BB200 - GPS Failures?

[wildgecko]

My Edge 800 gave up the ghost at 170km and would not stay on despite having plenty of battery left. Luckily I was riding with someone who's GPS was still working and I had paper maps as a backup.

How many other GPS' failed and when? Are there any common factors? Can we learn anything?

Si

[Zippy]

I can make my edge 500 lock up on courses mode if I have too large a route file on it. What constitutes as too large I haven't worked out really, but I tend to not routes over 45miles on it, so if they're longer I split them.
That said, I use an etrex 30 for Nav, using Dave Barters maps.

And I know Rickie Cotter did the Highland Trail with an edge 800/810.

Er...dunno if that helps!

[paramart]

my edge 800 worked perfectly with external power pack, but when I came to upload the route it had froze and said the file was corrupted rang garmin about as usefull as a chocolate fire gaurd and I had to do a factory reset, it wouldn't let me manually upload it either, it always goes tits up on long rides but I thought I had sussed it out hey ho, I,m going to buy another basic model to record the ride, so hopefully have something to look at when finished

[slarge]

My edge 800 was fine on the BB200, with an external battery pack to keep it going for more than 10 hours. I have had it lock up though twice; the first time was on a 200 mile ride and it locked up at 180 miles when the activity file got too big - this is a well documented failure on the forums and needs a hard reset to recover it (meaning you lose all data and it reverts to factory settings). The 2nd time was when I unplugged it from the laptop when it was still talking to it, and it locked up - the only thing to do was to let the battery drain then it was fine.

Did you have the route stored on an sd card or on the garmin memory?
Are the maps on an sd card?
Did you have an external battery and was it behaving or switching off all the time?

I now keep all routes/courses on the sd card in case I need to do a hard reset, which wipes the garmin memory of routes, maps, activities etc.

[Ian]

I think generally the Edge series are not suited to very long rides for reasons Zippy states - they lock up once the file gets over x points. What x is, no-one knows...
The Dakota / Etrex / Oregon / GPSMap 60 series models fare much better for this kind of stuff I think.

[Dave42w]

I used my Garmin Edge 1000 because that is what I have

It worked with no problems. I had the backlight pretty much at minimum and only a heart rate sensor to maximise the battery life.

I used an Anker external battery to charge it. I used the standard Garmin mount on the "wrong" side of the stem because that gives enough clearance to have a charging cable plugged in while in use.

I only had to charge it during one section while moving. Otherwise got it back to 100% while in bivy and then topped up during pauses.

I have had the display freeze at times. Power off and on has always fixed it without losing anything.

[Richard G]

My Edge 1000 was fine, but if I use the lock functionality it pretty much always crashes... so I don't use it any more.

[paramart]

steve what size sd card do you use/recommend, my maps are on the sd card, but all routes/gpx files go on the unit, it is full of previous rides that I have already uploaded to connect wish I knew this before the ride as I will now delete them.
does it still work the same loading a gpx file on the card or do I need to do anything different to view use the route loaded on it

[johnnystorm]

My 810 straightlined my route for the first 5 miles or so. I was riding with Slarge and the time and the course and timing was right....

I just placed the gpx on the card, not in a particular folder, and it was found without issue when picking a course in the ride menu.

[wildgecko]

Hmm, think I let the activity file get too big. Should have started a new one on day two.....or ridden faster

Si

[Matt]

Si, mine did exactly the same, 175km just shut off

Would switch on, but powered down. Still had battery as I'd topped it up

Reckon we'll just have to reset activities at 150km

[slarge]

Paramart - not sure what sd card I have, it's the one that came with OS maps preloaded. I have read that there isn't a max size though. The file structure on the sd card has a garmin/new files folder - I just drop the GPx into that folder and the garmin sorts it out. You can also choose via the settings menu where the activity files get stored - either internal memory (default) or sd card.

While you are at it, have a look for a txt file in the folders called something like "startup.txt" you can edit this to show a few rows of text on power up - I have my name, mobile and address in there so if I ever lose it, an honest finder could get it back to me.

[paramart]

cheers steve just checked sd it's 4gb maps are not oem but work great, it has the garmin folder with new files etc, will give it a try

[mountainbaker]

Garmin 800s are known to corrupt files after 24 hours, so you'd better ride quicker.

Way around it is to reset the activity before 24 hours is up, then join them up at home with fitfiletools.

[DrMekon]

I think the two lads I rode back with with failed GPSs had a 510 and a 1000 between them.

My etrex 30 was ace - when I ran out of tube options and had to bail, I just zoomed in to the school on the map, and told it to route me back on road for time (on the assumption that would mean bigger flatter roads). Worked a charm.

