Garmin X Series 2.62 Beta Released

[GeoBobC]

I've determined that my 60c logs about 4 points per minute when set to Auto - Most Often. That's about 41 hours of logging. Seems like a lot, but as Red90 says they get used up over several days (5 days of 8 hours per day).

[Moun10Bike]

I've determined that my 60c logs about 4 points per minute when set to Auto - Most Often. That's about 41 hours of logging. Seems like a lot, but as Red90 says they get used up over several days (5 days of 8 hours per day).

 

The "Auto" setting doesn't record points on any particular time basis, but instead lays them down according to need as determined by the receiver's internal algorithm. It seems to record them only when you have diverged a certain amount from a direct heading from previous points - i.e. when "turning". For example, a plane flight (in which you are generally heading in a consistent direction) will often result in relatively few widely-spaced track points, while a hike or bike ride along a winding trail can eat up all 10,000 points in a day.

 

That's why I prefer the "Auto" setting to the settings that lay down a point after a given amount of time or distance traveled. While you have to deal with the unknown of how much time and distance you will be able to record, you get a nice "as needed" recording that best captures the details of the route.

[Neo_Geo]

Well, I had a problem sending my tracks to the computer today! Doing so crashed the MapSource program. The only thing I can figure is that I had three .gpx files on the data card. I was able to upload the tracks fine last night with only 2 files. I just turned the unit on for a minute today - long enough to get a lock and see if another .gpx file was created, and that was it.

 

I tried deleting one .gpx from the log, then I tried deleting them all. Oddly enough, the active log appeared to be full So maybe it is writing to the card AND the internal memory... Anyway, I tried clearing the active log (I had no saved tracks). Still, it would crash MapSource when uploading the tracks. I plugged in my 60C, and it worked just fine! Plugged my Cx back in, and it still crashed. I tried rebooting the computer - still crashed... So, I ended up doing a hard reset (Page+Entr+Power-on) and that fixed it. I spent a good part of the evening resetting my user preferences and loading waypoints and POIs. Maps and my owner information on the welcome screen were retained in the memory.

 

Looks like Garmin's got some more work to do...

[planewood]

Don't know if this is a 2.62 Beta problem or not.

 

But, I hit FIND and press enter on Custom POI's. The Custom POI screen comes up fine. I then hit quit and go back to the FIND menu screen. The menu screen now has a new icon called ALL POI's. I select it and press enter and the unit turns itself off. I repeated this several times to make sure it was happening as described. The ALL POI icon appears only after quitting out of Custom POI's.

Edited March 18, 2006 by planewood

[Neo_Geo]

Don't know if this is a 2.62 Beta problem or not.

 

But, I hit FIND and press enter on Custom POI's. The Custom POI screen comes up fine. I then hit quit and go back to the FIND menu screen. The menu screen now has a new icon called ALL POI's. I select it and press enter and the unit turns itself off. I repeated this several times to make sure it was happening as described. The ALL POI icon appears only after quitting out of Custom POI's.

I tried to reproduce the problem you describe on my 60Cx, but could not. Your "Find" page should have an "All POIs" item on it BEFORE going into custom POIs first. From the top of the page, it should be on the 2nd row and in the 3rd column.

 

Interestingly, when I quit my Custom POIs menu to go back to the "Find" page, I do not see the All POIs icon as it is near the top of the page and custom POIs are at the bottom. Scrolling the "Find" page up to the top reveals the "All POIs" item for me. But pressing on "All POIs" either before or after going into custom POIs is no problem for me.

 

Is your unit a Cx or a CSx?

Edited March 18, 2006 by Neo_Geo

[+Red90]

I've determined that my 60c logs about 4 points per minute when set to Auto - Most Often. That's about 41 hours of logging. Seems like a lot, but as Red90 says they get used up over several days (5 days of 8 hours per day).

 

Moun10bike explained it well. I do a lot of mapping. A normal 8 hour hike will eat up 10000 points when set to most often. Trust me, I have done this a lot and gone over hundreds of other people's track logs. If this new firmware allows the active track to go on indefinitely (as one person has posted) or until the card in full, that would be great.

