My garmin 800 arrives tomorrow!

AdamJ

Mega excited to get it up and running. Im using it mainly for logging miles/km, calories and speed but i chose this one for the turn by turn navigation. I know the base maps are poo, so wondering where is the best place to look online for proper micro SD maps. I know of the free ones (talkytoaster?) but would probably rather use one i can buy and just plug into the card socket, ideally Garmin ones, but for 99 quid im not too sure! UK and maybe europe would be ideal.

grim168

I'm hoping mine arrives tomorrow too. I have just received a micro sd europe city navigator as recomended on here from ioffer for 22 quid. if it's ok I'm gonna order the 1-50,000 os as well for same price.

AdamJ

Good shout with ioffer, never seen that website before. be sure to let me know how it works! Have you got a link to the one you bought?

grim168

http://gb.ioffer.com/i/garmin-city-navi ... -523375639 Ordered sunday night and arrived this morning. will let you know when unit arrives.

AchillesLeftKnee

AdamJ wrote:

I know of the free ones (talkytoaster?) but would probably rather use one i can buy and just plug into the card socket

There's an element of Devil's Advocate about this (I'm in something of a minority insofar as I reckon the OpenStreetMap maps are rubbish on the 800), but they are pretty easy to get onto the device. If money's a real issue, it might be worth at least giving them a pop, especially if you've got a spare MicroSD card hanging about - after all, woohoo, free stuff! If you like 'em, as many do, then it's all good.

Brian1

Hi Grim are these genuine Garmin or maps downloaded on to a SD card card from a site like DC Rainmaker?

grim168

Brian, it comes with garmin stickers on the case but I'm not too sure how genuine it is. There was no packaging as such. i will try it and let you know. The seller gets good reviews on ioffer but when you google the site it does seem to have a reputation for fake goods.

earth

Top product.

apreading

As someone who bought an 800 with OS maps, then downloaded the Talkytoaster OS style maps (routable without contours) for the UK, then bought the pukka Garmin road maps for a trip to Europe - the Talkytoaster maps are BY FAR the best, and just as easy to get onto the device as they others. Download the file, copy to a card and stick the card in the device - simple as that.

RDW

A genuine Garmin map sold on a micro-SD card will be locked to the card you bought it on. If you copy the files to another card, the map won't work. If you are able to copy the files to a second card and it works in the GPS, then you've bought a fake. Would anyone who's bought from the ioffer site like to test this? The seller's price is just over 1/3 of Amazon's already discounted price for the Garmin Europe maps, and all his maps go for this same price, which sounds questionable to me. Amazon does sell the UK/Ireland only map for not much more than the ioffer seller's price for Europe, which would be one way of buying a legitimate copy for a reasonable price.

I would also suggest giving the various free Talkytoaster maps a try first. You won't get postcode routing, but otherwise they are very nice.

apreading

I got my Garmin Europe Maps on Sd card from Amazon (not marketplace seller but Amazon themselves) for £25ish at the beginning of this year - so they have sold them this cheap in the past, which means ioffer *could* be genuine.

Brian1

Just had a look at the talky site but I dont see European maps which is what Im after!

wongataa

Brian1 wrote:

Just had a look at the talky site but I dont see European maps which is what Im after!

TalkyToasetr only does UK maps. OSM based maps are available for other places elsewhere. http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/ has worlwide maps. There is also velomaps.

Brian1

Thanks for that Wonga

grim168

Mine arrived popped the ioffer card in and alls good. Just gotta learn how to use the bugger now. Will be ordering the os 1-50,000 card now.

earth

Mine switched itself off on a ride twice today. Lost a few miles and some climbs. I went into settngs and turned off the auto power down when not in use feature. There are two faults there: 1. I always turn that feature off so it must have become enabled again. The configurations seem to be volatile and other configured things such as measurements have a tendancy to change mid ride. 2. It was in use because I was riding when it switched itself off, it had been showing me my speed earlier so it knew it was in use.

And again I found myself riding along a beautiful stretch of smooth black stuff while the Garmin thought I was off road because the road was not in the map.

Gizmodo

earth wrote:

Mine switched itself off on a ride twice today. Lost a few miles and some climbs. I went into settngs and turned off the auto power down when not in use feature.

Why would you need to turn this feature off? If you are using the device to record your ride (you've pressed start) then you are using the device, so it won't turn off. It will only power off if you haven't started recording. It will always tell you the speed, even if you haven't pressed start.

I have had a Garmin 800 for 2 years now and no setting have ever changed mid ride.

earth

Gizmodo wrote:

earth wrote:

Mine switched itself off on a ride twice today. Lost a few miles and some climbs. I went into settngs and turned off the auto power down when not in use feature.

