What to buy … handheld vs. dash-mounted

[EnergySaver]

Someone mentioned they could find manuals on line … they are right on the Garmin website … here’s an example for getting to the Nuvi 650 manual …

1. goto garmin.com
2. select [On the Road] >>> [Automotive]
3. click on the PICTURE of the [Nuvi 650]
4. in the upper-right corner under “Quick Links” click on [Manuals]
5. click on [Download] behind “Owner’s Manual”

Also, from playing with a similar model in the store … you can directly type in coordinates … you are NOT limited to marking a spot you’ve visited … if you have coordinates on a piece of paper, you can punch those in as a waypoint.

Also, from what I’ve read, you can use the free “POI Loader” software to load in a .GPX file … but since I don’t have the unit yet, I’m not sure who simple it is to do.

[EnergySaver]

@Cachew wrote:

I am extremely interested if you can successfully upload geocache waypoints (as we know them, and as they come from gc.com) without any fussing around. Also, please let us know if you can successfully upload your existing waypoint libraries. I know they claim that you can upload custom POI’s, but I have a feeling that the format is different. Thanks, Cachew

Looking through the online manual for a Nuvi (but again prior to actually having the unit in my hands), I see some promising looking things:

“Supported File Types” seems to include “Maps and Waypoints from MapSource” (Page 20, Nuvi 650 manual).

Also it looks like you can mass delete all your “Custom Points of Interest”, by plugging it into your computer and opening the “Garmin/POI” folder on the nuvi Drive or SD card and deleting poi.gpi file” … it also implies the use of either the built-in drive space or an SD card … so I assume if you for example load a bunch of cache locates as custom POI’s on an SD card, that pulling the card would magically make the caches go away, or for that matter allow multiple “groups” of caches by using multiple SD cards.

[hogrod]

@EnergySaver wrote:

I assume if you for example load a bunch of cache locates as custom POI’s on an SD card, that pulling the card would magically make the caches go away, or for that matter allow multiple “groups” of caches by using multiple SD cards.

I use the custom POI loader with my 60cx and since the custom POI file is on the card you can have different cards with different groups of caches but having multiple cards is unnecessary because there is a better way.

Garmins POI software just asks you where the folder is you want to load to the data card, you can have multiple GPX or CSV files for different groups/types of caches in that folder. When it loads the files to the card it makes just one file out of all of them.
Another really cool feature is you can have custom waypoint icons for each gpx or csv file, all you need to do is name your custom waypoint icon (a 16X16 bitmap) the same name as the gpx or csv file. so if you have a Benchmarks.gpx file then you would name its corresponding bitmap “Benchmarks”.

After you load a custom POI file to your data card it adds a custom point of interest category in the find menu on the gps. once you open this menu item it will display all the closest waypoints just like any other item in your find menu. On my 60cx when I have up the list of nearest Custom POIs, if I press menu and click select database it will list all the different GPX databases I loaded with the garmin custom POI software (see example below).

[Cachew]

A .gdb file is the format that Garmin saves data in it’s MapSource program. I have several of these database files. For work – showing customer locations across the US, the private airports used to get there and hotels, etc. It would be cool to be able to connect Mapsource to a Nuvi and upload these files just as I do with my Legend Hcx.

So .gdb is just a MapSource data file.

[hogrod]

@Cachew wrote:

A .gdb file is the format that Garmin saves data in it’s MapSource program. It would be cool to be able to connect Mapsource to a Nuvi and upload these files just as I do with my Legend Hcx.

If you are not able to load waypoints to the nuvi with mapsource(though I think you can), you could open each of your .gdb files in mapsource, then go file menu, save as and change the file type to .GPX, then you could save all your .gdb files to a new folder as .gpx and load them with garmins POI software.

Also if you wanted to play around with the garmin POI loader software it is fully compatible with your LegendHCX, or any garmin X series for that matter.

[EnergySaver]

@hogrod wrote:

I use the custom POI loader with my 60cx and since the custom POI file is on the card you can have different cards with different groups of caches but having multiple cards is unnecessary because there is a better way.

Yes a 60cx can handle multiple custom groupings … but the “unknown”, at least for me … can a Garmin Nuvi deal with multiple custom groupings. Not saying it doesn’t, since I’m still waiting for the UPS driver, but I’d be surprised if they’ve taken custom that far for a unit meant to sit in your car … I’m pretty sure it’s looking for a single file, with the name of “poi.gpi”.

[hogrod]

@EnergySaver wrote:

I’d be surprised if they’ve taken custom that far for a unit meant to sit in your car … I’m pretty sure it’s looking for a single file, with the name of “poi.gpi”.

It is also just a single file on the 60cx(poi.gpi) even if you loaded multiple GPX files at once with garmins poi loader software. The info on the site below makes it look like the nuvi is fully capable of having multiple gpx databases loaded.

http://www.gpsinformation.org/penrod/poiloader/poiloader.html

I’m going to quote part of the 4th post down on this forum…
http://www.gpspassion.com/forumsen/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=59352

“On Nuvi or SD card a folder called POI is created, and it contains a file called poi.gpi. That file has your Custom POIs. If your POI folder on the PC contained more than one .gpx file (or .csv file created in another way), they are all combined into the one poi.gpi file. However, the poi.gpi file is set up so that Nuvi can recognize each component file that created it, and so Nuvi separates them into Categories, with the title of each category being the name of your original file. You are then able to see the POIs in categories from the My Locations screen. “

So it looks like it works just like on my 60cx, so you can have multiple databases loaded.

[EnergySaver]

well I’ll be !!!!
you certainly seem to be right … based on what you quoted.
isn’t technology great !!!!

P.S. … I got the unit in hand … but now it’s charging up and I think I might need to clear the snow out of the driveway … I will report back “real life experience” at a later date … maybe under a new topic … if a POI file can handle more than one category, I guess I can handle more than one topic.

[hogrod]

I’ve got about 20 custom waypoint icons(different cache types, ect.), I’ve put them in a zip folder so if you(or anyone else for that matter) ever want to use custom icons for different category’s I am more than willing to share.

[EnergySaver]

Ok, my real life experience with waypoints on the nuvi, are posted here:
http://wi-geocaching.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=57937#57937

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