gpsmap 66s bugs?

[+Wild-Skye]

Just bought a Garmin gpsmap66s and wish I hadn't bothered.  I was happy enough with etrex 20 till the rubber on the buttons disintegrated.  Anyway - can anyone advise --

1) the 66s  keeps turning itself off for no apparent reason

2) It seems to eat batteries - I only got it on Friday (it is now Monday) and haven't seriously used it yet - just trying to set it up and understand it -- but have gone through 4 sets of batteries - on my fifth.  4/5 sets were good quality alkaline.  The fifth set (just now re-charging) are brand new panasonic eneloop rechargeables ( and yes I did ensure they were fully charged before use).  Have followed advice from other online sources and turned off wifi and blue tooth etc.  But then I think what is the point of spending money to get a device with all these fancy attributes if then it becomes unusable in the field because the batteries don't last 2 minutes?

[+mikeD]

Thoughts

Is the unit software up to date? Out of the box the unit will unlikely have the latest.  Go to Garmin Express

 

Another thing to try is to ensure the backlight is at 0%  and set backlight timeout  to say  30 sec  just in case  you do use it

In practice I rarely use the backlight.

 

I have timed my AA Eneloops life  at 14 hours or so.  Just on and active

I certainly get 8-9 hours plus if I am out and about and using all the pages, navigating  etc

 

I can also recommend a fast USB fed  AA charger from Amazon  "EBL"  about GB£14..  Does 2 AA batts in 40 mins

 

 

[+Wild-Skye]

Thanks Mike D - updating firmware - done that - yes there was an update but now tells me I have latest - no difference.

Backlight -I felt I needed it but will try 30 secs .  Planning to have another play tomorrow .

Charger -- maybe further down the line - have overspent already on device (and on new batteries and talky toaster maps) so for now will use a duracell charger which eneloop say is OK

Have you ever used the Birds eye imagery "in the field"?  I want to do this (for archaeology not for geocaching) but think it will use more battery power

[+mikeD]

Yes I have. Results are variable. Sometimes good sometimes not

The definition is not as good as Google earth on an iPhone. It also depends on the ground you are looking at. Open land will be better I guess. I doubt if the images will make much difference to the battery, I think it is having the backlight fired up is the killer.

When I am out I hardly use the backlight. Keep it on 0%  ( dab the power key, then + or - to vary the % if you haven't found that yet)

I use talkytoaster  here in Uk, good value maps)

 

[_Art_]

Birdseye is JPEG in Basecamp and the device, but the device displays RGB565. 32 shades for red & blue, 64 shades for green. All of those include black as a shade.

 

 

[+Wild-Skye]

12 hours ago, mikeD said:

 

When I am out I hardly use the backlight. Keep it on 0%  ( dab the power key, then + or - to vary the % if you haven't found that yet)

I use talkytoaster  here in Uk, good value maps)

 

one of reasons I chose this device was the buttons - touch screens not good in extreme weather conditions .  Most keys on 66s are good  but I find the on/off power key a pain in the neck -- I need to take gloves off to use it -- which sort of defeats the object of buying this model.  Also my last device died through the switches getting worn out ( after almost 10 years!) - I worry that over frequent and unnecessary use of power key will shorten life of this one.  That is main reason why I want the screen on pretty well all the time -- I would be looking a the screen at least once per minute so don't want to have to remove gloves (in winter) to turn on/ off

[+Wild-Skye]

11 hours ago, _Art_ said:

Birdseye is JPEG in Basecamp and the device, but the device displays RGB565. 32 shades for red & blue, 64 shades for green. All of those include black as a shade.

 

 

thanks for reply but I am afraid I don't really understand it

[_Art_]

Your computer or iPhone will display each pixel with 255 possible shades of red, 255 possible shades of blue, and 255 possible shades of green.

Mixing those values is how every other colour is produced.

[+Viajero Perdido]

Find the battery-type setting and make sure it matches the cells you're using.

 

Getting this mis-matched could have the unit reporting "nearly dead!" when there's lots of power left, or vice versa.

[+Geofogies]

What is the mah rating of your batteries? I use 1900-2100 on my GPS MAP 64. 

[+Henne1312]

I use the 2450 mAh Ladda-batteries sold by Ikea.

[+luvvinbird]

On 3/15/2019 at 1:42 PM, Henne1312 said:

I use the 2450 mAh Ladda-batteries sold by Ikea.

I purchased a 4-pack of those batteries for $9.99 (CDN). The minimum rating of 2450 mAh, the 500 recharging cycles and the fact that they're made in Japan sounded very familiar to me. Hmmm.....

[+Henne1312]

1 hour ago, luvvinbird said:

I purchased a 4-pack of those batteries for $9.99 (CDN). The minimum rating of 2450 mAh, the 500 recharging cycles and the fact that they're made in Japan sounded very familiar to me. Hmmm.....

 

Same with me https://www.slrlounge.com/panasonic-eneloop-vs-ikea-ladda-are-they-the-same/

The 4-pack costs 6,49 EUR here in germany, 4-pack Eneloop pro is 14 EUR...

[+luvvinbird]

5 hours ago, Henne1312 said:

 

Same with me https://www.slrlounge.com/panasonic-eneloop-vs-ikea-ladda-are-they-the-same/

The 4-pack costs 6,49 EUR here in germany, 4-pack Eneloop pro is 14 EUR...

