GPS Repairs

[+Louise_Gerhard]

During my recent trip to Lesotho my GPS decided that enough is enough. It was so irritating to hear “Lost Satellite reception, Recalculating” - about every 15 minutes. Last Friday she refused to co-operate and she lost reception every 5 minutes and I was ready to throw it out of the window.

 

As I got to work I decided it is time for major open heart surgery. This lady was stripped and everything was examined. The major fault was found on the little flap. On the one side a miniature plug and socket idea was used. But due to the movement of opening a closing the lid this little plug was loose from the antenna board. I resoldered this with a lot of problems. Age is setting in and I have a slight shake of the hand so I had to us two hands. One hand was used to hold the soldering iron and the other one was used to hold the hand that holds the soldering iron. It is hell to get old. Than with one artisan trying to put the solder where I want it to be; we gave it our best shot. Luckily this soldering was done under a magnifying glass with illumination.

 

We then powered her up and we found one resistor getting slightly warm so we started from scratch. With some pain staking movements this was removed and we resoldered one with a higher wattage in its place. Anything that heats up with this GPS will cause instability. We then rechecked all soldering and I found about 4 joints that were not looking too healthy. This was redone. Everything was assembled and one of my artisans than asked me if it is going to be the same as before. Ok, if this operation was fatal for this lady then I will find a new lady companion. But if it works then it saved me about R5000 for a substitute so it is worth the risk.

 

We powered her up and went outside and she was giving me 3 meters accuracy. It had me puzzled for awhile; before she was always giving me at an accuracy of 4 metres. So I took her for a drive. Even the voice sounds better and she is giving on average a reading of about 4 meters but on regular intervals she will go down to 3 meters. This is a new thing in my life and while driving home to Ermelo it felt so good to see this 3 meter accuracy. This is a new thing in my life.

 

I am so keen to use her in some difficult terrain to see how she performs but she is responding better than the day I bought her. So cachers I am off to Bloemfontein soon with a lady that received a face lift and you are now in trouble. Gerhard

 

[+the pooks]

Gerhard - I am impressed...

 

I played around with electronic bits and pieces a while ago (Yebo is a great electronics shop for the hobbyist) but it became a pain because I can't see anymore (the spectacles are not strong enough). They sell a "helping hands" which is a cute thing with a magnifying glass and crocodile clips that helps a bit, but as you say, your own hands shake, which does not help.

 

I have a Magellan Explorist 500 that does what is needed for geocaching, but some of the buttons are all but dead - you have to press and poke for ages and hopefully they will respond. I have opened the unit up and tried to clean the interfaces but it helps for a short time at best.

 

Amazing that many electronic gadgets fail on the macro level (switches and connections) while the micro stuff still survives.

 

Good one

[+Louise_Gerhard]

Pooks, there is thing that stays in my mind. If this was taken in for repair – what were the expected repair costs, this one is now considered redundant so probably I was in for a new one.

 

This quest 2 just came onto the market when I bought it for R7400 – nogal ‘n lekker “special” daardie tyd. At the end of its life it was about R4500. My wife with her Nuvi at R1700 has extremely high sensitivity. But this lady and I have travelled so many places that we have a special bond and till death we part. Gerhard

[+malo mystery]

A story of great service - Avnic, of how it should be done.

 

On Sunday my GPS (Nuvi 205) decided enough was enough - the slide switch would switch the unit on, but not unlock the screen, and so it was constantly telling me to slide the switch to the left, but after several cachers trying the obvious, we gave up.

 

On Monday morning I took it in to Avnic. David? checked up on system to confirm it was still under warranty ( amazing in this day when suppliers often want proof of purchase and as well as original packaging how many tv, kettle etc boxes am I supposed to store around the house ? and why? )) He had a quick look at the unit and after a few minutes told me that it was a fault with the switch and that the switch was connected to the main board and so the whole unit would have to be replaced.

 

He filled in a form and took my details asking if he could have the replacement unit delivered? ( part of their service) - no thanks I will collect it is only a few minutes drive for me. He gave me a card with a reference if I needed to check up on anything.

 

Q. When will it be ready? -

A. By the weekend, probably by Thursday, they dont carry the units in stock.

 

Q. What about all my maps etc that I had loaded? surely the registration numbers I used to unlock the maps wont work again?

A. Bring a 2G micro card ( cards 4G and higher are HC - high capacity, and are sometimes a problem) and he would help me sort it out.

 

Thursday morning I get a call to say the unit is ready for collection. I go collect it on Thursday afternoon. he checks to see what maps I had loaded, loads them onto the new SD card and away I go, brand new unit in hand, extremely happy with service and ready for a few more caches.

 

It is quite unusual to get such "no questions asked" speedy service, and quite sad that when we do that it feels so good and stands out from the usual lousy service that seems the norm.

 

Thanks Avnic/Garmin for the 10 out of 10 service. Simple, quick and efficient, will keep me as a customer.