Garmin eTrex Vista HCx

If anybody is looking to upgrade there GPS, take a look at this.

Well Doug will be proud of me, I bought a hand held GPS yesterday. I was looking for a good handheld that met the requirements I was looking for. Finally someone is starting to get an idea, so I went with a Garmin eTrex Vista HCx. It just came out and Bass Pro shop had several in. They've been selling like hot cakes all over the net. It acquires a signal extremely fast and I can use it indoors as well as just about everywhere I need to go. It picks up in real hard areas with no problems. A very excellent product.

The reason why I picked this model was:

1. 25 hour run time on the batteries
2. 2 AA batteries to power it
3. Small to where you can put it in your pocket and take it anywhere.
4. Has the capability of Topo maps as well as Full street level navigation of the entire US and Europe.
5. Be able to pick up signal in heavy foliage as well as indoors and have a quick acquisition time.
6.Waterproof to at least 4 or 5 feet

It can use a 2 gig SD card that can hold all of US and give street level routing as well as topos for the entire US. Right now it has just the base map on it, but I ordered the street Nav NT CD and plan on topo next but it has allot of capabilities. I tested it with 4 (5 watt) solar panels (20 watts) that I use for charging my Steripen Adventure and flashlights and it will run 100% on a cloudy day with back lighting on with no batteries. So if your lost out in the woods and your out of batteries or you lose all your batteries (and the sun is out) you can see where you are, what you need to do to get out and find that lake to get some drinking water if you can. I found that 20 watts is the optimal power for most of your essentials (Cell phone,GPS,Steripen,battery recharging,small radio, etc..) If I could do it over again, I would get one of the military style 20 or 25 watt one folding panel. There still too expensive though.


https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=145&pID=8703

The pictures below are powered up with the cells (no batteries in the unit whatsoever), I put the cable between the fingers to support the unit, I found that 15 watts on a cloudy day will sustain the power but will not boot but with 20 watts it works like a charm.

The new Garmins are nice. My latest is a 60CSx and it is by far the nicest GPS I've had. Previously I had a eTrex Vista (the old model) and it was nice, but the new SiRF based units are heads and shoulders above the old ones.

Some gotchas (at least they were the case last time I updated my 60CSx) -- even if you use a large memory card, there is a limit in the firmware to how many map segments you can have. So if you want to do something silly like upload all the road maps and topos in the country you can't, even if you have the memory (silly me to want to do this!). Also, I don't think it had a battery option for lithium batteries like the old units (grr!).

One other thing I don't like about the Garmin units (long standing issue) is there is no easy way to switch between *sets* of map segments. For example, it would be nice to switch between using the base map, the set of topo maps and the set of road maps. Right now, you have to toggle it segment by segment which is painful.

That said, my 60CSx rocks. Nice screen, outstanding reception.

That said, I'm very distracted with the Bushnell ONIX400 right now because it can download sat photos and has XM Weather capabilities. Way cool. Too bad it doesn't appear to have XM Traffic too.

The downsides are it appears to use a lithium-ion battery (dudes, you may not be able to recharge in the woods!) and I don't know why they didn't include XM Traffic. Maybe a later unit.

Regardless, hopefully the Bushnell will reset the bar for GPS mfgrs in general.

These critters have come a long way!

-john

Well that suxs about the maps, I guess I'll find out in a week when the CD comes in. I know they have a mini SD card that has everything preloaded but I opted for the disk to put the topos on top instead of buying two SD cards. Oh well maybe I should have gotten the SD card instead that was preloaded. I'll update and let you know if they changed anything when the CD arives.

Well you can still get a LOT of maps on there. It's over a thousand segments (can't remember exact number right now). The top maps cover less area per segment, so they are the "segment hogs".

They may also have updated the firmware and removed this restriction. I haven't checked lately.

Note also be careful with the little button on the unit. I used to just throw mine in my pack and bash it around. At some point the little rubber coating ripped on the button. It still works, but I assume that hoses the water resistance. It isn't really a fault, I was pretty rough on it, but no sense making my mistake.

-john

Thanks John, I just got off the phone with Garmin, they said it had a 2056 map limit, which means I could put all of the us street maps on one card or europe but topo has over 5000 maps so I would have to split it between cards. So I guess the up side is you can have US or Europe maps which are under 2056 on one card but Topo would take 2 discs for the whole country. AT newEgg the prices for micro SD's are cheap thank goodness. Well it's still not too bad to work with I guess. I see some things of garmin never change.

