Garmin MicroSD uploading of maps

[Spenser]

Was reviewing some of the older threads and noticed that others had purchased the Topo and City Nav maps on CD an uploaded to microSD on their own. Question-why? Does this allow you to do something different with your maps that you cant do on the preloaded SD's, which is what I seem to understand (they are copy protected), such as loading way points on the computer and then uploading onto the SD? Also, one of the threads that I was reading mentioned loading Topo on one SD, and City NAv on another chip. Is it possible to put both on one SD? And will they work that way or do they need to seperated. Thanks for indulging my questions, first GPS and owners manaual is less than helpful regarding these things.

 

[Tucson T4R]

I think the primary motivation to get new uSD cards is to increase capacity. I got a 1GB card. The preloaded base maps are not very detailed and don't autoroute. You definitley want to upgrade the memory size and use City Nav and Topo maps. City Nav will auto route for streets. There is no auto route function on the Topo maps.

Yes, you can loads both City Nav and Topo maps on the same card. Use the Garmin PC based Mapsource to select both the City Nav and Topo maps you want into on "mapset" and then download that to your GPS.

You choose which you want to see on the GPS display by going into the mapset up menu and "hiding" City Nav. Once City nav is in hidden mode, the Topo maps will be displayed. Switch back to "show" City maps for them to come back to the top.

I have all the US City Nav and most of the Western US states Topo maps loaded on one 1GB card.

Happy to help if you have more questions.

 

[LandCruiserPhil]

I thought I could load my 2 meg card up, but Garmin limits you to 2012 maps to load at a time. Due to this limit I have several cards to give me access to the full US TOPO, street navigator, and Mexico Topo. I also found when I load the max 2012 maps it does run a little slower. Not 100% sure if this is true with all Garmins but at least the last 3 I have owned.

 

[Tucson T4R]

I thought I could load my 2 meg card up, but Garmin limits you to 2012 maps to load at a time. Due to this limit I have several cards to give me access to the full US TOPO, street navigator, and Mexico Topo. I also found when I load the max 2012 maps it does run a little slower. Not 100% sure if this is true with all Garmins but at least the last 3 I have owned.

2MB or 2GB? 2MBs wouldn't hold very many map segments.

 

[LandCruiserPhil]

2MB or 2GB? 2MBs wouldn't hold very many map segments.

You sir are correct

 

[Tucson T4R]

I thought I could load my 2 Gig card up, but Garmin limits you to 2012 maps to load at a time. Due to this limit I have several cards to give me access to the full US TOPO, street navigator, and Mexico Topo. I also found when I load the max 2012 maps it does run a little slower. Not 100% sure if this is true with all Garmins but at least the last 3 I have owned.

This is also a good approach. If you put your City Nav on one, Topo maps on another, and any custom maps on a third card, you can then just swap them when you want that mapset. With this approach you don't have to worry about going into the map set up page to select which maps you want to view.

Which ever approach sounds better to you will work fine.

 

[RobinP]

...You choose which you want to see on the GPS display by going into the mapset up menu and "hiding" City Nav. Once City nav is in hidden mode, the Topo maps will be displayed. Switch back to "show" City maps for them to come back to the top....

Is it capable of overlaying the different maps, so that the topo could be in the background with the streets layed on top giving directions? I guess there's not much use for this in a city, but in the back country this could be useful.

 

[LandCruiserPhil]

This is also a good approach. If you put your City Nav on one, Topo maps on another, and any custom maps on a third card, you can then just swap them when you want that mapset. With this approach you don't have to worry about going into the map set up page to select which maps you want to view.

Which ever approach sounds better to you will work fine.

I set it up by regions that way you can run both topo and city navigator together or switch between the two without changing cards. Another option is to mark a route, like Mex to CND. Garmin give you an option to include all Topo on your route. I find this helpful, because it makes everything faster because you have only the data on the card you need on that trip.

 

[Tucson T4R]

I have a Map76 CSx and I have not seen the ability to view both City nav and Topo at the same time. Maybe I just don't know how to do it.

At times, if I when am traveling an major back roads, I have auto routed in City Nav and then switched to topo and the routing by road was still visible in the topo display. That only works if the back roads you are traveling are also documented in City Nav.

 

[Tucson T4R]

If your a techie and like to get into programing, you can build custom maps and make them transparent so they show the map products show through your custom maps. It gets a little deep and I personaly blew it off because I was too lazy to spend the time learning the process with all the multiple software tools required.

If you want to learn how to be a map geek extrodinaire, you can find the info at:

http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showforum=11

 

[Alex]

1) It is nice to have the original ($100+) Mapsource disc safe at home, in case anything happens to my GPS or the Micro sD card storing the data.

2) Blank high capacity Micro sD cards are cheap... I just got a 2gb card at Costco for 27 bucks.

3) I can put whatever combination of Mapsource products I like on the card. The one in my 60Cx has City Navigator, Topo 100k and National Parks West Topo 24k for the entire Southwest and SoCal.

4) The excess capacity can be used to store the tracklogs of EVERYWHERE I have been with that unit.

Set up your unit to log track data to the memory card, it gets saved there until the card gets full, regardless of how full the GPS unit's memory is. This record stays even if you delete the main tracklog... although you can go to a seperate screen and delete them if you really want to for some reason. They are only accessable to the Mapsource program on your computer, or any application that can use .gpx files.

That 31% of usage is almost entirely maps. It will take a really loooong vacation to fill the rest of the card with tracks.