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Garmin 60cs Not Working Properly


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When I select a waypoint and go to off road, the GPS does not know where it is or where I am going. This morning as a test I took my Magellan SporTrak Pro and my new 60CS. I entered the same waypoint in each and started to walk. The Magellan immediately started to point in the direction I needed to go. The Garmin needle did not move for about 30 paces. When I changed direction the Magellan immediately adjusted to my new direction. Again the Garmin was slow to pick up my new direction. This seems to happed all the time making it almost impossible to find a cache with the new machine. When I contacted Garmin I was advised that I needed to calibrate the compass. That at speeds below 10 mph the 60CS does not use satellites to guide the user, but uses the compass. This sounds like B*ll Sh*t to me, especially since most users turn off the compass feature to save power. :rolleyes:

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That at speeds below 10 mph the 60CS does not use satellites to guide the user, but uses the compass. This sounds like B*ll Sh*t to me, especially since most users turn off the compass feature to save power. :rolleyes:

If your assertion is true, most 60CS owners should be 60C owners instead.

 

By default the magnetic compass on the 60CS doesn't light up until you have been under 10mph for 90 consecutive seconds. It turns off immediately once you've reach 10mph. You can adjust these thresholds. When the compass is off, of course it uses GPS tracking to compute heading. When the unit is GPS tracking, it does need to collect successive fixes to see where you're moving, just like the Magellan does. I agree that it's a little bit groggier than a Magellan until it makes that flip, but this really only matters for the "pick up the GPS, jump out of the car, start walking to a cache thta's within 90 seconds of the car" cachers. If the switchover points are troublesome to you, go into setup and change them.

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What you say may be true, but this is a continuous problem with my GPS. It not only has a problem finding itself when I jump out of the car, but continues all the way to the waypoint. It does not seem to know when I change direction ever. Please advise how to adjust this threshold in setup so I can see if this makes a difference. Thanks

 

:rolleyes:

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One quick question. On the Map Setup Page, do you have "LOCK ON ROAD" set to "YES"? This caused funky operation on my 76C when operating off road. Seemed to lag my direction changes by an excessivly long time. Turning this option off helped quite a bit. Don't know anything about the CS versions but you might check anyway. Just a thought.

 

Cache Well

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I had the same problem with my 60 CS - until I remembered that I needed to calibrate the compass. You'll need to calibrate the compass every time you change the batteries.

 

Also, to change the settings for when the compass 'kicks in' do the following:

 

Hit Menu button twice

Select Setup icon

Select Heading icon

Settings are located at bottom of screen with options for "Switch to compass heading when below: __ mph for more than __ seconds"

 

The blanks represent the settings you define. Default is 10 mph for more than 90 seconds.

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I already have reset mine to 0 mph for 30 seconds so that is not the issue.

I don't believe that is the best setting. I never walk 0 miles per hour. I think you may want to change that setting to 10 mph. Other wise you would have to be stopped for 30 sec for the compass to kick in. I have a 60cs and I believe I have experienced this same thing.

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Just one other thought that may help - I 'follow road' until I get out of the car and then I 'recalculate' to 'off road' . You do this by hitting menu from the compass screen and selecting recalculate. You'll need to have your routing setup set to "prompted" to get the on road/off road choices. Good luck!

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Tried all of the above. Didn't make a difference. It took up to 30' for my GPS to recognize that I had changed directions. This wasn't all the time, but the majority of the time. The least it took was 15 feet and whenever it made an adjustment the compass needle would move in a jerky motion as if it was stuck. :o

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Well I'm glad I'm not going crazy here. I actually have the 60C and after flashing to 3.50 I have that problem (whereas I didn't have it or maybe just didn't notice it before).

 

Granted, since the update I've only sought 1 cache but it was really bizarre to see my distance decrease yet have the arrow point the opposite direction.

 

Doesn't sound like a compass problem to me then...sounds like the makings of a firmware issue.

 

I'll be out this weekend hitting a few more (sorry, can't get out until then) but I'll pay close attention to it and report back if the problem hasn't been solved by then.

Jim

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I can tell you that it is very frustrating. Sometimes my GPS would jump as much as 100' at a time. I looked for 6 caches on saturday and with my new fancy GPS only found 1 and that one because I noticed something out of place about 30' ahead. When I used my older GPS I would find caches at least 95% of the time. :o

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I can tell you that it is very frustrating. Sometimes my GPS would jump as much as 100' at a time. I looked for 6 caches on saturday and with my new fancy GPS only found 1 and that one because I noticed something out of place about 30' ahead. When I used my older GPS I would find caches at least 95% of the time. :o

Slow down. You're now describing a completely different problem.

