Cannot send waypoints to Etrex Legend

[+John Locke'N'Locke]

Hi folks,

 

I'm having a problem here with my Garmin Etrex Legend (Blue) running through a serial-to-USB adapter. The GPS can receive individual waypoints from the GC.com website, but I cannot send any waypoints to the GPSr with GSAK or EasyGPS.

 

Now here comes the strange part, EasyGPS can read the unit's firmware information. The GPS is recognized by Windows 7 as being on COM 2, but whenever I send waypoints to it in GSAK I get an error such as "Cannot init COM2", and in EasyGPS, only a handful of waypoints get sent before the transfer window disappears.

 

Any ideas?

[+pppingme]

Do you know what chipset is in your usb/serial adapter?

 

A lot of the "cheaper" ones exhibit all sorts of strange problems like this.

 

I don't recall the name off the top of my head, but there is one particular chipset that seems to work very well. The adapters that use it tend to be on the more expensive side though.

[+beejay&esskay]

When I first got my USB-serial converter, I had trouble also. (Although I think it worked with Mapsource.)

 

I went to the mfg website, downloaded the latest driver and everything has been OK since.

[+John Locke'N'Locke]

The adapter came from E-bay so unfortunately I can't easily identify the manufacturer of the adapter. The only identifying marks printed on it are the numbers "2303", it is teal colored with a silver mesh on the cable. The drivers I have loaded for it appear as "Prolific USB-to-Serial Comm Port" in Device Manager. So it sounds like I may have loaded some semi-functioning drivers?

[Keystone]

I am moving this thread from the Geocaching Topics forum to the GPS and Technology forum.

[+CacheFreakTim]

If you look though the posts in the forms here and on Garmins site you will see tons of posts for people having issues with those serial to USB adapters. Some have got them to work, while most end up giving up after spending hours of their life trying to get it to work. Sometimes its the drivers, other times who knows.

 

In the end the only ones that I have seen work every single time are the ones that have the serial to USB conversion done in the cable itself. This is the one I bought for my etrex and it works perfect. I have not seen one person buy this type of cable and have many issues. If you can't get it to work I can almost guarantee this cable will work with your Legend.

[+gelfling6]

I've run into the same problem, but it was mainly because Win-7 kind of forces you to install only 64-bit drivers if you have a 64-bit capable processor. Let's see... It's worth a shot, but... even though its not from the actual manufacturer, try the following driver:

 

http://www.parallax.com/tabid/530/Default.aspx

 

This is a universal installer for both the Prolific & FTDI USB to RS-232 adapters. (both 32-Bit & 64-bit)

Parallax is better known for their Basic Stamp micro-controllers, which still still despite the push to go USB, talk in old-school Serial. (RS-232C, sometimes even using the +/- voltages)

 

I've used this driver for a USB<-->RS-232C converter cable that came with my old VEX Robotics programmer kit, the USB<-->RS-232 cable that Best Buy sells under their Dynex label, and an old IO-Ware cable similar to the Dynex.

 

The main reason, Microsoft is no-longer supporting RS-232 Serial. More of the Upgrade, or DIE mentality. So... serial ports must be forced back into the OS.

 

Once the driver is installed, plug the cable in again, it should assign a serial port for the software to communicate to. (COM1, COM2, etc.. ) (my arduino sees its FTDI driver as COM12, and the VEX cable mentioned above is assigned COM6, dependant on which USB socket I plug them into.) you SHOULD be up & running again.. EasyGPS, you'll need to assign which serial port to talk to. (do not set it as USB, it will not recognize it. the Garmin setting is fairly generic across older models from the classic to the Legend & the Geko.)

 

Hope this helps! Stephen (gelfling6)

[+ruralslicker]

[quote name=CacheFreakTim' timestamp='1310790055' post='4777181'

In the end the only ones that I have seen work every single time are the ones that have the serial to USB conversion done in the cable itself. This is the one I bought for my etrex and it works perfect. I have not seen one person buy this type of cable and have many issues. If you can't get it to work I can almost guarantee this cable will work with your Legend.

 

I purchased the same cable (Kawa link above) a few weeks ago to connect my recently acquired Garmin (green) eTrex Venture. I'm on a Mac, and it has enabled me to charge the battery, and send pocket queries from MacCaching (similar to GSAK)using the 2303 Prolific driver. Unfortunately the Venture is not recognised on the computer desktop, so I can't use WebUpdater to update the firmware (which is my first priority).

 

I've also tried the cable on several friends PC's (I don't own a PC myself). Cable works similarly, but again the Venture doesn't show on the computer desktop, so can't install an 'exe firmware updater. Have simply run out of drivers to try . The Legend is a later model, so will probably work. Despite all this, I highly recommend getting this cable.

 

I've just downloaded the Parallex drivers (thanks gelfling6) - will give it a shot.

Edited July 16, 2011 by ruralslicker

[+John Locke'N'Locke]

I installed the Parallex drivers gelfling6 posted, however, unfortunately now the Legend and PC cannot talk to each other. Not even the Garmin Communicator Plug-in will find the GPS connected.

 

The thing that really puzzles me with this is that the Garmin plug-in for Firefox will work with the drivers I had (which I can't find the link for but they are Prolific drivers for Windows Vista from 2007. It took some googling and trial and error to find them the first time), and I can successfully send caches to the GPS that way 99% of the time.