First 4 hours with my new Garmin GPSmap 60Csx GPS unit and City europe mapping

[Bigtallfatbloke]

First 4 DAYZ with my new Garmin GPSmap 60Csx GPS unit and City europe mapping

(I also posted this in the reviews as well but it is locked so I am posting it here as well for a more..erm...interactive experience)



..I don't know if it's of any interest but here are a nobs initial experiences/thoughts about this unit and the Garmin city navigator europe sd maps. I will try to avoid the negativity I feel right now and be honest:

1) The buying experience was horrendous. No easy to understand info from manufacturer or dealer. I give Garin 3/10 and the dealer 0/10 for customer help during the sales process. Hopeless. Thank gawd for Cycle chat forummers.

2) The courier who deleivered was a ****ing tosser...excuse my french but he was.

3) ok...the unit itself. Smaller than I thought, look cool. manual is the usual mix of promises and incompetent discriptions /directions. I found it easier to staret pushing buttons.

4) No batteries included...hmmm...easy enough to load some up though...but..
5) the memory card is located under the battery cover...boy talk about fiddly and fragile...not ideal.
6)The handlebar mounts work ok...I had to get the oversized version for my Galaxy bars. I will however still tie the GPS onto the bike as I dont trust it not to jump out of the clamp and fall under a tractor or something.
7)The compass isnt as good as my £2 job from Decathlon...I dont trust it yet. It has to be totally flat to operate, which is a pita because the unit cannot be fitted horizontal to the bars because of the bar bag, not to mention ease of viewing the screen in the light. It also gets affected by the steel frame and does not indicate where I know true north
to be unless held away from th ebike frame and horizontal...therefore useless to ride along a compass bearing.
8) The base maps are fine if you are a 747 pilot, but for a cyclist they are pathetically useless.
9) I have yet to manage to be able to navigate even around the corner on this thing yet. The map thing isn't anywhere near as easy to read as even a basic motorists tom tom screen.I am hoping I can get used to it .
10)Using the find facility did not throw up any of the two campsites withing 5 miles of my house, just hotels under accomodation, again not much use (this with City europe installed)
11) the City europe card box contains a big warning saying not to save routes to this disc because it will over write and cannot be undone. Great. How hard would it have been for them to disable over writing on this disc 9or at least offer an option)...I am bound to forget which disc is installed as they both look exactly the same.
12)There are a lot of superfluos options on this unit for me...like anchor dragging for boats, star wars games etc
13) It has some reasonable colour display options if you like lilac or sapphire I guess.
14)the new batteries I installed are already 2/3rds depleted and I dont have the back light on.
15) the trip page has some useful fields/options..I hav eyet to learn how to set them corecctly...so right now I am tempted to get a cheap normal wired bike computer i CAN TRUST.
16) It came with abelt clip and a usb cable if anybody is interested.

...I have to say that after so much hassle to buy this thing, I was looking forward to its arrival. The shitty attitude of the courier just compounded an already dreadful buying experience. The unit has a BIG learning curve and I am definatly going to have to take all the paper maps as well 'cos I do not trust this unit yet (or my ability to drive it).
So right now I am disappointed and wishing I still had my £300 in my pocket.

However, I have yet to install the mapsource Cd...hopefully that will help. Also I am aware that this is just the initial few hours and hope that the experience will improove with practice.

My thoughts at the moment are that for a cyclist this unit is akin to using a sledge hammer to bang in a drawing pin...way to complicated and full of unecessary stuff.

I wish Tom Tom just did a the same unit as my wifes car sat nav with longer battery life, that would be vastly superior for my needs I feel.

...anyway next stage is to install the CD and try and plan a route on th epc, 'cos looking this I would categorically say that it is impossible to plan a route on the unit alone in what is left of my lifetime.

Frankly if this doesnt become a LOT easier tomorrow I will ask for my cash back...which I wont get 'cos the Garmin dealer is an arse, so it'll go on ebay and I'll take a serious hit and put it down to another shitty hi tech life experience.

 

[Bigtallfatbloke]

What i dont understand is how to get the pre planned routes from bike route toaster into the GPS unit. I have mapped out a route in bikeroute toaster, saved it to a GPX file on my c drive, installed trip and waypoint manager on my pc, installed city navigater sd card maps in the GPS. I have managed to open the gpx file in waypoint manager and that is a s far as I have got.

The waypoint mamage rmap is nowhere near as detailed as the bike route toaster map (very disappointing).

