Fixing a ‘Rattling’ Garmin eTrex Vista HCx

Posted on December 31, 2010 12:27 in etrex, fix, garmin, gpsr, how-to

The eTrex Vista HCx is a fantastic little GPSr. The one that I currently have is from Matthew who loaned it earlier this year when our Dakota malfunctioned. After being out in the Roaches, the eTrex suffered an impact injury and began to rattle. Fortunately this was easy to fix as it was only a cover of the speaker inside the GPSr.

To begin, remove the batteries and battery cover. Now remove the black rubber casing band around the GPSr. When you’ve removed this completely you will see some clear plastic tape of which there are three layers. Remove each clear tape label in turn and then carefully keep them to the side as you’ll need them afterwards. You will then have your GPSr open as shown in the photo below. Unclip the top from the bottom gently as this will make reattaching the broken piece easier.

You can now see the piece that has broken off (if you’ve broken the same piece as me that is). If you’re lucky you will be able to clip it back into place. Failing that then reattach it and super-glue into place but be sure of leave two sides open so the speak still works correctly. The image below shows the speaker without its case attached.

Carefully put your eTrex back together and it’ll be as good as new. You can also use these instructions for opening your eTrex for anything else you may need to.

How to Install OpenStreetMap Maps onto a Garmin GPSr

Posted on November 12, 2010 22:41 in garmin, mapinstall, openstreetmap, osm

Garmin provide many types of maps for their devices but each costs quite a large sum of money. Thankfully in recent months this process has become a lot easier for the end user to do. This short guide will explain where to find the correct map file and how to install it using a Dakota 10 GPSr, a Mac and Garmin"s free software.

OpenStreetMap

The OpenStreetMap project provides map data for a large amount of the world for free. Even though the project is community edited – its still an excellent free map to use on your portable GPSr device. If you take a look at the list of maps available on the OSM site (located here for the UK) you will see how many different people are providing packages/data files that can be used with Garmin devices.

Find Your New Map

The choice I made for UK maps with contours and routing is the maps created by user "Talkytoaster" and can be found at his website. At the present time the latest file is "101105" and the filename is "101105-UK+Contours-Routable.gmapi.zip" which will be a file compatible with Garmin"s MapInstall software on the Mac.

Install using Garmin MapInstall

Once you have got your file downloaded (which is probably a few hundred MB) then unzip the file you downloaded. You can plug in your GPSr and run the Garmin MapInstall software on your Mac. Follow the process on-screen and after a short time it’ll be done. Reboot your GPSr and you’ll notice that while its loading at boot time you’ll have a piece of text that says "OPENSTREETMAP".