Garmin HCX sides came unglued in the field

Just got back from a trip to the old country and the Garmin HCX must not liked the humidity and came unglued from the sides. It didn't cause a failure of the unit but it is a month out of warranty. It was a awesome trip and it was a opportunist type eating. The first few days were rough eating plants, bread and some strange other things but as we arrived at my wife's moms house it improved substantially. I was eating through a set of steripen batteries a day with all the water intake, and recharged the ones not in use. Never got sick with the steripen and drank rain water and virus contaminated city water that they said don't drink unless you boil it. Bad way to experiment with the pen but when your thirsty you drink. No sickness with the steripen whatsoever and I drank out of a lot of questionable places, the water was clear for the pen to work. Anyway, here is a few of the 600 pictures I taken.
P.S. Don't take a laptop,MP3 player or phone through U.S. Customs unless you like them to copy everything..........






Dinner and alarm clock

The Steripen looks like a nice unit. I've almost purchased a Katadyn Vario filter, but i'm going to seriously consider the Steripen w/solar charging kit.

I've never seen such a thing on Garmin receivers. I presume you can take it back to your dealer (even if it's out of warranty) and try to explain. Or maybe speak with Garmin directly? The rubber sides on your pictures look different from those on my Legend HCx. They aren't "shiny" like yours... Are you sure yours weren't in contact with liquids such as bug repellent, oil or anything? Maybe this has something to do with them coming off.



I can't believe they're REALLY going to start doing this. Anyways... not the right thread to vent.


Sounds like you had a nice trip.

The only other thing I could think of is I used 100% Deet most of the time I was there but I did my best to keep it away from hands and equipment. My wives shoes also came unglued as well and she wasn't even around the DEET and some of the locals had said that some American products with certain types of glue come apart from that. So I'm not sure which is the case.

As for the steripen it's a good choice, I wouldn't recommend the solar charger unless you have several days to recharge a set of batteries. I would get a 20 watt or greater solar cell to recharge the batteries quickly. I use a 40 watt for mine.

And about TSA (stole my electric razor and bottle of wine on the way back,which I don't won't to go there) and customs who loves my picture collection so well for my camera that they took my sd card out of my camera and copied everything from that and my camcorder so that maybe if it get's erased, I can send them a little love note and they will send me archived copies. Bless there heart

Other than that it was a nice trip and I learned some customs/TSA tricks from a lot of travelers. It's amazing how quickly people change to work around security procedures so quickly.

Like you say, maybe a bad batch... You can possibly verify this with Garmin. Good luck, it's a great unit you got there, it's probably worth keeping and living with it, wether or not you can get it repaired.

Great pictures. Thanks for sharing. One thing about Garmin, best customer service in the business. Give them a call at 800-800-1020 and explain to them what happened. I'll bet they make it right.

Craig.

whats the story with the knife--a local job maybe??

I have had a number of plastic objects "eaten" by Deet. I always check my army bug spray and keep it as separate as possible from everything else. Never seen am eTrek's delaminate, but there is always a first time.

Nice Pics

Thanks SARbound and celler, hopefully they will cut me a deal on the repair.

CANOEDOGS, the knife was a knife that I picked at the airport at the store and it was very cheap and I was experimenting with bating it with a stick to see if it would fail. The little cheap knife did very good and never broke. I put the knife up there to demonstrate a point that you can acquire knifes and lighters most anywhere in the world regardless of airline restrictions. When I got off at the airport, they had zippo lighters and pocket knives in the store and all throughout town I could get a hold of pocket knives and machetes. The same goes through with places I've been like Mexico, Japan , Philippines, Portugal to name a few, so I've never been concerned with knives and lighters on aircraft because I usually reaquire them at the destination.

BruceZed, I will look into being a lot more careful with the DEET, I don't know if it caused this but I'm going to have to look more into the destructiveness on plastics it has, but I wouldn't trade DEET for all the money in the world, definitely good stuff.

Here is what I carried on me in cargo pant shorts every day while traveling.
I had navigation, signaling, fire, water and had my poncho (shelter)and paricord not to far behind.

Yea Izzy, that's why I'm wondering if the DEET was a root cause or not, I used it extensively while there. Another thing I realized was the mosquito net I had brought was to small for us and the next go around I am going with a much bigger mosquito net. (Lessons learned). I know realize you can never have a big enough mosquito net for sleeping.

great topic and travel advice

Did this apply to everyone or just yourself? Or did the 'unusual items' you were carrying mark you out for 'special attention'?

BTW if you replace the SD card with the micro SDHC cards (now available upto 8 Gigabytes), these are a lot easier to hide to get through TSA checks. Just pop one underneath a sticky plaster wrapped around a finger for example.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-memory-microSDHC-MobileMate-Reader/dp/B000WH6H1M/ref=pd_sbs_ce_4

This is making the news rounds on most tech sites, the tsa is has started copying data off a lot of electronic devices.
I'm thinking we should turn them in to the RIAA for making illegal copies of peoples songs.

Thanks comms.

Am_Fear_Liath_Mor, Actually I had read about it before I left and all I brought was a digital camera. I had no trouble going out, but when I got back in, it was like being in Russia. They copied my camera and Video tape, and I was acting normal. The people around me who had MP3 players and laptops or cell phones, they went crazy with there new toy I guess. They told them they have to inspect for illegal software,music or kiddie porn and were copying other peoples gear. All they got from me was my trips pictures, I took no cell phones or what have you. You have old women with laptops being searched for kiddie porn---give me a break. Some of the travelers I bumped into who told me about some things they do like acquire a pay as you go phone once you arrive at the destination. Load your contacts from a piece of paper carried hidden from customs, once loaded in the phone they burn the paper and throw the phone away before the returning flight to the US. They buy cheap MP3 players once they arrive and store there music on ftp sites that they download from the internet cafes. Where I went had no web access so a laptop was useless anyway. Do a search for customs seizing laptops and you'll see all the commotion going on. Customs has definitely overstepped there boundary on this one.
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http://www.thetransnational.travel/news.php?cid=laptop-seizure.Jul-08.09

I'm with you Eugene, they should be held under the same laws as we are.

