So Where Are The Explorists 500 And 600??

5.3k · April 27, 2005

I'll take a look for the universal, I prefer the Maggie branded cable as I have a vehicle mount and taking the USB cable in and out would be a pain. Not the end of the world though.

I think Robert was just pointing you to the power adapter which will accect the connector cable that comes with the 4/5/600. The unique interface on the back of the explorist will dictate a regulation Magellan cable in there someplace.

AFAIK the 12v thing you saw in LeBaron is not yet actually on the market.

April 28, 2005

I bailed from my TigerGPS pre-order and got one of the last 600's REI had during their 20% sale which brough it to the same price as TigerGPS. It arrived last Thursday and seems to work perfectly.

At the time I cancelled the order with Tiger, they said they were then expecting theirs to arrive at the end of THIS week. No mention of product problems at all.

April 28, 2005

Now my major question is --- can I find a 12V car adapter / spare battery anywhere in Toronto area (preferred) or Canada. I've got a 24 hour geocaching marathon coming up and 17 hours of battery isn't going to cut it.

I paid Can$1.97 for a Belkin 12V - USB adaptor on the clearance table in Staples and it works fine. Other alternate is one of the small 12V invertors from CTC and plug the wall wart into that. I think they're on sale this week.

April 28, 2005

Well, I'm glad that things are working well for the most part, and you've got the pioneer philosophy to draw upon. It's also the case that if there *do* turn out to be things needed beyond firmware fixes, one would only want to have to send it in once. So holding out untill any/all bugs emerge is prudent.

...I know a certain GPSBabel programmer who will find the lockup on pushing buttons too fast of interest...great interest...

Edit: If you haven't done so, I would at least send an email to Magellan to report your experiences. They will pay more attention to something if they know it to not be an isolated incident.

just fired my problems off to magellan also , thanks for the idea.

April 28, 2005

I know it will charge from USB power. I've done it twice now from my laptop. Don't remember the cable orientation I used, but I know it worked.

I'll take a look for the universal, I prefer the Maggie branded cable as I have a vehicle mount and taking the USB cable in and out would be a pain. Not the end of the world though.

just for kicks and giggles, I decided to hook up my explorist to my apple ibook usb port with "no" power adapter on it and guess what it charges as others have stated with connector turned "up" if I turn it down and plug it into the ibook it just says "external power" with a picture of a cord and plug on it and this is all off just usb laptop port.

so kewl

hope it helps.......

hay what would happen if we had the usb connector plugged in and the power adapter plugged in. would that constitute for a power surge and fry the unit? I'm not going to try it but what if? 12+from wall power + usb power =? regulated you think or power surge?

somebody's bound to do in the future, thought of it. hummmmmmmm......

any ideas

:lol:

Edited April 28, 2005 by flir67

5.3k · April 28, 2005

hay what would happen if we had the usb connector plugged in and the power adapter plugged in. would that constitute for a power surge and fry the unit? I'm not going to try it but what if? 12+from wall power + usb power =? regulated you think or power surge?

somebody's bound to do in the future, thought of it. hummmmmmmm......

Since the transformer in the power plug outputs 5 VDC (just like the USB port), it would be two 5 VDC sources in parallel. Let me whip out the old EE textbook...hmmm...hmmm...hmmm. Yup that would output a grand total of 5 VDC.

Edited April 28, 2005 by Stunod

4.3k · April 28, 2005

...I decided to hook up my explorist to my apple ibook usb port with "no" power adapter on it and guess what it charges as others have stated with connector turned "up" if I turn it down and plug it into the ibook it just says "external power" with a picture of a cord and plug on it and this is all off just usb laptop port....

Does the Explorist then show up as a volume mounted on the Mac desktop? It should, if they implemented it properly as a mass storage device.

April 28, 2005

yes if I set the usb to file transfer it will show up as just like usb drive and you can put anything on it.

but the explorist file structure is on the sd card though,but it lets you creat new folders :lol: great for mp3's on the go just take out the card and put in the mp3 player but I don't know if it would work that easily for other stuff besides gps.

April 28, 2005

hay what would happen if we had the usb connector plugged in and the power adapter plugged in. would that constitute for a power surge and fry the unit? I'm not going to try it but what if? 12+from wall power + usb power =? regulated you think or power surge?

somebody's bound to do in the future, thought of it. hummmmmmmm......