[planewood]

I tried to reproduce the problem you describe on my 60Cx, but could not. Your "Find" page should have an "All POIs" item on it BEFORE going into custom POIs first. From the top of the page, it should be on the 2nd row and in the 3rd column.

 

Interestingly, when I quit my Custom POIs menu to go back to the "Find" page, I do not see the All POIs icon as it is near the top of the page and custom POIs are at the bottom. Scrolling the "Find" page up to the top reveals the "All POIs" item for me. But pressing on "All POIs" either before or after going into custom POIs is no problem for me.

 

Is your unit a Cx or a CSx?

 

Just tried it again. When I first get to the FIND menu there are 7 icons there. Recent Finds is one of them but All POI is not there. When I go to Custom POI then quit back to the menu, Recent Finds has dissapeared and has been replaced by All POI. ???????????

 

Now I see that regardless of what icon i choose, when I come back to the menu ALL POI will be there and when I select it, the system crashes.

 

They probably got an index pointer screwed up in the program. I'm sure it will be fixed eventually.

 

What does All POI do?

[Neo_Geo]

Active Log on the MicroSD Card - I THINK I Get It Now!

 

Okay - so when I had my problem earlier with MapSource crashing, and I was deleting the .gpx files and the Active Log still appeared to be full - JUST NOW a light bulb lit up over my head! (Some 5 hours later)

 

So you turn on "Wrap When Full" in the tracking setup, and the track log deletes an entry at the beginning of the log to make room for a new entry... right? So you keep running the log and let it continue wrapping and all the while the information is also being independently written to the card as well - only the data on the card will stay there until it's deleted from the card.

 

So the active log in the internal memory is dynamic and will continuously overwrite itself over time, the .gpx files will remain static and just keep building up until the card runs out of space...

 

This is just a theory, and as it happens so frequently, I may be wrong about this.

Guess I need to buy a card reader and adapter...

[Neo_Geo]

Just tried it again. When I first get to the FIND menu there are 7 icons there. Recent Finds is one of them but All POI is not there. When I go to Custom POI then quit back to the menu, Recent Finds has dissapeared and has been replaced by All POI. ???????????

 

Now I see that regardless of what icon i choose, when I come back to the menu ALL POI will be there and when I select it, the system crashes.

 

They probably got an index pointer screwed up in the program. I'm sure it will be fixed eventually.

I'm thinkin' that's just something screwy with your unit. I can't reproduce the problem on mine. Maybe try downloading the update file from Garmin again, and reflash your firmware. Just a thought...

 

 

What does All POI do?

I think it combines all of your various maps' POIs into one convenient selection. City Select has Hotels, Restaurants, Gas Stations, Businesses, etc. Topo has Cemeteries, Schools, Playgrounds and whatever. So you might be looking for a place named "Fernwood" and you know you're close, but you don't know if it's a Cemetery, Funeral Home or a School. Instead of searching in Schools and not finding it, then searching in Cemeteries and not finding it, just search 'em ALL at once.

 

Edit: "All POIs" does NOT include your custom POIs - it only includes POIs contained in Garmin's map products.

Edited March 18, 2006 by Neo_Geo

[Suscrofa]

Are we certain that all the issues mentionned can be fixed by just a GArmin firmware fix ? What about the firmware of the SIRF chipset ?

I am wondering as I am holding my 60CX purchase because of this. I wouldn't like to buy one to discover that the issues lie in the electronic and can't be fixed unless the device is sent back to Garmin or never.

[+GOT GPS?]

I have a large picture Here at this link

 

In that picture, I show the capacity of the microSD memory card as 507,052,032 bytes, and

I used 184,877,056 bytes of memory, so I calculated 36.4 percent full, that the card is, and that is what is showing on the "Track Log Data Card" screen shot in the upper right of the picture(36%).

 

I believe you can fill up the card with *.GPX files as far as you like, but as long as you occationally clear the active tracklog.