 

I spent the weekend hunting with a 60CS flashed to 3.50. The symptom you're describing below sounds much like the unit losing lock. (Contrary to a popular opinion here,this unit does *not* instantly report lost lock in my experience.) If, for whatever reason, the compass isn't active (indicated by the little radiating star thingy in the status line) and you're advancing on foot in some non-contrived direction in a direction toward the cache and you observe a jump of a hundred feet, you can be pretty sure the GPS didn't have lock for 95 of those hundred feet.

 

If your compass is active and you see hte indicator spinning reasonably but the distance remaining constant, then you've still lost lock, but the compass is working. This can be quite a head-screw until you learn to recognize the symptoms.

 

Setting the compass threshold at 0 mph for 30 seconds is almost certainly not what you want. This means the mag compass will remain disabled until you've remained stationary for 30 consecutive seconds and any motion at all will put it back on GPS course. As I described earlier (and was reiterated by another poster) this is probably not what you want. If you're going to rely on GPS course instead of the mag compass, you're going to have to accept motion to derive bearing. The only way it can derive motion is from successive position fixes. If you're seeing position fixes a hundred feet apart, your life will be bad.

 

(I found a mere 118 this weekend with a 60CS. Well, 117 since I had to get the Magellan out to get one...)

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and after making your settings changes make sure the ecompass is not still on - it may be. press and hold page to turn the ecompass on and off - calibrate the compass. it matters. if you still have problems with it monitor the satellite page as you walk to see if you're receiving sats ok.

 

and re 0mph for 30secs - it actually when "below" 0mph for 30 secs - so the ecompass never turns on unless you enable it manually. it's not a bad setting - use mine that way all the time.

 

when i'm nearing the cache but still moving at 2-3 mph i'm using gps compass - when i'm right on the cache i switch on the ecompass so i can get a direction as i stand there - might be able to see it :o

Edited by Vlad
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Little trick I learned that may or may not help you.

 

I change the data fields on my Compass and map screens to show "GPS Accuracy"

 

I notice that field will go immediately blank when the GPS loses its signal -- LONG before the unit comes up with a "Signal Lost" warning.

 

Helps me to keep my sanity. I see that field go blank I know immediately I've lost my signal.

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I tested with all the suggested changes last night.  No improvement.  I also checked my satellites.  The accuracy according to my GPS said 16'.

Have you tried a hard reset of the unit?

 

I don't know the key combinatino on the C60 but I had problems like you're describing on my GPSV once and resetting it via the button-push combination did the trick.

 

There was also a key combo that ran a series of diagnostic checks/screens.

 

edit: Meant to say "master reset'

Edited by jollybgood
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I sent my ailing unit back to Garmin. Today I received a replacement. The invoice states that they were able to duplicate my problems, but were unable to make my GPS function properly so they sent me a new unit. It's nice to work with a company that fixes or replaces items rather than denying that there is anything wrong.

 

:lol:

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I sent my ailing unit back to Garmin. Today I received a replacement. The invoice states that they were able to duplicate my problems, but were unable to make my GPS function properly so they sent me a new unit. It's nice to work with a company that fixes or replaces items rather than denying that there is anything wrong.

 

:lol:

Yeah, but it makes US look bad if we can't solve it for you!!! :(

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I spent the weekend hunting with a 60CS flashed to 3.50. The symptom you're describing below sounds much like the unit losing lock. (Contrary to a popular opinion here,this unit does *not* instantly report lost lock in my experience.) If, for whatever reason, the compass isn't active (indicated by the little radiating star thingy in the status line) and you're advancing on foot in some non-contrived direction in a direction toward the cache and you observe a jump of a hundred feet, you can be pretty sure the GPS didn't have lock for 95 of those hundred feet.

 

Every Garmin unit I've ever used has taken roughly 30 seconds to "Report a lost lock", they will dead reckon in a straight line until then. The big difference to me is that you will almost instantly notice the problem due to the way the compass behaves, and by the lack of speed changes/input etc. With the magellan units, they too dead reckon for about the same lenght of time, but use a different type filtering than the Garmin units. They tend to smooth out the jumping in the display, but result in lags and position errors of anywhere from 75 to 150 feet that take several minutes, or a power reset to correct.

 

As far as the original problem, in my experience the Garmin unit display should be more responsive, some might even say jumpy. For most caches where I used a sportrak and etrex together, with the etrex I would use the compass pointer and continuous movement to get to the cache as the pointer was very responsive. Because of the different behavior of the sportrak, I would let it sit for a bit, then use a magnetic compass to zero out. Which method is better probably depends more on your "Style" and individual preference than anything else.

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