Since the transformer in the power plug outputs 5 VDC (just like the USB port), it would be two 5 VDC sources in parallel. Let me whip out the old EE textbook...hmmm...hmmm...hmmm. Yup that would output a grand total of 5 VDC.

thanks , sometimes they don't think of it when in development.

:lol:

2.7k · April 28, 2005

yes if I set the usb to file transfer it will show up as just like usb drive and you can put anything on it.
but the explorist file structure is on the sd card though,but it lets you creat new folders great for mp3's on the go just take out the card and put in the mp3 player but I don't know if it would work that easily for other stuff besides gps.

The way that card is placed in there though, I'm not sure how often I really would want to take the SD card out. My thinking is more along the lines of buying a big enough card and leaving it in there. The actual 'slot' that pops up feels way too fragile for my liking. Especially for 'in the field' swaps. For the price of SD cards these days, I'd just buy another one for the MP3.

Although I'll admit -- when I run out of space on the digital camera card, I can always harvest the SD from the eXplorist for 'one more' shot. As long as the camera is a standard FAT filesystem on it.

On another note, I haven't figured out a way to format SD cards in the actual unit, so when I tossed the card from my MP3 player into the 600, it froze on boot (no splash, just a flicker and off). My MP3 player uses a proprietary filesystem so I can't take my own songs back off the card, or inter-operate with other devices.

Eventually ended up formatting the card in my *camera* and then it worked fine. I would think they'd have provided a method to make a 'foreign' card usable.

April 28, 2005

Does anyone know whether the Explorist 600 will interface with National Geographic Topo! States? (I don't mean uploading maps to the gps unit; I understand that's not possible.) They have a list of compatible units on their web site, but the Explorists are not on it. I called and left them a message, and they left me a message in return stating that the Explorists are not compatible. But I'm not sure why not. Has anyone tried it?

Also, how about Delorme TopoQuads for the states? I called Delorme, and the guy I talked to just said "I have no idea. Call Magellan." I just got the 600, my first gps, and would like to use it with one of the detailed topo programs to exchange waypoints, tracks etc.

By the way, I took it out and walked around through the woods (leaves are out in western Oregon) yesterday, and it kept a good signal with 6-8 satellites tracked.

Edited April 28, 2005 by ART11

5.3k · April 28, 2005

The explorists with computer interfaces have shipped only a few weeks, so it's understandable that third party developers don't know about them yet. Once you've precluded maps, there are only a few interesting things to interchange.

A) Waypoints, tracks, routes. The good news is that the files on explorist appear on a mounted volume identically with how they appear on a Meridian's SD card if mounted on an external reader. The bad news is that comparitively few programs ever read/wrote Meridian SD format even though it is a pretty mechanical step from the serial protocols used in 310, 315, 330, SporTrak, and other strains.

:lol: Geocaches. A new mode for explorist and obviously not something that NG Topo would likely support anyway. I mention it here only in the ame of completeness.

C) Real time position data, ala NMEA, for plunking your position on a map. Traditionally, NMEA has been done over a serial port but since the explorist doesn't have one of those, that's right out. Though i can't confirm this, it looks like if you go into advanced features and turn on NMEA Data Comm **and you have a Magellan driver installed on your Windows system** (this is the part that isn't in the manual I'm staring at) that will make a new pseudo-serial port show up and that port should be accessible to any program that can read NMEA.

2.7k · April 28, 2005

Put your eXplorist into NMEA mode ( Menu / Adv. Features / Communications / NMEA ) to talk with 3rd Party software.

It will create a virtual com port on your machine (XP anyway) and you can use that to talk to the software.

April 28, 2005

which mapping software buy topo 3d maps or direct route. I can't decide. I heard 3d topo might be a little more up to date. but does it have all the restuarants,and other info the direct route has? how useful is the autorouting on a daily basis. most of the time I just look at the map zoomed out a bit and create my way.

how about everyone else?

2.7k · April 28, 2005

I bought both.

I use the TOPO (Canada not 3D) when I'm near a cache and DirectRoute to get to the cache site. Both have extensive POI info. You only need DirectRoute if you want street directions and 'urban' features like city parks listed.

Having said that -- DirectRoute has become my favorite and hence default map set.

April 28, 2005

Thanks for the quick replies. Nat'l Geo does list the Meridian as a compatible GPS, so maybe it will recognize the Explorist files after all. If not, I'll try putting it in NMEA mode. I'll post back and let everyone know how it works out, once I have the software.