Why would you need to turn this feature off? If you are using the device to record your ride (you've pressed start) then you are using the device, so it won't turn off. It will only power off if you haven't started recording. It will always tell you the speed, even if you haven't pressed start.

I have had a Garmin 800 for 2 years now and no setting have ever changed mid ride.

I have the auto start notice on and it was recording prior to switching off. Besides why would anyone make a feature to power down just because it is not recording the ride? What if you are using it for navigation but are not interested in recording the ride?

Gizmodo

earth wrote:

Gizmodo wrote:

earth wrote:

Mine switched itself off on a ride twice today. Lost a few miles and some climbs. I went into settngs and turned off the auto power down when not in use feature.

Why would you need to turn this feature off? If you are using the device to record your ride (you've pressed start) then you are using the device, so it won't turn off. It will only power off if you haven't started recording. It will always tell you the speed, even if you haven't pressed start.

I have had a Garmin 800 for 2 years now and no setting have ever changed mid ride.

I have the auto start notice on and it was recording prior to switching off. Besides why would anyone make a feature to power down just because it is not recording the ride? What if you are using it for navigation but are not interested in recording the ride?

I would have thought navigating, as in following a route, would also count as using the device. The only time mine has turned off is when I have not pressed start, so the device is neither recording nor navigating. If you we're just looking at the map without enabling either navigation or recording features then yes it would power down.

But if, as you say, you we're recording the ride and it turned off, you have a faulty unit

AdamJ

Well, used my garmin twice now since it came mid week. Very impressed by the speed of satellite pickhp and records rides great.
However!
I decided to buy a sd card for 3.50 off ebay in order to drop some maps onto it. I have formatted, copied files, renamed, restarted, tinkerex with everything, but the unit will not recognise any gpx file or gmapsupp file on the card. Its defknately in there, the cards in the unit, and the garmin will save activities ti the card, but it wont see maps or the routes. I have used velomaps and talkytoaster to no avail.. The routes work wben dropped in the internal memory.
So confused, any tips?

fsman

double check you are installing correctly.

Use this guide

http://www.scarletfire.co.uk/2012/01/tu ... -edge-800/

wongataa

AdamJ wrote:

Well, used my garmin twice now since it came mid week. Very impressed by the speed of satellite pickhp and records rides great.
However!
I decided to buy a sd card for 3.50 off ebay in order to drop some maps onto it. I have formatted, copied files, renamed, restarted, tinkerex with everything, but the unit will not recognise any gpx file or gmapsupp file on the card. Its defknately in there, the cards in the unit, and the garmin will save activities ti the card, but it wont see maps or the routes. I have used velomaps and talkytoaster to no avail.. The routes work wben dropped in the internal memory.
So confused, any tips?

Are the maps in a folder named Garmin? if not then the unit won't pick them up. New routes need to be put in the folder \Garmin\Newfiles\. When powering on the unit will notice these new routes and put them in its route folder and let you use them.

AdamJ

Yeah i have gmapsupp.img in a Garmin folder but got nada! I'll try again pater in case theres something obvious i have missed.

Gizmodo

AdamJ wrote:

Yeah i have gmapsupp.img in a Garmin folder but got nada! I'll try again pater in case theres something obvious i have missed.

If you downloaded the file as a "ZIP" file, have you "Extracted" the file before copying it to the SD card?

The instructions on TalkyToaster say:

Download the file you are interested in, unzip it, and save the unzipped file as GMAPSUPP.IMG and then upload it to your Garmin [make sure you have sufficient storage space first] and backup any mapsets you have already installed. If you don't have a program to handle/unzip ZIP files I would recommend 7Zip which is available FREE from here: http://www.7-zip.org/.

AdamJ

Well after completely formatting the card, doing everything step by step and adding a map from garmin opensourcemaps, im still experiencing problems. The "courses" on the card appear and disappear at will, and the maps never show up. I have bit the bullet and bought this map pack from the same website as the unit itself:

http://www.handtec.co.uk/garmin-city-na ... 91-00.html

Hopefully this will be a legit card and i can get on with it and stop filling up this forum! Fingers crossed it is the cheap sd card and not the card reader in the unit itself. Card should arrive in a day or two max....

AdamJ

quick update for anyone interested

my official garmin card arrived nice and quick from Handtec. popped it into the Garmin and voila, perfect working maps. I think the SD card i bought, unsurprisingly from ebay for less than £4 was a lot of poo. Either buy a decent card or the proper maps!