 

On the left side of the Picture at the bottom, I compare an active Tracklog download to what I got off of the microSD memory Card, like the tracklog that is 6388 points long in the active tracklog, or 6385 points long on the microSD memory card.

 

I noticed the individual tracks in each GPX file, show something like "ACTIVE LOG150139"

that number is a 6 digit number that is hours, minutes and seconds.

Edited March 18, 2006 by GOT GPS?

[+Red90]

Thnaks, can you keep playing with this and see if for certain it keeps storing past 10000 points and what setting the track log need to be one. i.e. "Wrap when full". It "sounds" like if you leave it on wrap when full, the internal tracklog wraps at 10000 points, but if set to log to card it keeps added to the card tacklog.

[planewood]

RE: GPX format on the MicroSD card.

 

If you go up to an earlier message here (post #30) you will see the contents of one of the gpx track files that my 60cx put on the card. That file took 2000 bytes worth of space for 13 points in a track. If the file was in binary format, it size probably could be around 200 bytes, or less.

 

Now, if Garmin will let Mapsource read/write track data to/from the MicroSD card, then I see no reason to use GPX format there on the card. Mapsource could convert it back and forth as it reads & writes the card.

 

If Garmin does not let Mapsource put track data on the card then I can better understand using the GPX format. (although a csv like format could also take up much less space)

 

So, do you want gpx formatted track files on the MicroSD card or do you want room for 10 times more tracks????

 

I would think the GPS unit probably would run faster using binary files. Also, Mapsource could screen out badly created gpx files and prevent such files from screwing up the gps unit.

 

If they would publish the binary format, then all the other programs floating around in GPS space could easily convert to it if those other programs wanted to write directly to the card through the USB port.

 

I vote for binary files. This concept could apply to Waypoints and POI's as well. Let Mapsource screen out the bad gpx files and use 10 times less space on the card.

[Neo_Geo]

I guess Garmin gets it that .gpx is becoming the standard format for GPS data. But I agree that a .txt would take up FAR less space and be a more efficient use of memory space.

[robertlipe]

This is true, Planewood. GPX (indeed, XML in general) is doubleplus unsmall.

 

But the portability and interoperability aspect of GPX has a substantial value. They can add features without breaking programs that are created (often at a substantial cost) to talk to those formats. GPX is now understood by almost 70 programs

 

Garmin does have at least one device in their lineup that you can actually plug in to your Linux, Mac, UnixWare, or Windows system, copy a pocket query to, then see waypoints appear on your screen. That's pretty nifty.

 

So while some might be some benefit to the cross country cyclists or month long backpacking crowd to have an option to save in a compressed format, the benefits to the masses of storing data in an open, documented, standard format is substantial.

[planewood]

This is true, Planewood. GPX (indeed, XML in general) is doubleplus unsmall.

 

But the portability and interoperability aspect of GPX has a substantial value. They can add features without breaking programs that are created (often at a substantial cost) to talk to those formats. GPX is now understood by almost 70 programs

 

Garmin does have at least one device in their lineup that you can actually plug in to your Linux, Mac, UnixWare, or Windows system, copy a pocket query to, then see waypoints appear on your screen. That's pretty nifty.

 

So while some might be some benefit to the cross country cyclists or month long backpacking crowd to have an option to save in a compressed format, the benefits to the masses of storing data in an open, documented, standard format is substantial.

 

Well, if Garmin is going to adopt 'Open' standards for storing gps stuff on their data cards, I sure wish they would publish those standards. And, I wish they would have done so before I bought this 60cx. Have to get your feet wet somehow, I guess. Still a fun little unit to play with!

[Neo_Geo]

I think no matter WHAT format they chose, they'd get an equal number of complaints from people saying it should be this format or that format.

 

 

Well, if Garmin is going to adopt 'Open' standards for storing gps stuff on their data cards, I sure wish they would publish those standards.

What...? You mean like THIS?

 

 

And, I wish they would have done so before I bought this 60cx.

You bought the unit BEFORE you even knew they were gonna be puttin' tracks on the MicroSD cards.