5.7k · April 28, 2005

Back when I was using my handheld GPS to do routing in the car, DR was my default map of choice and I would only switch to topo when I was doing some major hiking. Now that I'm using my Zire 72 for all car navigation, topo 3D is back as my default map on the handheld GPS.

--Marky

5.3k · April 28, 2005

which mapping software buy topo 3d maps or direct route. I can't decide. I heard 3d topo might be a little more up to date. but does it have all the restuarants,and other info the direct route has? how useful is the autorouting on a daily basis. most of the time I just look at the map zoomed out a bit and create my way.

On a daily basis, where you are on familiar turf, you won't need or want to autoroute. But the first time you go someplace where you don't already know the way to go, you will appreciate what autoroute can do for you.

I spent a vacation week recently somewhere I had never been. DirectRoute was almost like a local sitting in the passenger seat. It probably didn't always take the best route, and I can't say I never took a wrong turn...but whenever I did, I knew it right away, and I always reached my destination with little or no difficulty.

So unless you know you need topo data for your primary use, I think the autorouting of DR makes it preferable for most people.

5.7k · April 28, 2005

which mapping software buy topo 3d maps or direct route. I can't decide. I heard 3d topo might be a little more up to date. but does it have all the restuarants,and other info the direct route has? how useful is the autorouting on a daily basis. most of the time I just look at the map zoomed out a bit and create my way.

On a daily basis, where you are on familiar turf, you won't need or want to autoroute.

Actually, I route myself to the store 6 blocks away just because I like to listen to Jane tell me when to turn. Of course, the way DR BEEP, BEEP, BEEPS at you all the time, I could see not wanting it on all the time (but even when I was using DR as my auto nav, I still used it all the time just because it's cool).

--Marky

April 28, 2005

well direct route sounds great and I wish I could use it here in Atlantic canada but its absolutely useless for me as it doesn't even show any of the major roads nor the cities. So Mapsend topo canada is the only option at this point for me.

2.7k · April 28, 2005

well direct route sounds great and I wish I could use it here in Atlantic canada but its absolutely useless for me as it doesn't even show any of the major roads nor the cities. So Mapsend topo canada is the only option at this point for me.

I'm looking at a map of Halifax right now in DR North America 2.00f. Which cities are you missing? They only promise 'major' cities in Canada for POI & Address search, and city-to-city routing everywhere else.

April 28, 2005

Im in new brunswick not a road to be seen , even if it did have the cities it really is useless unless it has secondary roads not to mention I want the logging roads too. I will have Mapsend Topo canada soon

Edited April 28, 2005 by D0T-C0M

2.7k · April 28, 2005

Im in new brunswick not a road to be seen , even if it did have the cities it really is useless unless it has secondary roads not to mention I want the logging roads too. I will have Mapsend Topo canada soon

Make sure you're zooming in far enough. I really find the basemaps of Canada to be pretty annoying. You see a pretty line denoting an Interstate highway, when it connects to the Trans-Canada or 400-Series (Ontario) roads of the same class are shown as a simple black line. What's up with that??

Back to Atlantic DR:

Granted all the secondary roads seem to have very generic names on them when outside the Metro areas. in Fundy Park: all the streets are called Part of Alma.

There is coverage of places like Moncton, Woodstock, and St. John, etc. The highways are there. I can see interchange details at TC2 and Hwy 101 in Fredricton.

I'm pretty sure the Topo will give you more of the information you're after though, at the expense of the routing, but there is some metro area routing support in NB. Just not nearly as much as they've got in S. Ontario.

I've been switching between Topo Canada and DR North America. The differences on the same map can be entertaining at times. Like the cache I did last night -- hiked down the wrong side of the river because the DR map put the river off by 100M.

April 28, 2005

I live in northern new brunswick , but I must not have zoomed in enough like you said but regardless the old mapsend S&D canada maps showed every road possible and 90% of the logging trails unlike the DR software. Too bad they never took the time to put in the effort to include the canadian side of the border. I do alot of offroad atving so logging trails are a must for me and Mapsend topo canada seems to be my only solution. besides I find microsoft streets and trips works very well for my routing needs if I'm travelling.

April 28, 2005

I live in northern new brunswick , but I must not have zoomed in enough like you said but regardless the old mapsend S&D canada maps showed every road possible and 90% of the logging trails unlike the DR software. Too bad they never took the time to put in the effort to include the canadian side of the border. I do alot of offroad atving so logging trails are a must for me and Mapsend topo canada seems to be my only solution. besides I find microsoft streets and trips works very well for my routing needs if I'm travelling.