Just picked up a 25W SunLinq foldable solar panel. Nice, lots of 12v output options. What connectors do you use to go directly into the eTrex?

I bought a vector power converter at target (best buys has them as well) and soldered in a cigarette lighter receptacle as well into it and use a standard Garmin 12 volt car charger that plugs into it. This way I can recharge it in the car or by the cells. The Vector is nothing more than a regulator which you can dial in what voltage you want, in the case of the Garmin I hold it at 12 volts which works great and also when charging the batteries. I use to have to drop to 6 volts for the steripen but I had bought a 1 hour charger that runs off of 12 volts now as well and charges really fast now as well. I envy you with the cell you bought, when mine ever go out, I'll probably have to get one of those instead of carrying 4 cells around. They were $40 a piece when I had bought them from Northern tool awhile back , but they stopped carrying them.

With your's I would solder a cigarette lighter in yours coming off the cell (unless it has one) and plug the vector into that and solder another cigarette lighter (in parallel with the vector lead)coming off the Vector. The vector comes with adapter tips that plug into most chargers and electronic gear. The garmin, I had to use there car adapter because I could't find the mini connector.

The reason I use 2 cigarette lighters is I use the one off the cells for heavy duty drawing devices (like a fan) then I plug the vector into it (which has 2 plugs on the output (cigarette lighter and multi tip)) then I plug the electronics into the end of the vector so it's regulated.
Examples:

Great looking unit. What kind of street prices are you guys seeing on this on the 'net?

Mine came with a cigarette lighter socket adaptor (female) so it would be an easy fit. Just need to buy the lighter adaptor (male) for the GPS. Thanks.

Not to get off topic, but I recently bought a 20w 12v rolling solar panel with 12v "cigarette" jack. Battery chargers are an option which I plan to pick up later, but using the gps car charger allows for easy direct connection. Anyone know how folding panels compare to rolling type? Mine says it is marine grade.

When I got my GPSMAP 60CSx I went against what seemed at the time like the majority opinion on GPS forums and got the City Navigator NT maps on the MicroSD card. My reasoning was that I only use one GPS at a time and it does contain ALL the maps for North America.

Recently I've read that Garmin is changing the DVD software so that it can only be used on one unit, which makes the choice of DVD vs. the MicroSD kind of a mute point.

Not sure which is best, but I like using the MicroSD. When at Glacier NP I had both the City Navigator NT MicroSD card and another card that held the entire West National Parks 24K topos (they all fit on a single MicroSD even usign the DVD). It was easy to flip between them AND I was able to use the City Navigator NT card on the entire train ride from Milwaukee to West Glacier (since it has the entire continent on it).

One of the goofy things about working with MicroSD cards is the difficulty of labeling such as tiny card. I used a extra fine-tip sharpie and just used abbreviations.

By the way, my 60CSx DOES have a selection for lithium batteries. Its a bummer they don't have that for the Vista HCx, though it is overcomable.

Ken

Lithium batteries: When I discovered lithium AA's I called garmin to see if they were compatible with the GPS V. No problem at all. They just have a longer shelf life and runtime.

Not to veer to far off course, but how is the quality of the TEN ERGY rechargeable batteries.

Glock-A-Roo I've seen $230 up for the units but the problem is they are sold out everywhere I was looking. I ended up going down to the Bass Pro shop and bought it there, at least it's a legit Garmin dealer and it's registered now so if it breaks, I won't have any hassles.

Hmm. I think my 60CSx only has options for NiMH and alkaline. Maybe there is a flash update -- I'll have to check.

FWIW, both my GPS III+ and eTrex Vista have options for lithium cells.



That stinks.

While I haven't looked lately to see if it covers TENERGY batteries sepecifically, I consider this the authorative reference for NiMH batteries.

-john

RAS, the TEN ERGY's are alright but I had originally got the 750ma from these guys because they were the suppliers of the Steripens batteries. http://www.all-battery.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1014
I had bought a fast charger from them and extra batteries as well so I would have power for several days (for water purification) while recharging on solar, I carry a stainless steel (non vacuum jacket)32 oz bottle as a drinking bottle as well as a back up to boil water in the event all my batteries go dead. I'm planing on making a back up tube that hooks to the solar cells to run the steripen with no batteries, just sunlight in the event of 8 sets of batteries fail. I have noticed that when you are not using your adventure (steripen), take your batteries out of it. It has an internal drain that will drain them after a few days of not using it. You will get much longer use out of it if you take the batteries out after you refill all of your water for the day or time period. Next time I will get the 900ma batteries and the charger. http://www.all-battery.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=521
And here is some more annoying pictures:






And for pesticides the combi

I've been looking at those hand helds but I think I'll put one on my Christmas list though that limits the price to under $200.
Speaking of batteries I've standardized on Sanyo Eneloop because of the low self discharge I can leave gear sitting in my bob and have it ready to go.
I have a Maha charger after finding out a lot of chargers don't fully charge batteries and am converting from the cig lighter type of plugs to anderson power poles due to their smaller size and better connection.

