+greengolftee87 Posted February 17, 2005 Share Posted February 17, 2005 I have a 3 or 4 year old visor platinum that i use for caching. I use cache mate and have a 60cs with a serial bare wire data cable. I would really like to put the two togather for my spring break trip to florida but i cat seem to make cachemate talk to the 60cs. i looked at cables online for visors and on one particular site they mentioned that it would work on all visors except the platinum. Does that make sense?? can anyone tell me how to set this up?? Quote Link to comment
+Marky Posted February 17, 2005 Share Posted February 17, 2005 the 60cs talks USB, right? I didn't know there was a serial bare wire cable that works with it. Then again, I don't own one so what do I know. --Marky Quote Link to comment
+greengolftee87 Posted February 17, 2005 Author Share Posted February 17, 2005 the 60cs talks USB, right? I didn't know there was a serial bare wire cable that works with it. Then again, I don't own one so what do I know. --Marky the 60c and 60cs support both mini usb and serial interfaces, the only way to get it to talk to a palm is serial but i could be wrong Quote Link to comment
+Learned Gerbil Posted February 17, 2005 Share Posted February 17, 2005 (edited) The problem with the Visor is is that althought it supports a serial connection, many PDAs do not fully implement the RS232 standard due to power constraints. There are ways round this which work in some cases, such as the special leads which most Clies need. Most Visors can work with a specially designed lead - but for some reason the word is that the Platinum cannot be made to work even like this. I also understand that even where special leads work, the non-standard implementation of RS232 by Garmin means that communication works only one way in certain circumstances. Edited February 17, 2005 by Learned Gerbil Quote Link to comment
peter Posted February 17, 2005 Share Posted February 17, 2005 the non-standard implementation of RS232 by Garmin means that communication works only one way in certain circumstances. What non-standard implementation of RS-232 by Garmin? Quote Link to comment
+Learned Gerbil Posted February 17, 2005 Share Posted February 17, 2005 I don't know the details, having never owned a Garmin. but I have seen discussion of this on certain boards. The problem is that the RS232 spec involves a +3v to +12v signal. As most handheld devices run at the lower end of that, various fudges are made by device designers. For example, some devices loop back current drawn from the other device on the assumption that it will be a PC or other mains powered device. Quote Link to comment
peter Posted February 18, 2005 Share Posted February 18, 2005 The problem is that the RS232 spec involves a +3v to +12v signal. As most handheld devices run at the lower end of that, various fudges are made by device designers. For example, some devices loop back current drawn from the other device on the assumption that it will be a PC or other mains powered device. I've checked the RS-232 output of my Garmin eMap and it had nice clean +6V/-6V rectangular pulses. I was actually a bit surprised that they complied with the symmetrical +/- part of the specification since most interfaces will work ok with just positive pulses. And the voltage was well-regulated, staying right at 6V regardless of the eMap battery voltage even when that dropped to 1.7 VDC. So I'm surprised to hear that more recent (and expensive) models may not comply as well as the eMap. BTW, it seems like it would be hard for an NMEA output to rely on powering from the far end since there's no guarantee that you'll even have an incoming data stream - the GPS output could well be going to a marine auto-pilot, chartplotter, VHF/DSC, EPIRB, etc. with no return signal from those devices. Quote Link to comment
+greengolftee87 Posted February 18, 2005 Author Share Posted February 18, 2005 does anyone know the schematics of the cables that are available for purchase. i have everything to make my own, bare wire data, spare hotsync cradle, TIME!!! any ideas on what to do? i really wanna make this work Quote Link to comment
+Learned Gerbil Posted February 18, 2005 Share Posted February 18, 2005 Strange - one of my posts to this thread has disapeared. The problem is not NMEA to the PDA, it is the PDA sending data, such as waypoints to the GPSr. Magellans seem to work in some cases that Garmins do not. It may be that I was not righ to suggest that this was due to Garmins not supporting RS232 properly. It may be that the Garmin does fine, but that other handheld devices are less strict in their application of RS232 and therefore can communicate with devices that do not push 3v down the wire. Quote Link to comment
+greengolftee87 Posted February 19, 2005 Author Share Posted February 19, 2005 Strange - one of my posts to this thread has disapeared. The problem is not NMEA to the PDA, it is the PDA sending data, such as waypoints to the GPSr. Magellans seem to work in some cases that Garmins do not. It may be that I was not righ to suggest that this was due to Garmins not supporting RS232 properly. It may be that the Garmin does fine, but that other handheld devices are less strict in their application of RS232 and therefore can communicate with devices that do not push 3v down the wire. i am beginning to understand what the problem is, but i have no idea how to fix it. i guess the first step would be to figure out which wires go to which pins on the visor. i know that pin 4 is ground, but am unsure of the other 2. and then after that how do i solve the voltage problem, is this actually possible Quote Link to comment
+Learned Gerbil Posted February 19, 2005 Share Posted February 19, 2005 The voltage can be boosted by building a cable that includes a 9v battery as a booster. There are webpages with diagrams, photos etc. Search Google groups - this has been discussed loads of times. Quote Link to comment
+greengolftee87 Posted February 20, 2005 Author Share Posted February 20, 2005 The voltage can be boosted by building a cable that includes a 9v battery as a booster. There are webpages with diagrams, photos etc. Search Google groups - this has been discussed loads of times. But how do i know where the pins connct on the visor. i cant find a diagram of a cable anywhere, just advertisements. i know there are 8 pins on the visor, number 4 being ground but i dont know where to connect serial data IN and serial data OUT. Quote Link to comment
+greengolftee87 Posted February 22, 2005 Author Share Posted February 22, 2005 ok ive tried guessing and its really not working at all. anyone have any suggestions on what to do, id hate for this to not work Quote Link to comment
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