Edited March 18, 2006 by Neo_Geo

[+Campmaster]

I upgraded my 60CSx to the Beta 2.62, when checking the firmware version after the upgrade it shows:

 

Is this right?

 

~CMT

Edited March 18, 2006 by Campmaster

[+jotne]

Yes

[planewood]

I upgraded my 60CSx to the Beta 2.62, when checking the firmware version after the upgrade it shows:

 

Is this right?

 

~CMT

 

My 60cx shows GPS SW Version = 2.30. How does one know if that is up to date or not? It also shows BETA Software - 2.62

 

I could find nothing on the Garmin site regarding the SW Version.

[+dcfox]

One thing I liked, I have City Nav V7 NT that came with my SP 2720. I can now unlock my second unlock into the 60csx. I know, I spend to much on these toys.

Edited March 18, 2006 by dcfox

[+geofindr]

I upgraded my 60CSx to the Beta 2.62, when checking the firmware version after the upgrade it shows:

 

Is this right?

 

~CMT

 

My 60cx shows GPS SW Version = 2.30. How does one know if that is up to date or not? It also shows BETA Software - 2.62

 

I could find nothing on the Garmin site regarding the SW Version.

 

I think the GPS SW Version is the original version that was put into the machine at the factory. I could be wrong, though.

 

Just so the top version is the current one, that is important.

[planewood]

I went back to Version 2.6. Had some squirrely things going on.

[Neo_Geo]

Well, I had a problem sending my tracks to the computer today! Doing so crashed the MapSource program. The only thing I can figure is that I had three .gpx files on the data card. I was able to upload the tracks fine last night with only 2 files. I just turned the unit on for a minute today - long enough to get a lock and see if another .gpx file was created, and that was it.

 

I tried deleting one .gpx from the log, then I tried deleting them all. Oddly enough, the active log appeared to be full So maybe it is writing to the card AND the internal memory... Anyway, I tried clearing the active log (I had no saved tracks). Still, it would crash MapSource when uploading the tracks. I plugged in my 60C, and it worked just fine! Plugged my Cx back in, and it still crashed. I tried rebooting the computer - still crashed... So, I ended up doing a hard reset (Page+Entr+Power-on) and that fixed it. I spent a good part of the evening resetting my user preferences and loading waypoints and POIs. Maps and my owner information on the welcome screen were retained in the memory.

 

Looks like Garmin's got some more work to do...

Okay - I just learned that my problem was NOT caused by tracks! It was caused by a route that I created on the GPS containing nothing but custom POIs! MapSource just doesn't know how to handle the custom POIs yet, and that's okay because I know they'll come out with a MapSource update soon that will support 'em! So tracking appears to be tracking right on track! This is gonna be COOL!

[+GOT GPS?]

I noticed, that I can't select Custom POI on the Map Screen, but I can still select regular Map POI.

 

I like the idea of having tracklogs stored on the memory card, but I don't like having to remove that tiny card from the GPS. Very fragile card.

[toddm]

Well I hope they are listening, because the last two updates while certainly good, have not addressed some of the more serious issues.

 

The not being able to regain lock after loosing it again is a serious issue. Hopefully this is not a hardware issue and can be addressed with an update. This should certainly be a prime concern.

 

Savings tracks to the card is nice, it will really be nice for trying to map trails especially biking where you can cover a lot of twisty ground and the number of points was not nearly enough for longer trails, also for multiday hikes etc. That has been a sore spot in the past, so that is nice to see.

 

However things that should be simple and are very important to readability/useability of the mapping units have not been addressed yet. Two that come to mind right off the bat, is the ability to change the color of the current route, you can change the color of your tracks but not routes and if you are in an urban setting especially with a lot of interestates around the red/maroon route color can be very confusing.

 

Also they really need to change the night display map background to black, the dark blue they use now is very poor for contrast with features, pure black would be much better. It would make it much easier to read text under dark conditions.