I am afraid to take the next step of connecting the USB cable supplied and uploading the route from waypoint Manager to the gps because of the warning notice displayed on the inside of the City europe SD card box which clearly states:

"Caution: pre- programmed micro SD cards should not be used for saving mapsource maps. The pre programmed data will be lost. |Please ensure you have a blank data card inserted into your Garmin GPS before transferring mapsource data."

...I thought the entire point was to allow me to take the map from bike route toaster, into waypoint manager and then have it overlay the route points onto the city navigator maps so i can follow my pre programmed line/route as I ride. Clearly i have misunderstood again...hmmm...Garmin support FAQ's didt seem to cover this point and they dont answer the phones...any body in Cyclechat land have any words of wisdon (except 'i told you so')?

 

[piedwagtail91]

all you're sending from waypoint manager is a "line" which shows the roads you've plotted on brt. it's not a map.
i'd continue to plot on brt, save as gpx, load into waypoint manager and then send to gps.mapsource are maps , just like your city navigator , but have to be loaded manually and they are also loaded into the pc to give a more detailed map than waypoint manager.
it can take some getting used to but once you've got the hang of it , it's great.
you can use the waypoint manager to save your routes on. also when you get to a favourite place such as a cafe, bike shop etc insert a waypoint into the gps, when you get home download and save it to build up a file of all cafes, bike shops, summits etc.

i use tracklogs mapping to plot on as all the web based route plotting sites only became available after i'd shelled out a small fortune!

i use a zoom level of 500 ft or less on the gps, that gives enough detail.

 

[jags]

say btfb why dont you grab some teenager throw him or her a tenner for a hour on how to work that bloody thing you will fiddle around with it all night you need someone to show you how it works

 

[yello]

"Caution: pre- programmed micro SD cards should not be used for saving mapsource maps. The pre programmed data will be lost. |Please ensure you have a blank data card inserted into your Garmin GPS before transferring mapsource data."

I think that what it is saying is don't use an SD card that has any software or non-mapsource data (i.e. routes) it - but a blank SD card is fine OR (and this is my reading of it) an SD card that already has mapsource data on it. I reckon you can store as many mapsource routes as the card will hold.

I'm guessing that the format of a mapsource data card is specific to mapsource/Garmin and the first map you put to it will also 'format' the card accordingly (and hence loose anything that might already be on it). Thereafter, additional mapsource data can be added.

If you have a blank SD card then just give it a go. There's nothing to loose.

 

[Bigtallfatbloke]

Ok...let me get this straight.. I have Garmin city navigator europe SD card maps installed in the gPS unit. Can I now try to take a GPx file into the GPS unit from the trip and waypoint manager without any risk that it will delete/overwrite my city europe maps? That is what notht he Garmin dealer and Garmin told me I can do, but this label definatly reads differently to me.

I have two teenagers in the house...no wait three if you include the Polish lad...none of whom can do anything except balls up whayt I have already set.

 

[yello]

I personally would not risk storing the gpx on that particular SD card. I reckon you'd loose all of the map data.

Take the card out of the GPS first and then send the gpx. The GPS should have sufficient internal memory to store a number of routes. I suspect that's what the dealer meant. Perhaps you'll be given the option of loading the gpx to internal memory or to SD card, I don't know, but if you don't have the map data card in then there is no risk.

If you're planning to plot your entire Europe trip before setting out then I reckon that's where you'll need another (blank) SD card. Because the GPS unit won't have sufficient internal memory/storage for that many routes. On the road, it'd be a matter of loading the required route(s) for the day/week off of your 'gpx routes' SD card and into internal storage before then putting the map SD card back in. Does that make sense?

 

[MockCyclist]

BTFB, this is my take on the sd card problem.

Your gps will always record a tracklog when its turned on, whether you like it or not. The tracklog is saved in internal memory and when it runs out of tracklog memory it re-uses the oldest logs.

In additon, you can elect to save the tracklogs to the sd card, so that you always have a record of where you've actually been.

Now, it seems to me that if you have the sd card mapping, and you are told not to write to the card, you must make sure that "Log Track to Data Card" is off. See page 27 of the instructions.

Now, your route. You've got it loaded in MapSource and you can see it? Connect up the gps with usb, then select Transfer > Send to Device. Routes do not get saved to the sd card, they're stored in the internal memory, so I'm as certain as I can be that uploading a route won't spoil you map card. (What would be the point of the unit otherwise?)