Been audaxing with an Etrex (got a rubber back cased Vista HCx that is still going strong, plus a 30) for 6 years now - the only time one has let me down was on the Peak 200 route where I ran out of batteries, and on going to change them, realised my youngest son had swapped my good batteries for dead ones from his leapfrog kiddy laptop - lesson being to check the batteries.

The only things that annoy me about the etrex 30 is that it does do the black map background at night - love that for my night vision - and it doesn't archive tracklogs to the memory card. Otherwise, I'm really happy with it. I'm not sure the 30x is a big enough leap to justify upgrading.

BTW, for those of you who care about elevation on Strava, you can make strava read the barometer data from an Etrex by editing the gpox file - just find "Etrex", then change it to "Etrex with Barometer" and save it. Upload that and you've get the missing metres of climbing.

[Lump]

There is also software to stitch GPS data together. So with the edge's it sometimes worth stopping them and making a few shorter rides then putting them back together later

[Ian]

BTW, for those of you who care about elevation on Strava, you can make strava read the barometer data from an Etrex by editing the gpox file - just find "Etrex", then change it to "Etrex with Barometer" and save it. Upload that and you've get the missing metres of climbing.

That's useful, thanks

On the night vision thing on the 30, there is s setting to turn it on or off, or auto, somewhere in settings

[jameso]

Odd, my Garmin 800 has recorded 150-300 mile or so activities over a day or 3 a number of times and never locked in the way described. It just loses some tracking data if I plug a dynamo-charge cable in mid-track when static which I've not managed to get to the bottom of yet. Plug in the same cable when moving and it's all ok.

Electronics - never to be trusted or relied on : )

[Zippy]

Just to throw some more information into the mix.

These days I used an etrex 30 for Nav and and edge500 does all my recording - it normally has my HRM connected to it. In 2013 for BearBones 200, I ran an edge 200 for navigation, and my 500 for tracking. The edge 200 ran fine (the fact it was just a small monochrome screen with a breadcrumb trail is a different issue!)
Oh yeah, and tracking only mode, my edge 500 has been flawless, it had a slight wobble where it reset when I was unplugging the external power I used to top it up - but it saved the data and I put the data files together later, so all happy :). I think I've only lost data when trying to run too large a course track.

When searching for information on what processor's the various garmin devices use and more technical information - I really struggled - I even did looking for photo's of teardwons to see if I could search for codes on them etc. but to no avail. I think the edge 200 was fine because it's not having to do things like connect to ant+ sensors and the software on it is far simpler...
Currently from what I've read and heard, lock-up's on courses I think are down to a combination of factors including the route/track itself, the capability of the device (hardware wise) and the precise configuration of what you're making your device do.

Tangential topic wise, I'm struggling (but haven't tried too hard yet) to get custom POI onto my etrex 30...

Er yeah, just waffling now.

[DrMekon]

BTW, for those of you who care about elevation on Strava, you can make strava read the barometer data from an Etrex by editing the gpx file - just find "Etrex", then change it to "Etrex with Barometer" and save it. Upload that and you've get the missing metres of climbing.

That's useful, thanks

On the night vision thing on the 30, there is s setting to turn it on or off, or auto, somewhere in settings

That just changes the text boxes, IME. The old Etrex range used to make the maps black as well, so the roads and track really stood out at night.

[NewRetroTom]

My Edge 800 is not reliable - seems to mess up quite a bit.
On the HT550 it screwed up last year and this year.
It also sometimes messes up on shorter rides.

I have a feeling that using it with a dynamo - USB converter and no buffer battery has messed up its internal battery.

Think I might invest in an etrex 20 for the TD next summer. Has anyone tried running one of these off usb power. Don't really want to have to carry and buy/bin lots of AA batteries on route.

[Zippy]

. Has anyone tried running one of these off usb power.

I know you can, and have done - but only within the confines of my house. I'm impressed with AA battery life on them though I have to say

[mountainbaker]

I used my 800 on TD, was fine. Had jonnystorms Dakota as backup though.

You can buy batteries easily en route, but not always lithiums, esp if the fast guys have gone through and bought them all!

[Wotsits]

I've got an Edge 500 & an Oregon..

I always clear the activities folder before uploading & riding a long route. It's also good to compare the two devices when one, or both of them decide to have 'a moment'.. The 500 breadcrum trail is also much easier to follow in the day as long as the trail is pretty obvious due to it's lcd screen, only problem is the battery life.. The 500 is a great little unit & has never let me down (yet!)..

[ianfitz]

esp if the fast guys have gone through and bought them all!

I'm thinking he'll be fine as NRT is one of the fast guys!