You're both right - Direct Route is pretty good on roads (but not road names) in New Brunswick and of course it will route you, but you need Topo Canada if you want the rivers, lakes and trails. Here's the 500m zoomed in view of Plaster Rock with the cache that I couldn't find two winters ago because it was under 3 ft of snow. I use both - DR for the routing and because I also cache in the US and Topo because it's very helpful to know which side of the river the cache is on (and so far Topo has been right every time)

April 29, 2005

what version of direct route do you have? The version my buddy has never showed me the roads you have in the pic above.

Many thanks for that comparison, could you do the same for the area highlighted in this pic please? Many thanks

April 29, 2005

I just went over to my friends house and he has direct route version 1.00a and I see absolutely no roads at all in new brunswick, he must have too old a version.

Are their updates available to the direct route software or do you have to buy a new CD?

Edited April 29, 2005 by D0T-C0M

5.3k · April 29, 2005

Embra, didn't DR 1.0 come with some kind of "Canadian Supplement" CD?

My 1.0 is barren for that area, but I can't swear that I installed that supplement on this system. I can't even reproduce Hard Oiler's view as I'm unable to link up that lake, town, or any of the roads. Just gray.

Edited April 29, 2005 by robertlipe

April 29, 2005

same here robertlipe

5.3k · April 29, 2005

Your memory is good, Robert. There was indeed an update disk or something that was a supplement only for the addition of Canadian road data (as I look through my DR jewel case, I don't think I see it). I did not install it, either. I'll poke through my pile of orphan CDs and see it I spot anything.

April 29, 2005

I asked my friend if he got another cd with his direct route and he doesnt recall one. It's been two years now that he;s bought his cd so he's not 100% sure. Maybe hard oiler can confirm this as well

April 29, 2005

Here's the Direct Route version I have. Sounds like there has been more than the SP2 fix update. Worth a call to Magellan to see if they'll update an older copy. They should. BTW my Topo Canada is 1.00e which works fine on the Explorist even though their web-site only lists 1.00f as compatible. When I asked Magellan they didn't seem to know about e and f versions - said there had only been one version and that it should work. I wish they'd publish their version history :laughing: .

DOT-COM - íf you email me the centre coordinates of the area you're interested in I'll PM you some comparisons. That area is quite big and doesn't show any detail until you get down to the 2km zoom level.

2.7k · April 29, 2005

Here's the Direct Route version I have. Sounds like there has been more than the SP2 fix update. Worth a call to Magellan to see if they'll update an older copy. They should. BTW my Topo Canada is 1.00e which works fine on the Explorist even though their web-site only lists 1.00f as compatible. When I asked Magellan they didn't seem to know about e and f versions - said there had only been one version and that it should work. I wish they'd publish their version history .

DOT-COM - íf you email me the centre coordinates of the area you're interested in I'll PM you some comparisons. That area is quite big and doesn't show any detail until you get down to the 2km zoom level.

I wish they'd put the version number on the outside of the box. Until I got home with the software from Canadian Tire, I didn't know if I had the v2.00f that was compatible with my 600 or if I was leaving with the older v1 software.

I asked Magellan the same e vs f question (I asked where to get the update patch) and got the same response. Both products seem quite happy on my eXplorist at the moment.

2.3k · April 29, 2005

Any recommendations on where to buy a 600 now (in stock)??

Thanks!

April 29, 2005

I ordered a 600 on Tuesday night from thegpsstore.com and it was delivered yesterday, Thursday. Seems to work great. Map uploading went very smooth. I had one on order with tigergps.com, but cancelled it after reading through this forum. The order was on-hold and apparently not in stock.

Mike

5.3k · April 29, 2005

Your memory is good, Robert. There was indeed an update disk or something that was a supplement only for the addition of Canadian road data (as I look through my DR jewel case, I don't think I see it). I did not install it, either. I'll poke through my pile of orphan CDs and see it I spot anything.

Mine came with a CD for canada, I am not sure were I put it, but I do remember it having one

April 29, 2005

I had one ordered from tigergps but just cancelled it and placed an order at thegpsstore.com. Hopefully I'll get it early next week. I could use it next weekend.

-Bobby

April 29, 2005

?

5.7k · April 29, 2005

I had one ordered from tigergps but just cancelled it and placed an order at thegpsstore.com. Hopefully I'll get it early next week. I could use it next weekend.