Both garmins I've owned sucked in the woods they would not pickup satellite reception at all!

I'm talking about on the handlebars of my quad they would get get reception in the trees, or in the clouds in the clear to even tell me where I was at!! I was not impressed at all.

BTW: Where can I buy those roll-up solar panel things?

I got mine from a place called Solar World because they had the best price at $319. They are made by Powerfilm. I already owned a clamshell type of panel, but the panels are on the outside and I wanted something better so I searched the net and took the plunge. Says marine grade and actually looks like thick vinyl. It rolls up to 4 or 5 inches and the optional connectors made it seem versitile. Strong enough to power a 12v car fan bought at Wal-mart (for tent ventilation).

I had read somebody's blog about a kayak trip where it was used to charge his laptop. Smaller sizes are available and pics show them hanging from backpacks to charge batteries while hiking. Mine is the largest model and at 6 feet I may have overdone it on size, but it is light and could be slung on top of a tent to get better light.

Thanks, I'll have to look into them they are def. something that could come in handy!!

What's the exact models you've had?

It's very difficult for GPSes to operate under heavy cover.

That said, the newer SiRF based units are MUCH better than the previous versions. My eTrex Vista is an old model, and my 60CSx is a new SiRF based model. The 60CSx is so much better it isn't even funny.

On the older units, typically you can find a hole in the canopy (watch the sat locater display) and stand still for a long time and you should be able to get a lock. The old units pretty much won't lock while on the move. Sometimes once you get a lock it will keep it while you move, but probably not, esp, on a quad.

-john

I have found new lithium AAs won't work in my GPSMap 60Cx. The same batteries would work in the older 60. The problem is that the voltage is too high; the unit seems to detect this during its power-up self test and switch itself off. Discharging the batteries through a resistor for a while made them usable.

What version firmware does your unit have?

Thanks,

-john

There is a $50 rebate available on Garmin 60 Series units from now till the end of the year.

http://tinyurl.com/34wmmj

Ah, I think I found the discrepancy. It has a menu option for lithium-ion, not lithium (primary). The lithium-ion is a rechargeable battery, where lithium primary is a one use battery like alkaline batteries.

I just checked the flash on my 60CSx. It was 3.10. I ran the update and am now current with 3.30. No lithium primary option after the update.

-john

[Edit: I've sent a query to Garmin to clarify their position on lithium battery support for the 60CSx. Will post the results.

Note, the more people who write Garmin, the more likely they will add the support.]

Whoohoo! I'll have to check to see if this will apply to EBay stores instead of just retailers....

Any money back is a good thing.

I think they will have to make a hardware change to properly support lithium primary cells. It is easy to make a firmware fix to accomodate batteries with a lower (than nominal) voltage; the problem, as I see it, is they didn't allow for the nominal voltage of the regulator/circuitry to be higher. If it was just firmware they could have done it ages ago. Gotta wonder why they didn't change the hardware when they went to the "x" series even.

Garmin's "solution" (on their site) to lithium batteries is to discharge them a bit first. Yup, that's why we pay the big extra $$ for them...doing better sitting on the shelf is nice, but we kinda rate a lot of things by how they do when we're using them. Modern quality alkalines have a very long shelf life already.

The weird thing is most of their older models supported lithium batteries. I wonder if it was a business decision, or if they outsourced some subcomponent.

-john

My pre-"x" 60 series doesn't handle fresh lithium totally properly either. Now that I think more about it, I'm guessing it's the reset chip that gets a signal for over- (or under-) voltage from the regulator, and shuts the unit down. But I obviously don't know...

Thing is, quality alkaline have a shelf life of easily 7 or 8 years (practically speaking), and they last so long in these units anyway compared to batteries in the "old days" of GPS. Perhaps lithium are not a cost-effective choice here? These units have very low drain compared to a camera where lithium are great.

Sigh. Somewhat predictably, Garmin managed not to answer my questions.

I wrote:


They responded:


It has a option maked "Lithium Ion" in the menu for cryin' out loud. Can't they at least address what that means?!