Hi falcon5000,

I guess the Pentagon DARPA project for Total Informational Awareness is truly alive and kicking.



Scientia Est Potentia sums that situation up quite nicely.

I suppose trying to get through customs with your trouser leg rolled up above the knee and the left breast showing while asking the TSA agent how old his grandma was might help you get through a bit quicker though.

I hear you, the non magnetic signature money belt and belt that I had did not set off any detectors and made it through 1 pat down without them noticing anything. I don't know if a micro SD card will set off there detectors. Traveling to and from America get's better by the minute.

Shadow OPS is alive and well.

This thread already went off topic (not that this is a bad thing) and keeping with that flow. I have heard that with the strips they now put in paper money that it can be detected remotely. Is there any truth to this? It seems in a bug-out that you could come across a lot of intense focus by law enforcement if you had a large sum of money to get you through till things were better. Makes me want to buy a lead-lined box…

The metal strip is just a measure to prevent counterfeiting. But the way things are going I don't doubt there will someone somewhere pushing for RFID to be added to high denomination notes.



I can't really see a micro SD card setting off the detectors. There appears to be less metal in an micro SD card than a clothing zipper. Even if it does the micro SD slipped under a band aid wrapped around a finger will probably confuse the TSA agent into thinking the hand held scanner is malfunctioning as you show him/her your open hand with nothing in it.

Wow, can't believe US customs are actually patting down visitors and returning US citizens as though they were all common criminals.

BTW even travelling to the old Soviet Union during the height of the cold war didn't even get this kind of privacy intrusion - well not until you got to your hotel room of course, which was most likely bugged.

"Wow, can't believe US customs are actually patting down visitors and returning US citizens as though they were all common criminals."

Yes it was rather disturbing, I don't know if I just happened to be there at the right time when they were tipped off by something, or if it was a fluke thing or what but they were definably acting different than when I traveled many years ago. I don't travel international enough to know it this is a normal thing now or what and when I left it was with the wife and on the way back I came in solo (she's staying an extra week ). Also with me coming in solo as a white male traveling alone with a back pack with a water filter (never needed), purifier (used extensively), stainless steel water bottle and cup, first aid kit, poncho, rope,chargers, solar panel, gps, waterproof bags rated at 200 feet, and other things may have put some flags up as well. Nothing on my carry on was confiscated, just an item was stolen out of the checked luggage.

But the thing that gets me was that other people were treated as well and they were your typical run of the mill people, nothing out of the norm. And maybe they were acting on something for that day and my encounter may have been unique. I don't know?

Just got off the phone with Garmin and celler was correct they did hook me up. My HCX is just out of warranty and they gave me a RMA number and will repair it at no charge. Very cool, so off it goes in the mail. There customer service for repairs was very very good when I called. This was my first time dealing with them.

I've got a Vista HCx just like that, I didn't think they've been around long enough to run out of warranty. I'm not surprised Garmin took care of you, I'm on about my 6th Garmin, I live by them. Actually, 11 if you count the 4 airplanes in my flying club (the Cirrus has 2).

I love the "H" part of the HCx- I had the original Vista, and it would lose signal with a moderate tree cover, and would rarely pick up a signal on the top floor of a wood house. My HCx never loses signal when I go jogging, and can often pick up a good signal on the ground floor of my 2 story house.

Yes GoatRider, the warranty expired a month ago but they did me good, I sent it off last week and the HCX is been my favorite unit so far. Lots of potential and it performed flawless electronically on the trip with a killer battery life.

Wow that was fast, Garmin took my old HCX (1 year and 1 month old) out of warranty and gave me a brand new one with all the new software updated plus they gave me new unlock codes for the maps I had on the unit. They have definitely impressed me with fast turnaround and honoring a problem out of warranty. Many thanks to Garmin and you guys were right about them making things right. Five stars *****.

Sent Aug 19 2008
Received new one Aug 27 2008
10 days and some of that was from the mail travel.

Garmin has a well deserved reputation in the long distance motorcycle riding community for taking care of their customers. I sent them a Street Pilot GPS unit several years ago that was well out of warranty, not only did they fix it promptly, they paid to ship it back to me and sent me a nice letter along with it.

Best GPS company that I know of. That's why I now own 3 of their units.

John E

I agree JohnE, I have 3 as well, Emap,etrex,nuvi and I'm looking really hard at the Oregon, the brightness on the screen is really bad and I'm hoping there will be some fix or another model with better brightness. I will definitely be upgrading mine in the not so far future, I came real close to getting the Oregon but it's hard for me to see in the sun, so I'll have to wait and see what comes down the pipe. I did however let Garmin know about the screen brightness problems and I know it will be very difficult for them to correct this in a post production environment, so I'm hoping for another Oregon series 500 for example with brighter screen. I'll sacrifice the battery life for a brighter screen, I recharge and solar power anyway so battery life is not a major issue as long as I have sun light.

I'm glad they have done you right JohnE and they are definitively a good company.

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=14903

I think I'm going to put the Garmin Oregon 400t on my christmas list.