OpenStreetMap
Can you use a Magellan eXplorest 500 to capture trace data?
Posted by PurpleMustang on 28 March 2008 in English.Don't get/use a Magellan eXplorist 500 to collect data. At the most detailed setting 0.01 km, I'm limited to 20km of data points. Well lets say having to stop every 20km or so wasn't a bad thing. luckily I was mapping a secondary road that had a town every 10 km or so. So I would save the trace when I got to every new town. The bad part when opening the folder to save the new trace my GPS would get exponentially slower. By the time I had collected 20 trace files it was now taking about 5 minutes to open the folder. At the end of the day it was drive for 15 minutes stop for 5, drive for 15 stop for 5 etc.
It works great for mapping the neighbourhood.
I emailed Magellan support about this issue.
In the mean time I decided to check my google spam mail and guess what I found. Yup the reply from Magellan, go figure? There response was try a 1 gig memory card.
I'm off on another mapping mission in a few days, so we will see what happens. I'm bringing my laptop along this time as a backup data logger for this GPS.
Discussion
Comment from johndrinkwater on 28 March 2008 at 01:16
Yeah, it’s not the best designed software ever. I’ve got a 510, and find it quite handy for long walks.
The best thing to do for saving tracks is create a directory to save in - it wont parse the files when you navigate into it, so saving is much quicker!
If you want more accurate tracklogs (1s) you can always attach a small laptop to it, it spits out raw data over USB every second. Something like the EEE is ideal in a car.
Hope that helps. (oh, and dont forget to post a page on the OSM wiki about the 500, magellans doesnt have many users sadly)