I am now stubbornly NOT cancelling my order with tigergps just so I will have more time to whine about not having mine yet. For the last four weeks, they've told me they are going to ship "starting next week". So, I think this coming week is the "real" week that they will start shipping. I wonder who they pissed of at Maggie. Normally, they are one of the first to get shipments.

--Marky

April 30, 2005

Anyone try to see if they could load a map from mapsend S&D canada, I know it isn't on the compatibility chart but can someone confrim that they tried it and it didn;t work. I only say this because the explorist supports other Mapsend S&D products from other countries.

April 30, 2005

For everyone's information, I don't know if this is written in stone but www.gpscentral.ca told me that magellan was shipping out in quantity on may9th or sooner.

April 30, 2005

I asked my friend if he got another cd with his direct route and he doesnt recall one. It's been two years now that he;s bought his cd so he's not 100% sure. Maybe hard oiler can confirm this as well

No wonder why he wanted to sell me his CD for $40, his is useless

April 30, 2005

Anyone try to see if they could load a map from mapsend S&D canada, I know it isn't on the compatibility chart but can someone confrim that they tried it and it didn;t work. I only say this because the explorist supports other Mapsend S&D products from other countries.

I did not try loading a map from mapsend S&D because the other posters have convinced me that loading directly a *.img file will freeze the eXplorist.

It seems that all the Mapsend products that are compatible with the eXplorist ask for the serial number of the GPSr. If the serial number begins with a "1", mapsend generates a *.imi file, which can be directly loaded into the eXplorist. If the serial number begins with a "0", it generates a *.img file.

Mapsend S&D does not ask for a serial number and it generates only *.img files.

My solution? I grudgingly bought a copy of Mapsend Topo Canada from gpscity.ca.

April 30, 2005

I tried saving a img. image from topo 4.0 and I tried changing it to a .imi file once I turned off usb it said: incorrect map and proceded to lock up. you have to take the battery out and then the sd card and delete it off the card via your computer card reader if you have it or it will lock up each time you turn it back on with the incorrect map on the card.

there has to be a way to change the serial in the registry to 1 so it saves it to imi. don't you think.

we so many gps hacks out there someone has bound to figure it out by now.

April 30, 2005

compuplus has magellan mapsend 3d topo maps for 65.00. anybody ordered from these guys before? worth it, it would be cheaper than directroute for explorist 5/600 series.

compuplus.comcompuplus

Edited April 30, 2005 by flir67

5.3k · April 30, 2005

Yep, I just got my T3D from them a week or two ago. They are one of the two places I always tell people to check for Magellan products, as their prices are consistently among the lowest.

May 1, 2005

Picked up my 500 today from REI($318 on sale a few weeks ago). I seem to be having trouble with it selectively not showing some caches while it shows others. I am uploading a 500 cache gpx file and moving it over to a 64MB SD card using geocache manager. If I bring in the missing caches by themselves in stand alone files they show up. I was under the impression that the number of waypoints and geocaches I could upload was a function of the size of the card and not subject to the 500 waypoint limit, looks like I am losing the newer caches at first glance(which show up in the bottom of .gs file as it is sorted by waypoint name). This problem is quite annoying. Any ideas?

5.3k · May 1, 2005

I think many of us were somewhat surprised to learn that you can only send over 200 cache POIs at a crack. (I thought it was 500, too). The workaround seems to be to split them up into smaller multiple files. With GSAK is was pretty easy to divide them up by quandrants around my home base.

May 1, 2005

The geocache manager will only transfer 200 waypoints to the 600. The ones that are not loaded are sprinkled through out the list , not just at the end.

I also found out the cache name can only be 20 characters long. If the caches have several that are over 20 letters long and the same series, only one will show up on your gpsr. An example in my case was "Not Just Lip Service #1". There were five in this PQ #1 #2 #3 etc. Only one showed up on the gpsr and it read "Not Just Lip Service". After shorter names were used they all showed up. I hope a upgrade fixes all this....

Edited May 1, 2005 by Johnal

5.3k · May 1, 2005

If it doesn't, I have a good feeling that developers with experience developing geocaching software will solve this problem by bypassing Geocache Manager. Those developers might not be able to crank up the number of points (200 - bah, that's only a good weekend...) but shortname generation is pretty well understood by some of those geoaching programmers.

(Maybe it was prescient when I typed "Geocache Mangler" before...)

So Where Are The Explorists 500 And 600??

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