+rscotth Posted February 21, 2008 Share Posted February 21, 2008 (edited) I have always been a Garmin user. I recently bought a Magellan 500LE to basically learn a new system. I like the unit except (for the short battery life compared to my Legend C) I cannot zoom in closer than 100 feet, as opposed to my legend that will let me zoom down to 20'. Is there anything I can do to allow me to zoom in further? All I can do now is set a distance and watch this to zero in on a poi. RSH Edited February 21, 2008 by rscotth Quote Link to comment
+hogrod Posted February 21, 2008 Share Posted February 21, 2008 Is there anything I can do to allow me to zoom in further? as far as I remember no, there is no way to zoom any farther than 100ft with that GPS. Quote Link to comment
+rscotth Posted February 21, 2008 Author Share Posted February 21, 2008 Thanks for the reply- I was hoping it was operator error. It makes me wonder why such a nice unit is so limited in this area. What's the point of having the WAAS enabled if a person can only see a 100' scan? Looks like Garmin wins my vote again as even the low end e-trex can zoom to the 20' range. RSH Quote Link to comment
+the pooks Posted February 21, 2008 Share Posted February 21, 2008 I tend to use the goto and then switch to the compass screen when I want to get really close to something (like a cache). The reading there is to 1 metre (not saying the accuracy is one m, but the unit is as good as any on accuracy). Quote Link to comment
+J10fly Posted February 21, 2008 Share Posted February 21, 2008 yeah that's as far as you can go...btw watch out for the charging connector on the back. Mine is now stripped out without a way to charge it now. Quote Link to comment
vagabond Posted February 21, 2008 Share Posted February 21, 2008 yeah that's as far as you can go...btw watch out for the charging connector on the back. Mine is now stripped out without a way to charge it now. buy the swivel mount the cord clips into the back and the gps will clip into the front of the mount make a nice set up for desk charging Quote Link to comment
vagabond Posted February 21, 2008 Share Posted February 21, 2008 (edited) I like the unit except (for the short battery life compared to my Legend C) I cannot zoom in closer than 100 feet, You can find the li-on batteries on line for less then $15.00 they last way longer then the aaas use the goto and your compass rose when cache hunting when you get close, my 500 has zeroed out on many caches that way. Edited February 21, 2008 by vagabond Quote Link to comment
+T F T C Posted February 21, 2008 Share Posted February 21, 2008 just use the compass Quote Link to comment
+JohnnyVegas Posted February 21, 2008 Share Posted February 21, 2008 I also use the compass screen on my Explorist 500, I like the explorist 500 so much I just bought a new 500LE to replace my stolen explorist 500. I think every caches I have found has been with the compass screen. When I started geocaching my old Garmin did not even have a map screen, most GPSrs then did not evan have map screen options. I did have a garim with a map screen once and I tried using the map screen to locate a cache, what a PITA that was, I think the compass screen is a lot easier to use. As far as the batteries for the Explorist 500, get one of the Lithium Ion batteries, but be aware there are some versions of the batteries that are only rated at 900mAh, they will work but they will not last as long as the 1200mAh version, but then again the 900mAh verison are 95 cents Quote Link to comment
+Walt Jabsco Posted February 22, 2008 Share Posted February 22, 2008 The motorola SNN5595B battery is rated at 1100mAh, a little less than the Magellan's 1300mAh, but I haven't noticed a big difference between the two. Except the price for the motorola is a lot cheaper Quote Link to comment
+J10fly Posted February 23, 2008 Share Posted February 23, 2008 yeah that's as far as you can go...btw watch out for the charging connector on the back. Mine is now stripped out without a way to charge it now. buy the swivel mount the cord clips into the back and the gps will clip into the front of the mount make a nice set up for desk charging hmmm i didnt know that. Good idea! Thanks...saves me sending it back and waiting for who knows how long to get the gps back. Quote Link to comment
+user13371 Posted February 24, 2008 Share Posted February 24, 2008 ...Magellan 500LE ... Is there anything I can do to allow me to zoom in further?...Yes, but it isn't very useful and I couldn't tell you quite how to do it A few years back when I was an avid Magellan user (pre-Explorist, y'know, when they made GOOD models like the Map 330, SporTrak Pro, etc...), I wrote a short program to de-compile (and re-compile) the basemap. Originally the idea was to strip out layers I didn't need to make a smaller base map for limited-memory models. One of the base map components was a text configuration file with lots of details about how the GPS worked. Included a string of numbers defining zoom levels. I added an extra number at the low end -- and when I recompiled the map and uploaded it, I had a 50 foot zoom level. It worked - but was practically useless. Zooming in that closely unmasked the amount of variation between one fix and the next, so the position pointer would jitter around quite a bit on screen. So to answer the OP topic "why can't I...?" -- it just doesn't work very well! Quote Link to comment
+GOT GPS? Posted February 24, 2008 Share Posted February 24, 2008 Since 1998 I have had many Magellans, and they were all limited to 100 feet, that I can remember. Quote Link to comment
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