), the 60CS will automatically turn the compass on and off in almost the way you describe manually turning it on and off (i.e. off when moving, on when standing still or reading a map).

 

I have my 60CS set up to only turn the compass on below 2 mph and I leave the compass activated all the time with minimal impact on battery life (because the compass is automatically turned OFF whenever I'm moving!).

 

Edit: Typo

Edited by Kai Team
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<snp>In my usage, the bigger power draw is the electronic compass.....I never leave it on...the gps derived "compass" is more than adequate when you are on the move...when I do come to a stop the unit has a tendency to "rotate" the map page back and forth as "wandering" trackpoints from the STD accuracy sometimes confuse the direction you are facing , but turning on the compass re-orientates the map page to my track-up view and makes life easier when you are trying to  figure out where you are heading....if you use the GPS with a map, turning on the compass and laying the GPS on top of the map helps you orient the gps and map to the surroundings....when I'm done and ready to move I turn the compass off, as once again the GPS derived compass takes over.  There really is no practical reason to have the compass on when you are moving......used this way the compass is of practical use and uses very little battery power.

I generally agree with you but...you can set up the 60CS to only turn the compass on when you are below a certain speed. If you set that value low (e.g. 2 mph), the 60CS will automatically turn the compass on and off in almost the way you describe manually turning it on and off (i.e. off when moving, on when standing still or reading a map).

 

I have my 60CS set up to only turn the compass on below 2 mph and I leave the compass activated all the time with minimal impact on battery life (because the compass is automatically turned OFF whenever I'm moving!).

 

Edit: Typo

Thats true unless you stop for lunch, or for a break and leave it on. Really don't see what the fuss is about battery life...you can take 4aa's with you and two in the unit and go camping for a week using the gps with the compass the whole time.

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There was a thread around a year ago (I did not find it) where someone measured the power use from a 60CS.

 

The result was that the barometer used only a small current drain. It was nearly so small that it did not showed when it compared to a 60C.

 

The compass uses a lot of current, it can be compared to the backlight at max.

 

So the conclusion it that if you turn off the compass, the GPS have the same battery time as a 60C with the same battery.

 

I only use the compass on for some min when I do caching and are close to the cache.

 

The battery has never been any problem for me on my 60CS. I always use rechargeable battery and carry with me some spear alkaline battery.

 

PS Gamrin has even in one of the software upgrade made it possible to take turn on the barometer even when the GPS is off, to make nice graph of the barometer change.

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I now think that the 60CS is an improvement over that of the Map76S, which I do have, I also have the 60C GPS.

 

On the older 76S you can Kinda shutoff the Barometer, but actually on the 76S you can only BLOCK it by not recording Barometric pressure History. On my 76S it will use Trackpoints for the Barometer history, even on my Desk, where no signal can be obtained from the satellites, but it looks like the newer 60CS/76CS are different, because you can not turn off barometer history recording, and it has separate memory for the history info, and does not use the tracklog for that.

 

Probably will keep my 76S and 60C untill they bite the dust, croak or whatever.

 

Geoff.

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Thanks for a good response jotne. I'm pretty sure now that I have made the right choice ordering the 60CSx.

 

I'm not planning to turn the compass on automaticly, only when I find myself running in cirles around a cache - or I want to make a waypoint at an angle and a distance.

 

Also I like the color of the CSx better than that of the Cx.. :D

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How can you turn on the barometer and off?

No, since it uses so litle current, it does not matter.

 

The only problem with not been able to turn of the brometer, is that if you log you travel when you travel by plane, it does log the cabin preasure and not the correct altitude. 2000meter inside the plane, compare ti 10000meter outside. You can only see the GPS hight at the satellite page pressing the menu and select it.

 

So if you travel by plane a lot and like to "logg" the correct altitude, you need to get a GPS without barometer sensor.

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