In any case, I'm getting the idea that it is unlikely that we will see lithium battery support in the 60CSx. :-(

-john

Lithium-Ion batteries are manufacturer-made rechargeable battery packs. I didn't even see a rechargeable battery pack for that GPS unit, so maybe they planned to make one but scrapped the idea. The GPSMAP 76 series does not have the Lithium-Ion option in its menu.


On page 91 of the GPSMAP 60CSx Owner's Manual, there exists this little tidbit:

The new Garmin eTrex "H" series units use the relatively new MediaTek (MTK) GPS chip instead of the SiRFIII chip in the GPSMap 76/60CS(x) units.

From the comparisons I've read (I don't have either chips), the MTK looks good:
+ Slightly better under under heavy coverage and quicker acquisition than the SiRFIII.
+ Considerably better tracking accuracy than the SiRFIII.
+ Considerably lower power consumption than the SiRFIII.
+ More "stable" stationary signal (doesn't jump around) when you're not moving (though Garmin seems to filter some of this out for its normal display).
- Takes longer to "realize" you're moving (probably due to heavy filtering for that "stable" stationary signal).
- Tends to slightly cut the corner on 90 degree turns (bigger problem on the early bluetooth MTK GPS receivers).

The SiRFIII is still great and was quite a leap forward, but the MTK unit looks even better. A Vista HCx is definitely on top of my short list for receivers to pick up in the near future (Despite the CS(x) rebate).

Also, I don't know what kind of "DC-DC converter" is in that Vector unit, but I would suspect it is a LM317-esque linear regulator. While they have their use, they are at best 40% efficient in converting power (without the use of transistors).

Efficiency is probably even lower when you're trying to convert to a voltage much lower than the input at a low current (I'd estimate maybe as low as 25%).

If you're handy with circuits or know someone who is, there are some very efficient switching regulators (70~90%). Texas Instruments even makes some as efficient as (up to) 96% (needs a pretty heavy load to get that high, though): http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/ptn78060w.html

Some capacitors, resistors, a multi-pole rotary switch, connectors, a project box and you'd have a great efficient converter. I have a smaller TI converter in a cigarette lighter power plug like the Vector that I use for a USB-based power port. Works great.

Might be something to look into to get all the power you can out of those solar panels.

I forgot I signed up to this forum long ago.

I'm still playing with the capabilities of the one I just bought (Garmin eTrex Vista HCx)


1. I updated my firmware on it and it gives you the options of Lithium,NIMH or alkaline batteries. I will start running the Sanyo Eneloop ( http://www.thomas-distributing.com/sanyo-eneloop-batteries-aaa.php ) batteries

2. I had bought 4- 2 gig micro sd cards from Comp USA that was on sell cheap and loaded one with the entire US street level maps,the second one has all of the European maps on it, and the third has almost all the topos for the us on it and the fourth one is blank but I'll probably put the remaining topos on it. I had took out several areas of topos that I would probably never goto in my life to get it to fit on one card but since I have another card, I will probably load them all now.

3. I've been trying to get it not to pick up satellites and I only found 1 place so far and that's in a concrete bunker at work that's a story underground. So it picks up signal extremely good.

4. The only negative I found with it besides not being able to store all the maps on 1 Micro sd card was that when you power up the unit, sometimes the WAAS reiver is disabled in the setup menu (only on power up) and that is one fix Garmin said they were going to patch,(talked with them on the phone,known issue from many complaints) but it has been transparent to me because it always powers up and locks so fast, the only way I know is checking it and turning it on.

5. It has been really awesome with routes so far,great tracking and loud alerts before the turn and at the turn with big arrow displays.

So far I've been impressed with it and I'm still in testing mode. Oh yea and I used a whiteout pen to identify the SD cards and I'll look into your power supply circuit.
Thanks

Does it say "lithium", or "lithium ion"?

Thanks,

-john

According to Garmin, the new firmware replaced "Lithium Ion" with "Lithium": http://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=3709

Which makes sense. I think the "Lithium Ion" was either a long-term typo or some feature that was never rolled into many Garmin units.

If some have trouble running on full 1.7V L91 lithium primary batteries, there's no way a 7.2V LiOn battery pack is going to work, as there there doesn't seem to be any kind of "wide input" regulator to allow input voltage to vary much.