Thanks for that link. Very interesting. I just might buy a couple more packs, lol.

[+oldkingog]

I am on my 3rd 66s and each of them has been very buggy: many crashes/powering off; bad battery life; total elevation gain/loss during a trip way off; etc.  I was hoping firmware 2.5 would help, but the only difference I have noticed is that it now won't crash when trying to delete all waypoints.  Doesn't seem like a hardware issue.  It's discouraging that there has only been one firmware update since August 2018.

[+Atlas Cached]

55 minutes ago, oldkingog said:

I am on my 3rd 66s and each of them has been very buggy: many crashes/powering off; bad battery life; total elevation gain/loss during a trip way off; etc.  I was hoping firmware 2.5 would help, but the only difference I have noticed is that it now won't crash when trying to delete all waypoints.  Doesn't seem like a hardware issue.  It's discouraging that there has only been one firmware update since August 2018.

 

Why would you repeatedly replace your GPSMAP 66 with another identical unit running the same software and expect different results?

 

I suspect another update will be available very soon, with addition bug fixes and functionality enhancements.

[+dprovan]

49 minutes ago, Atlas Cached said:

Why would you repeatedly replace your GPSMAP 66 with another identical unit running the same software and expect different results?

Are you suggesting we give up on the GPSMAP 66?

[+oldkingog]

1 hour ago, Atlas Cached said:

 

Why would you repeatedly replace your GPSMAP 66 with another identical unit running the same software and expect different results?

 

I suspect another update will be available very soon, with addition bug fixes and functionality enhancements.

That's the advice I keep getting from Garmin support.  They say that the engineers can't duplicate my issues with their devices.

[+RecipeForDisaster]

Ditto here. I haven't had good luck with "search near" working, for instance... I select a spot 50 miles away and the Geocache search stilll centers on my current location. Geocaching live is not always trustworthy. I'll download select caches using it while at home online, and they show up in "recent finds" but not in the list of caches nor on the map once I'm offline and in the field (I can navigate to one at a time using recent find but not see them in relation to each other-when navigating, only the one I'm heading to shows on the map). "Search near" using geocaching live while online hasn't worked, only showing caches I have already downloaded and not any just outside my PQ range. 

 

I have other problems but these are the ones I am seeking most help with, and Garmin says they can't duplicate these.

 

 

[robertlipe]

On 3/17/2019 at 11:05 AM, Henne1312 said:

Same with me https://www.slrlounge.com/panasonic-eneloop-vs-ikea-ladda-are-they-the-same/

Good reference.  (And this is perhaps worthy of punting to another thread...)  There's a site I use when explaining more about that class of battery, their re-badges, and their counterfeits than most people ever want to know: https://eneloop101.com/  It uses Amazon referral links extensively, but the info seems solid. Their page on fakes is lengthy.

If you want to see a real race to the bottom for fakes, look at the cheap battery packs which invariably use 18650's, the cells used in everything from Nuvi to laptops to Teslas. I've seen too many reviews of "bargain" products that do a teardown and then find that only half the cells are even real with the rest actually filled with sand so they feel about the right weight if you're picking them up.

Be careful out there!

[+Hynz]

3 hours ago, robertlipe said:

Be careful out there!

Thanks a lot for this and also all your other postings with in-depth GPS information. It's always an interesting read for me.

[+Wild-Skye]

On 3/12/2019 at 2:20 PM, mikeD said:

Thoughts

Is the unit software up to date? Out of the box the unit will unlikely have the latest.  Go to Garmin Express

 

Another thing to try is to ensure the backlight is at 0%  and set backlight timeout  to say  30 sec  just in case  you do use it

In practice I rarely use the backlight.

 

I have timed my AA Eneloops life  at 14 hours or so.  Just on and active

I certainly get 8-9 hours plus if I am out and about and using all the pages, navigating  etc

 

I can also recommend a fast USB fed  AA charger from Amazon  "EBL"  about GB£14..  Does 2 AA batts in 40 mins

 

 

Finally bought an "intelligent" charger -- brilliant - it really lets me know to what degree batteries are charged, turns itself off when done (individually for any one of 4 batteries)  and also tells me  if they should just be dumped as past it

[+Atlas Cached]

4 hours ago, Wild-Skye said:

Finally bought an "intelligent" charger -- brilliant - it really lets me know to what degree batteries are charged, turns itself off when done (individually for any one of 4 batteries)  and also tells me  if they should just be dumped as past it

 

Which model did you get? I have a couple, they are both so much better than a generic charger!

[+Wild-Skye]

On 5/6/2019 at 1:09 AM, Atlas Cached said:

 

Which model did you get? I have a couple, they are both so much better than a generic charger!

Apologies for delay in replying ( I don';t seem to notified when there is an update in this forum and don't check regularly)  I bought Panasonic BQ CC55.  am really chuffed with it 1) told me some of my batteries just needed dumping 2) I can clearly see how much an individual battery has charged (any one out of four) and don't need to worry abut overcharging.  In spite of clever charger, I am still disappointed in battery usage of gpsmap  66s ( and I am using brand new eneloop batteries)