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Magellan eXplorist 500 is Dead!


Mr.Moo

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We were out Geocaching a few weeks ago, when my Magellan eXplorist 500 LE died. It was sitting in the car's cup holder next to me, plugged in to the outlet. One moment I look at it and it is on, but the next time I look at it it is turned off. I try to turn it on, but it doesn't work. The battery was fully charged and it didn't work with fresh batteries either. I put AAAs in it, and when I pulled them out a few minutes later, they were really hot.

 

We emailed Magellan support and tried what they said. They said to do zoom out-goto-power, but that didn't do anything, neither did any other key commands found on the internet.

 

So, my question is, has anybody had this problem? Have you fixed it? The GPS is out of warranty, so Magellan won't fix it, so what do I do???

 

Help please!

 

-Mr.Moo

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Thanks to everybody who responded. I tried running it without the battery, but that didn't work. When it died, it had the rechargeable battery in it. And yes, an Oregon would be nice, but I have Magellan maps and don't want to pay for Garmin ones. I would rather get a Triton. I think maybe the GPS has a short circuit.

 

-Mr.Moo

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Having an exp 500 and a triton 400 and an Oregon 300, Ive found the triton 400 seems to be the most accurate with the oregon a close second as long as your in a clear area.

Magellan has pretty well gotten the bugs out of the triton with the last firmware upgrade.

I do love the touch screen on the Oregon though and the ease of reading the cache page and logs, which is much easier then the Triton or the exp.

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I also had an Explorer 600 that died (my fault unfortunately) but when I call up Magellan I told them it died when I was doing a firmware upgrade. They sent me a free Triton 500 (refurbed). I though that was pretty freaking awesome. I liked the Triton 500 so much I decide to pick up a new 1500. The accuracy is unbelievable. I Cache with a fellow Garmin user and I have to say the 1500 is a little more accurate as far as we can tell. 2000 caches, touch screen that you can actually read in direct sunlight, and with this latest firmware it runs like a champ. No lock-up, no battery pulls, I get 16 + hours on fresh (cheap) Eveready gold’s and I got street level and topo maps for $8 from this site http://www.maps4me.net/index.php?language=en. I have nothing against Garmin but I see so many problem threads on this site I wasn’t comfortable making the switch. We use the 500 as a backup now. I do like the compass feature now that I’ve started using it.

 

A lot of people on here say the Vantage Point software is a drawback but I just don’t see it. Maybe because I’m a technology guy and used to complete and total crap software but I thinks it’s so easy to use.

 

Also I run my PQ’s through this little Java applet and http://www.picosaan.de/app/spoilertogpx.jnlp it adds recent logs and cache size for almost 100% paperless caching (no field notes).

 

All in all I’m super happy with the Tritons. They weren’t always this solid I’ll admit and they did get a bad rap but as of now I have no complaints.

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When you get the Triton make sure it has the latest firmware in it, also you'll need vantage point to load caches, maps, and firmware upgrades

Now that is a problem. Being a Mac user (and glad about it too!), I would like to avoid pulling out the PC whenever I can. I know that Vantage Point is Windows only and I will have to use it to load maps. On the eXplorist, I just took out the SD card and put it in a card reader attached to my computer. That way I could just drag the Geocache files to the Geocache folder on the card. Will that work on the Triton?

 

-Mr.Moo

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Now that is a problem. Being a Mac user (and glad about it too!), I would like to avoid pulling out the PC whenever I can. I know that Vantage Point is Windows only and I will have to use it to load maps. On the eXplorist, I just took out the SD card and put it in a card reader attached to my computer. That way I could just drag the Geocache files to the Geocache folder on the card. Will that work on the Triton?

 

-Mr.Moo

 

As far as I know, and someone correct me if I'm wrong. The ONLY way to get geocaches on a Triton is to use Vantage Point. One of the many reasons I recommend against the Triton.

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<!--quoteo(post=4158111:date=Dec 14 2009, 06:16 PM:name=Mr.Moo)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mr.Moo @ Dec 14 2009, 06:16 PM) 4158111[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->

Now that is a problem. Being a Mac user (and glad about it too!), I would like to avoid pulling out the PC whenever I can. I know that Vantage Point is Windows only and I will have to use it to load maps. On the eXplorist, I just took out the SD card and put it in a card reader attached to my computer. That way I could just drag the Geocache files to the Geocache folder on the card. Will that work on the Triton?

 

-Mr.Moo

<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

 

As far as I know, and someone correct me if I'm wrong. The ONLY way to get geocaches on a Triton is to use Vantage Point. One of the many reasons I recommend against the Triton.

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<!--quoteo(post=4157746:date=Dec 14 2009, 12:16 PM:name=vagabond)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(vagabond @ Dec 14 2009, 12:16 PM) 4157746[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->

When you get the Triton make sure it has the latest firmware in it, also you'll need vantage point to load caches, maps, and firmware upgrades

<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Now that is a problem. Being a Mac user (and glad about it too!), I would like to avoid pulling out the PC whenever I can. I know that Vantage Point is Windows only and I will have to use it to load maps. On the eXplorist, I just took out the SD card and put it in a card reader attached to my computer. That way I could just drag the Geocache files to the Geocache folder on the card. Will that work on the Triton?

 

-Mr.Moo

 

I got the Triton 2000, and I'm a Mac user as well. Big mistake! Although it's a great GPS, it offers virtually no support for Macs unless you have Parallels, and that's a pain in itself.

 

I sold mine and got the Oregon (450, but any Oregon or Dakota 20 is great right now) and I am much happier with it, while the Triton took about half an hour to load 1000 caches, my Oregon downloaded 1500 caches in about 10 seconds.

 

Oregon you just drag and drop, or use the Magellan Basecamp software. Also the amount of free maps is great, and I have Google Maps-quality on the GPS right now.

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Yeah you can load a single cache from GC, but try loading a 1000 cache pq and see how long it takes, and how it has to be loaded.

 

I've been a Triton user for a few years and as bad as I hate to say this - if you're a Happy Mac User, you won't be a Happy Triton User! Also, for the price you paid for the Triton 500, you can get a new eXplorist eX-Series for just a little more with your trade-in.

 

For Triton trade-in: (400 and 1500 and I would assume 300,500, and 2000)

Explorist 510 = $139

Explorits 610 = $179

Explorits 710 = $219

 

So far we know that for Older Magellan units:(sport track map, sport track color, 2000xl)

Explorist 610 = $269.

 

These were the going prices last time I checked and all of these units will work great with your Mac. You can load them directly by dragging and dropping the GPX files to them, since you'll show up as a USB drive - or you can load the GPX file onto the Micro SD card. For the PC users, yes, you can also use Vantage Point and they also works with GSAK.

 

Like I said, I've been a long time Triton user, but after testing the eX610 for Magellan and now having a eX710 - they are awesome GPSrs and I believe you'll be very pleased with it after being an prior eXplorist user.

 

David

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