 

[MockCyclist]

Just for the avoidance of doubt - you don't upload a route by copying it to the sd card. You do it in MapSource (or some of the other software that can also do it) and the route is sent to internal memory and appears in the "routes" icon. It isn't written to the sd card by MapSource.

 

[MockCyclist]

More on the sd card thing: When you do the transfer from MapSource, you get a dialogue where you tick send Maps, Routes, Waypoints or Tracks. In your case, NEVER tick send maps. (It isn't ticked by default).

You only use Send Maps when you've got dvd maps and not sd card maps.

 

[MockCyclist]

Sorry to bulk out this thread, just trying to get some concepts across so you can better understand what's going on:

You sd card wil contain a file named gmapsupp. That is your mapping file.

When you use MapSource to send a map to the gps, it sends a NEW gmapsupp and it OVERWRITES the one on the card. For users with dvd mapping installed in MapSource this isn't a problem because you can re-send your map any time. But once you use the send map feature to sd card mapping, which you don't have in any other format, you effectively overwrite your purchased map.

 

[MockCyclist]

The waypoint mamage rmap is nowhere near as detailed as the bike route toaster map (very disappointing).

Quite so, the Trip & Waypoint Manager mapping is very basic, I covered this in an earlier reply. You can't get you sd card mapping into MapSource.

When you upload your route to your gps, it will be overlaid onto the City Navigator and you should see plenty of detail.

5) the memory card is located under the battery cover...boy talk about fiddly and fragile...not ideal.

I've only ever installed my sd card once and I've never touched it since.

7)The compass isnt as good as my £2 job from Decathlon...I dont trust it yet. It has to be totally flat to operate, which is a pita because the unit cannot be fitted horizontal to the bars because of the bar bag, not to mention ease of viewing the screen in the light. It also gets affected by the steel frame and does not indicate where I know true north
to be unless held away from th ebike frame and horizontal...therefore useless to ride along a compass bearing.

Yes but once moving the compass works by satellite

15) the trip page has some useful fields/options..I hav eyet to learn how to set them corecctly...so right now I am tempted to get a cheap normal wired bike computer i CAN TRUST.

I too have a normal wired odo. Don't forget the gps records all movement, including when you take it into a shop for security. You might use it for walks. I put my gps in my pocket if I wander off with my camera, so that I can correctly geo-locate my photos later. So the Total Distance Travelled doesn't reflect pedalling time.


I'll re-visit this thread next week.

 

[Bigtallfatbloke]

Thanks again chaps for 'being there',much appreciated indeed.

Ok this is what I did .
Jus tto be on the totally safe side I took out the Euro map sd card and re loaded the blank one supplied with the GPS unit. I then plugged in the USB cable from the GPS to my pc and ran the wizard it threw up. I then selected send to device and my GPS was recognised. There were four tick box options but only the Track box was able to be ticked, the other three were not possible to tick. I hit th etit and it took just a second to upload.

I turned the gPS back on and went to the main menu>tracks >map and up came a high level map of the Bodensee...Friedrichshafen to Basel which was cool. So i guess that is how to get a route into the gizmo.

Now then...what next...hmm...I need a more accurate maps so I guess I am going to have to do this with the Euro map card inserted instead of the blank one....ok...P 27 you say...

 

[MockCyclist]

OK, finally tonight ... I think that my remark about not saving Tracklog to Card doesn't actually apply. It's the saving of a map, that overwrites your purchased map, that's a no-no. I'd say you COULD save tracklogs to the card as they're .gpx files and they can reside there along with gmapsupp.

Possibly that's something you could research and double check. For the moment you can leave the feature off.

Not sure why you've ended up with a Track, and not a Route, but that's for another day.

 

[Bigtallfatbloke]

..I am not sure I know the difference?..tracks are the breadcrumb trail right?...a route is the way I have yet to tread?
...maybe I did something wrong in BR toaster??

..anyway, I put the city nav europe card back in and now I can pull up a much more detailed 'track' of the route from Friedrichs hafen to Basel...it just kept the track line and put the more detailed map underneath it...good stuff.

So now I need to figure out why a track and not a route...and try to import the route from waypoint manager while the city europe card is in the GPS...I dont fancy having to keep swapping cards on tour in a dark tent or on a windy roadside.

Any ideas on where i can get some detailed infor on campsites to put in as POI's? I hav einstalled POI from the Garmin site but am unsure what to do do next...do i ned to seek out my own POIs and then store them somewhere and upload them...or is there a cache of POI's ready made so to speak I can just access and put into the GPS??