Garmin 60Cx possible design flaw - units break like crazy

Hi!



I was a proud owner of a very nice GPS Map 60C unit. I used it mainly on my
mountain bike. The unit probably had more than 3000 miles of dirt road and
trail riding mounted on the handlebars of my bike before I decided to sell
it and buy a new and improved 60Cx unit.



What a mistake (or maybe not?). I used my first unit for just a few months
and discovered that it was behaving strangely. Riding on a flat asphalt
road, I would notice that the unit would report a full set of batteries
empty, only to jump back to full four bars batt. reading seconds later. It
was like the battery meter went crazy. As I rode more, the unit started
powering down on its own, reporting abnormal shutdowns. It got so bad that
it was enough to just squeeze the case on the sides and the screen would
fade out :(.



It was not the problem with the battery compartment. I tried both the NiMH
and Alkaline cells, I tried making the cells bigger by wrapping electrical
tape around them, stuffing the batt. compartment with foam and everything.
After all, it was obvious that it was not the batt. contact problem because
I could shut down the unit by simply gently squeezing it on the sides. You
can see that on a small video I made, at
http://www.dizmal.hr/garmin/60cx.avi . There are other people who describe
exactly the same problems, like here: http://tinyurl.com/ke942 .



Garmin was nice to me, as we have all come to expect, and they replaced my
unit with a brand new one. I started using it at the beginning of this
month. It was on my bike for not more than 200 miles. On my ride a few days
ago, I started noticing strange power meter readings again and I thought to
myself - oh, no, this can't be happening to me again :(! I rode some more,
not even on dirt roads, and all of a sudden my new unit powered down, less
then a month after I got it :( Needles to mention, I was so disappointed
that trying to repeat the shutdown problem I almost crashed really badly
from my bike :)



Now Garmin replaced me with the third unit, but now I am really anxious as
far as how long the new one will last. I firmly believe from my experience
and the experience of others that there is a hardware design flaw, or a
manufacturing process flaw with the new units. Those of you who use the unit
for hiking or driving are not very likely to experience it because the unit
is not undergoing violent vibrations that it undergoes mounted on a mountain
bike, riding through nature.



BUT, at the same time, these units are DESIGNED to withstand the vibrations
on a bike. The old GPSMap 60C units including mine still work without a
hitch, after thousands of miles, but the new units keep braking down. The
Edge 305 is made for biking, many other electronic bike accessories like
cycling computers and heart rate and altitude monitors are all made in large
quantities, and they last, mounted on a bike, forever. Garmin 60Cx should
also. I also like to point out that I am a VERY conservative rider, I don't
jump, don't ride over rocks, stairs and such, and do not subject the unit to
all the beating it could sustain from a bicycle.



I would really appreciate if other people with similar problems would speak
up. I think we need to contact Garmin and help them see that this is not
just an odd problem but a flaw of some kind with at least the 60Cx units.



Thank you for your input and opinions!



Domagoj



P.S. I am also forwarding this post to my Garmin dealer. They were most
helpful and understanding, and promised they would forward a report like
this to the Garmin HQ. So I keep my fingers crossed.

Oh s**t, I guess I'll have to treat my 60csx like any other delicate
electronics. ;)

Raymond

nospam.gps@none.com wrote:


I agree with you. I wouldn't dare use my GPS outside where it might get
damaged. :rolleyes:



--
Bruce E. Stemplewski
GarXface OCX and C++ Class Library for the Garmin GPS
www.stempsoft.com

Why not ask Garmin if engineering ever looked at your units and
figured out what was causing the intermittent?

Normally with intermittent problems its very difficult for the company
to reproduce the problem. You've certainly done your part to give
them enough units with the same failure mode. They should have gotten
lucky and been able to observe one unit acting up.

Personally, I would never hard-mount a gps to a bike. I plan to make
a sandwich of two thin stiff layers (like that 1/4" thick plastic
corrugated board) with a 1" piece of soft open-cell foam glued between
them. I'll probably wrap the whole thing lightly with mylar packing
tape as a fall-back in case the glue unbonds or the foam rips. The
gps then gets attacked to the top surface and a handle-bar clamp to
the bottom. That should keep the GPS from being assaulted by all the
road vibrations.

-wolfgang
--
Wolfgang S. Rupprecht http://www.wsrcc.com/wolfgang/

I am replying both to you and the other poster. I personally do not
understand why people would not use the Garmin designed bike mount. I made
sure to point out that I used to have an older 60C unit, and many of my
friends still do, and all the units work just fine in the same conditions.

nospam says that he will treat his GPS like any other kind of sensitive
electronics :( Well, how about all the other electronics that get mounted on
bikes every day? It takes relatively complicated electronics to drive a HID
light, yet companies sell the light systems that are only meant to work
mounted on a bike, not to mention cycling computers and what not. Garmin
looks bigger, but really size is not the problem here.

The older units have no problems at all, so this needs to be fixed in my
opinion. I want to have my unit in view at all times, because that way I use
it the most effectively, like riding fast downhill, and cheking the next
corner on the screen of my GPS, right as I go.

Let's not settle for less!

Domi