Will it use the 4gB SD Cards? Just curious as some items won't.
Thanks. Comanche7

JohnN, jewski is right, it now says Lithium with the new firmware I installed plus it did fix my WAAS problem of not coming on when first powering up. I noticed also that I use it as a back up flashlight for close range because the screen is so bright. (Set at full brightness of coarse I haven't tried Lithium batteries in it, I just switched to the eneloop batteries because of all the positive feedback of these batteries in GPS units. It allows you to store batteries up to a year with insignificant power drain plus longer run times.

Comanche7, I'm not aware of any 4 gig micro SD cards out yet, but the downside of this is Garmin limits how many maps you can store on the card, so even if you have room for all the topos on a 4 gig, the software won't let you do it. This is my biggest and now the only complaint I have far with this unit. You can get the 2 gig micro SD cards at Newegg not to bad, I bought one and the next day compusa had them on sell for $30, so I bought 3 more.

The whole intent of the unit is to give me total navigation world wide with street and topo capability. It needs to have the options of Solar or battery powered allowing me to navigate faster in unfamiliar areas and acquire water from lakes or whatever. Shows me where gas stations and food places are (in natural disasters restaurants and gas stations abandon their business and in a life threating condition (ex. Katrina), I know sometimes you can get food as long as it hasn't spoiled or gas from tanks that don't have generators to power there pumps, etc..
With the topos it shows me all the trails I need to navigate to a road or lake, etc..

So it has far more pluses than minuses so far, I'm just trying to find a real small FOB to put the extra Micro sd cards in so it will be waterproof and attached to the GPS so I don't lose them.

A single Lithium Ion cell would be around 3.6V - you need two of them to get 7.2V. So it's not inconceivable that the units could use one.

In fact, for a long time I wished they did. A big Li-Ion cell that replaced two AA cells would have a lot of capacity, and would be rechargeable without the self-discharge problems of conventional NiMH. Also, there's no such solution.

Now Eneloops are available it doesn't matter so much.

I am confused. The Garmin page for the Vista HCx does not list it as a sirf-enabled unit. But the original poster describes the performance in ways similar to a sirf-enabled GPS.

Does the Vista HCx actually have sirf, or has Garmin developed some new technology that achieves sirf results? It certainly isn't WAAS that enables this new GPS to get great reception in traditionally difficult environments.

I'm not sure what kinda of chip set it has, but it's been working awesome. I had bought me this key chain FOB at CVS to store the Extra Map Micro SD cards in. I have had very fast acquisition time on it and have used it in some hard to get signal areas, what ever chip they used it works really really good.

http://www.cvs.com/CVSApp/cvs/gateway/detail?prodid=407151&previousURI=/CVSApp/cvs/gateway/search?page=2^Query=pill^ActiveCat=65^startLink=1

Sorry everyone, I posted my question before doing adequate research. The chipset on this GPS is a new one, not a sirf. In a nutshell, it achieves sirf-level performance while using less power. According to the GPS-philes on the various forums this new Garmin chipset is proving to be performing well and fulfilling the hype generated.

I'll be shopping for one soon.

FWIW, I re-read my posts and I noticed I didn't make myself completely clear. I did test lithium primary cells in my 60CSx with up to date firmware and the unit would power itself down. The 60CSx I have does *not* work with lithiums.

I'm really disappointed and don't understand their decision. A backpacking GPS should take lithiums!

-john

The point to Lithium is more than shelf-life - Alkeline cells perform poorly in cold temperatures. Lithium would be much preferred in very cold (well below freezing) weather.

I've never seen a datasheet on the Eneloop batteries and I don't know how they perform at low temperatures.

Some of Garmin's units use (internal) Lithium-ion batteries, and I assume many aspects of Garmin's products are shared (i.e., you do as much of the engineering as possible once to fit the entire product line and then customize for each individual product at the end - each product is not a clean-sheet effort). So parts of the design probably are intended to work with Lithium-ion, but not all, and it slipped through the cracks.

Garmin's reply on the Lithium issue sounds to me like a weasel-way of saying they screwed up. Someone forgot to actually *test* it before shipping.

I think that the limiting factor in cold weather is often the temperature sensitivity of the LCD screen, not the batteries. Keeping the GPS unit near your body will help with that, but then you'll have trouble with satellite acquisition.

And don't forget they are quite a bit lighter. When you add up the weights for the batteries in the devices and spares, it adds up!

And of course, lithium batteries outperform alkaline batteries quite a bit in most situations even in nominal temperatures.

-john

If it is cold enough for LCD screens to be affected, alkaline batteries are going to perform poorly to say the least.

-john

As I said earlier, if you run them down a bit first they will probably start to work. Their voltage is too high when they are new.