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Using a car GPS to navigate between caches?


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Hi, I've been geocaching for a donkey's years and used to hang around these boards, but like I said, it's been a long time. My personal preference in regard to caching technique has been to download caches to both my Nuvi 1450 for navigating to the general area and to an Oregon 450 for the off-road portion of the search. A few weeks ago we went on a road trip, and the Nuvi lasted about 15 minutes, then shut down. I tried everything to resuscitate it, but it simply would not power up at all. A call to Garmin was fruitless. They simply said "we no longer support that model"

 

So I'm looking for a new auto-routing GPS that easily downloads GPX files. Preferably not Garmin, since their service policy sucks.

 

Suggestions?

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Are you running your Nuvi from the car's power outlet? If you keep it powered it shouldn't shut down. However, all electronics will fail eventually, batteries don't have an unlimited life.

I use a Nuvi 2590 in my car and load caches from GSAK with the Nuvi_GPX_v2 macro. That means caches are loaded as POI categorized per type (trad/multi/mystery.... ) When driving I can see the icons for every type on the map and I can set alerts when I get within a certain distance (ideal when on holiday when having a few 1000 caches loaded).

Another plus is that when we travel outside Europe I can just download a free OSM map and not rely on expensive commercial maps to use for a short time only.

 

Getting caches to the Nuvi is a lot easier than on my old TomTom (battery is almost dead on that one after years of use), their support sucked too BTW.

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Option 1: Get a new Garmin Drive series (replacement of the Nuvi series). The nice thing about these is that you can create routes with multiple intermediate waypoints.

 

Option 2: Use a smartphone app with offline mapping support. I don't know of any specific ones off-hand that will work with both auto routing and geocaching waypoints, but I imagine they do exist. Others in this forum can chime in here.

 

Option 3: Upgrade your Oregon (for geocaching. For general automotive navigation, smartphone or a dedicated car GPS is still the way to go). The Oregon 600 and 700 series have a Nuvi dashboard which gives them essentially the same functionality of a Nuvi with a smaller screen (con), but with all the features of the Oregon (plus). You will have to buy City Navigator maps separately (con) or load free OpenStreetMaps (pro: free, con: not always accurate and up to date depending on location) for routing by road. However, one reason I love using my Oregon 600 this way is that I have made a profile for geocaching while driving, and one for geocaching while off road. Each use different maps and routing methods, but I've programmed the custom user button to switch from my GC driving profile to the regular GC profile with the tap of a button. The result is that I only have to manage geocaches on one device.

 

You can do something similar with your Oregon 450 and a routable map, but it's a bit clunky and not quite as pretty.

 

Option 4: Something else. Because I'm sure there are other solutions that haven't come to me.

Edited by Mineral2
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Option 2: Use a smartphone app with offline mapping support. I don't know of any specific ones off-hand that will work with both auto routing and geocaching waypoints, but I imagine they do exist. Others in this forum can chime in here.

On Android, Locus Map Pro offers all that. Fully offline maps (or online, your choice), likewise its auto-routing (four choices including MapQuest and OSM), and caching support. Basically does everything a handheld Garmin does but cheaper and with online options too.

 

I use it regularly for caching, with the maps/routing/caches fully offline and the phone sometimes in airplane mode to save battery.

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I suspect if you replace the battery in your nuvi 1450 in may come alive again. It is not uncommon for a nuvi to not power on even when connected to USB power if the battery is totally depleted. You could try to connect it to a USB wall charger and leave it overnight .. it just may come back to life. But if it does, it probably still needs a new battery.

 

You can buy replacement batteries at many online sources in the $10 to $20 range. Some of them include a tool kit with the small torx screw driver and pry tools needed to open the case. It is a relatively easy procedure to replace the battery.

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So I'm looking for a new auto-routing GPS that easily downloads GPX files. Preferably not Garmin, since their service policy sucks.

Can't say that the service in NAM is any better, but I've been using TomTom units and (earlier) doing a quick *.gpx to *.ov2 (their POI file type) conversion, or in more recent years just letting GSAK build them for me when exporting files for the car.

Most often, I'll create two working databases (and exported files) for each planned cache run in GSAK. One contains the coordinates as they are (either as posted, or corrected for puzzles, etc.), and one for parking or other driving access coordinates for the car. The former gets exported as a *.gpx for the handheld, and the latter gets exported as an *.ov2 for the TomTom.

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You can buy replacement batteries at many online sources in the $10 to $20 range. Some of them include a tool kit with the small torx screw driver and pry tools needed to open the case. It is a relatively easy procedure to replace the battery.

 

Thanks alandb. That sounds like the solution I'm looking for.

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Are you running your Nuvi from the car's power outlet? If you keep it powered it shouldn't shut down. However, all electronics will fail eventually, batteries don't have an unlimited life.

I use a Nuvi 2590 in my car and load caches from GSAK with the Nuvi_GPX_v2 macro. That means caches are loaded as POI categorized per type (trad/multi/mystery.... ) When driving I can see the icons for every type on the map and I can set alerts when I get within a certain distance (ideal when on holiday when having a few 1000 caches loaded).

Another plus is that when we travel outside Europe I can just download a free OSM map and not rely on expensive commercial maps to use for a short time only.

 

Getting caches to the Nuvi is a lot easier than on my old TomTom (battery is almost dead on that one after years of use), their support sucked too BTW.

so I have the nuvi2595LMT can I load caches from GSAK to it?

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I have the nuvi2595LMT can I load caches from GSAK to it?

It's a good idea to use GSAK to load it. Use macros designed to format the info for display. For example, if you load a cache manually by GPX file, a Nuvi might use the GC number as the title.

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