Battery Saver Mode

[Alphawolf]

Has anyone out there really measured the difference between normal and battery saver mode (with any model) under similar conditions? I'm wondering why anyone would not use battery saver mode under most normal operating conditions. Isn't it just a matter of longer update times (5 seconds vs. 1 second) I believe WAAS isn't available with battery saver activated, but I have found WAAS to be worthless where I live for nearly everything I do with my GPS anyway.

[+Hemlock]

Isn't it just a matter of longer update times (5 seconds vs. 1 second)

When zeroing in on a cache, that difference in update times is significant. I never use battery saver mode, and my 60C still gets about two days of use on a pair of rechargables. Why bother with the slower update time?

[Erfunden]

BTW, what is WAAS?

[Raoul]

BTW, what is WAAS?

Use the search function!!

[+JohnnyVegas]

I thought I would add a little more information re my explorist 500, I joided a friend for a ride of about 30 mile to see the reception would be from inside his truck. With the explorist on my lap not on the dash, it maintained a lock on 6 sattellites except for a time while we were crossing the north end of San Francisco bay on the bottom level of a bridge, then it was locked onto 3 satellited with an accuracy of around 60 feet.

 

Later in the day I used it to place a new cache and took my Meridain along also.

The satellite reception was the same most of the time, under tree cover both fluctuated about the same level.

 

I have been saving waypoint onto the Exp, in a couple if ways. In some cases I have sent them to Topo 3D with GSAK and then used the conversion software to send them to the SD card on the GPS.

 

Other times I have sent them to my Meridian gold (I keep the gold for auto nav between caches while driving) from the Meridan I send them to Topo 3D and then to the explorsit the same way as above.

 

Once they are on the SD card you can rename them. sent them to another folder or creat a new folder for them.

 

To actvate a waypoint file you use the menu option and select Preferences, you enter Preferencesn and select active Setup, From there you can select My POIs or go to the Geocache files From those you can select which file of waypoints you want to activate and have on the Map screen. or you can select a group of caches you do not want to see on the map screen and De activate that group.

 

More to follow

[peter]

Has anyone out there really measured the difference between normal and battery saver mode (with any model) under similar conditions?

I use the Battery Saver mode on my eMap when going on multi-day bicycle tours so as to minimize the number of AA cells I need to take. I've found that I get about 30% longer life per charge on the batteries, so the NiMH cells that give me 10 hours of use on normal mode last for 13 hours with battery saver.

 

But most of the time I leave the unit in normal mode since 10 hours is more than a typical outing any way and I almost always have a spare set of charged AAs along.

 

The disadvantages of Battery Saver mode are:

- slightly less accurate track due to the 5 second update interval

- not usable with WAAS (not an option on my eMap anyway)

- most significant: there's a greater chance the unit won't be able to relock on a weak satellite signal when the radio is turned on again after 5 seconds.

 

Under marginal reception it's advisable to leave the unit in normal mode so the radio channels stay continuously locked onto the satellite signals.

[+Couparangus]

I concur with everything Peter says. The only time I use battery saver is when I'm running low and need to s-t-r-e-t-c-h the batteries a little farther. Last weekend I was having a hard time getting a lock even after 5 minutes. Turning the power saver off brought me on-track in about ten seconds. The eMap has to be the best unit for cycling too, IMO.

[+fratermus]

I use powersave when driving around, and normal when hunting a cache. I'd love to see a shortcut to toggle the two, or a setting to "go to normal mode when within 1/10th mile of destination".