 

Hopefully it is in the works already, and I give them a lot of credit to have 2 firmware updates out this fast is impressive, now if they would just take care of the things users are repeatedly asking for and having problems with, instead of things we've never heard of they'd be set

[+LandRover]

I have just noticed that after starting up my 60Csx if I select "Use with GPS Off" the "GPS is Off" dialog comes up but after a few minutes the "Poor Satellite Reception" box comes up again, I have it on in the basement w/o any reception which is why I selected use ith GPS off in the first place. I'm not sure if this is a 2.62 issue but I don't remember it doing this before I loaded 2.62.

[robertlipe]

Well I hope they are listening, because the last two updates while certainly good, have not addressed some of the more serious issues.

 

I would assume they are not listening to boards like this. If you consider a problem and want it to be heard by the correct combination of product managers and software engineers, you should confirm the problem in the beta and send a report to the given address.

 

That's what betas are for...

[+cron]

Same thing here about the "GPS off" coming back on by itself. I thought it was because I was sending data to the GPSr and it was kind of rebooting.

 

I'll test more tonight. If it's still doing it, I'll send a report to the beta email address.

[GeoBobC]

I'm still looking for an answer to a previously asked question in this post. (I cannot find it.) Can anyone say for certain whether or not it is possible to save an active track to the MSD card, and have the saved track retain all track points (i.e. more than the 500 limit which occurs when saving the active track to internal memory)?

[planewood]

I'm still looking for an answer to a previously asked question in this post. (I cannot find it.) Can anyone say for certain whether or not it is possible to save an active track to the MSD card, and have the saved track retain all track points (i.e. more than the 500 limit which occurs when saving the active track to internal memory)?

 

Bob - the way I think it works is like this. When you turn on 'Log Track to Data Card', it starts writing the track data to the card right then, regardless of whether your active track log is empty or not. It keeps writing to the card (even if you turn off the track log) until you uncheck the box for 'Log Track to Data Card'.

 

If you turn off 'Log Track to Data Log', then turn it back on, I think it starts a new file on the card.

 

You apparently can't SAVE the active track log to the card, per-se.

 

So, I think if you turn on both options at the same time, then when you turned off 'Log Track to Data Card', then the card would contain all track points up to that time. I think the filtering to the active track log is only done when you save the track log to the other memory.

 

This is what I think I observed.

[GeoBobC]

Thanks; that means the saved track should have all the data or at least all the points. That would be outstanding! I'm eager to try that out.

 

What do you think would happen if you load multiple "ACTIVE LOG xxx" tracks from Mapsource to a 60x? On the 60c it loads them into the active track log; they can then be viewed on the map page and saved (although it truncates to 500 points).

[+jaym]

Hmmmmmmm.

 

Wrap When Full in combination with FLASH memory sounds scary to me. Flash memory (IIRC) can only be written to like 1 million times or so. Granted that is still a LOT of tracks, but it would definately use up all the available times to be written to quicker than if it was just writing out a file every so often all at once.

 

Hmmmmmmm... wonder if flash has improved over the last couple years since I heard that and doesn't have that limit any longer... or if I heard incorrectly and that is each BIT can be flipped 1 million times or something. I wonder...

[+Red90]

I do not believe the wrapping happens on the card, it is for internal memory only. As I understand it, when 'Log Track to Data Card' is selected, it will keep ADDING the active log to the card until the card is full. At the same time, it is logging to internal memory and wrapping at 10000 points on the internal log ONLY.

[+jaym]

Either way... that still could be a lot of writes to the card if they're not grouped together when they are written.

 

Again though, I'm not sure if the million write max is valid anymore, if it ever was.

[Khetti]

Again though, I'm not sure if the million write max is valid anymore, if it ever was.

 

Even if it is: buy flash cards with lifetime warranty.

[GeoBobC]

If a user has set "Log track to internal memory" and gets to 9999 points, and then switches to "Log track to Data Card", do the previously recorded 9999 points get written to the card, or only the future 1 (10,000th)?

[planewood]

If a user has set "Log track to internal memory" and gets to 9999 points, and then switches to "Log track to Data Card", do the previously recorded 9999 points get written to the card, or only the future 1 (10,000th)?

 

Bob -

 

At the middle of a small trek I took, I turned on "Log Track to Data Card". When I took the card out and looked at it on my pc, only the 2nd part of the trek was in the file. The Active Log had all of the trek recorded.

[GeoBobC]

Ah ha. Therefore, I would assume there is no easy way to load a track from Mapsource to the card. It can be loaded from Mapsource to the Active log on the GPS, but from that point there is no way to save it to the card. The only way to get track points to the card is via active logging, correct?

[planewood]

Ah ha. Therefore, I would assume there is no easy way to load a track from Mapsource to the card. It can be loaded from Mapsource to the Active log on the GPS, but from that point there is no way to save it to the card. The only way to get track points to the card is via active logging, correct?

 

or, plug the MicroSD card into a USB port on a PC, via an adapter. The file that mine had was in the root directory of the card. Would make more sense if it was at least in a TRACKS directory.

 

I don't think I'd spend to much time figuring how this works in the BETA software. I get the distinct feeling that Garmin is struggling to figure out how to use the card. They'd probably let hell freeze over before they adopted Magellan's method!

 

ps - I got the cx because of WAAS, SiRF, and the MicroSD card; two of which I have not been able to use yet.

[+vaetanone]

I haven't tried using tracks (nor POI's) to the card yet with my 60CSx. Why not take the simple approach of making the card visible as a disc drive to the PC as my MP3 players do? In other words, don't re-invent the wheel, just implement a PC style file structure that all of us are familiar with.

[Neo_Geo]

That ability COULD possibly come in a future update. It could be that there's still work to do on that front, but they wanted to at least get us the ability to store the files on the card first. Then again, that may not be the case. Maybe we should just be thankful that they gave us this ability in the 1st place!

[planewood]

I haven't tried using tracks (nor POI's) to the card yet with my 60CSx. Why not take the simple approach of making the card visible as a disc drive to the PC as my MP3 players do? In other words, don't re-invent the wheel, just implement a PC style file structure that all of us are familiar with.

 

I wouldn't be opposed to using the MapSource program to read/write the sd card as long as I had control over where the data was put. At least that way MapSource could quality control the data before it gets written to the card. I would want nested levels of directories for most types of data. But have top level directories like MAP, WAYPOINT, TRACK, POI, CACHE that I could fill up to my hearts content. Garmin could publish their requirements as to what each class of data needs to look like.

 

I guess we need to be patient and see what they implement. Hopefully I'll be able to use WAAS and the SD card some day. I do realize that the positions of the WAAS satellites are out of their control.

[yeeoldcacher]

I haven't tried using tracks (nor POI's) to the card yet with my 60CSx. Why not take the simple approach of making the card visible as a disc drive to the PC as my MP3 players do? In other words, don't re-invent the wheel, just implement a PC style file structure that all of us are familiar with.

 

I wouldn't be opposed to using the MapSource program to read/write the sd card as long as I had control over where the data was put. At least that way MapSource could quality control the data before it gets written to the card. I would want nested levels of directories for most types of data. But have top level directories like MAP, WAYPOINT, TRACK, POI, CACHE that I could fill up to my hearts content. Garmin could publish their requirements as to what each class of data needs to look like.

 

I guess we need to be patient and see what they implement. Hopefully I'll be able to use WAAS and the SD card some day. I do realize that the positions of the WAAS satellites are out of their control.

I agree that WAAS is nice, but when I compare my 60Cx to my 60CS, in the same environment/time period, I get results like this.

 

Edited March 20, 2006 by yeeoldcacher

[GeoBobC]

Someone in another post http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=127012

wrote that "You'll save 95% of the time if you load your maps into your card using a reader instead of directly into the 60x. To load 512MB will only take about 10 minutes. Use mapsource and transfer directly to the card in the reader instead of the GPSr. It shows up as a device. That's how I put the City Select maps onto my 256MB card."

 

If that process works for maps, would it also work for tracks?