Garmin Montana

Fred:
I was calling off topic on ME. Sorry bout the confusion.
Thanks for the info ever body.

Ordered, only 6971 in stock.

I never was good on picking up on this internet sh$t.
No problem it's all good.

I get so much help from everyone I just like to jump in when I can.

Fred

I'm good, you're good.

Is it possible to turn off the notification that the unit is switching to battery power? I'd like to just leave it on. The notification keeps popping up when I drop below 2500 rpm since my stator can't quite handle the power (from other things).

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No. Run the Montana on internal batteries.

How long should I expect the internal battery to last on full screen brightness?

I think I'll just figure something out to prevent the voltage from sagging to the unit. It can't be drawing more than a few watts, shouldn't be hard, just a little time consuming.

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You probably won't get more than 2-3hrs with the backlight set to 100%. But, if you're riding during the day, I can't imagine you would need 100% backlight - but then I don't know your riding conditions.

You're probably heading in the right direction to fix your bikes issues.

I ride a lot under heavy cover in the woods, so I'm not sure how much I'll see the device in those conditions, especially when it's cloudy outside. I'd also like to minimize my interaction with the device as I don't have a lot of opportunities to take my hands off the bars. I'm riding tomorrow so I'll see how it goes though. I'll probably just leave it powered to the bike unless it gets particularly annoying.

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You could always switch the mount over to run on a larger rechargeable battery.

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Hey all,

I'm having trouble with my 650. a bunch of moisture got into the screen and now the backlight doesn't work at all. I have tried putting it in a bag of rice overnight with no success. I don't want to take it apart with consulting the group wisdom here. It still works but I just can't see it most of the time.

Of course it craps out in the middle of Bolivia when I need it the most too.

Hmm.. If I remember correctly, you rode through Mexico hurricane? And what other elements have your 650 went through? I am interested to know what type of expose the 650 went through when you travel south because I am planning similar trip next year.. It would be helpful to know what may cause it to happen. Thanks!

The Montana is not difficult to disassemble if you are comfortable with very small cables and a proper disassembly/assembly order process. But, once you have the unit apart there will be very little you can do if there is a short or burned out component (most likely scenario if the Backlight has failed). If the Montana is working and you rely upon it, I'd leave it alone. In the event you decide to disassemble here is a link to a very good pictorial processes by Hodakaguy...

I don't believe weather (maybe Hail) will cause damage to the IPX7 seals. Physical damage is more likely: dropping or pushing to hard on the display surface the usual causes.

Well my Zumo 50 died but after reading this thread I'm not so sure I am ready to dive in to another problematic GPS. Decisions decisions

You read this WHOLE thread?

I read just about every 25th page. Quite a bit of info and this is probably one of the more helpful threads on the site. I just don't know if I want to deal with the frustration. The Zumo has been good but I would love to have topo and there are others that are better for trails and two track.

First experience with Montana 650 is that ounce for ounce an extra screwdriver or pliers would be more useful. I have not successfully loaded a single map in 8 hours ( never past 12%), have to reinstall the software to download on my HP every time I try( dozens of times), a MacBook Pro is slightly better, but still no map.

I was unable to get Garmin's software to recognize the s/n, then it finally did without any prompt. I ended up buying City twice since there was no recognition of the transaction being complete.

No amount of resetting allows it to show 3 gb of memory, no idea why I can't erase the partial 2008 topo that went in early in the effort.

The list goes on and on.

Sounds to me like your real problem is a slow internet connection. The map download from Garmin's server to your computer is generally slow, sometimes taking a few hours to complete and far more if your net connection is slow.

Re: freeing space on the GPS. Just connect in mass storage mode and remove the old map. Are you using Map source to load maps?

It loaded after 12 hours. Sorry about the rant, this was so frustrating. Never heard of mass storage mode, how do I do that?

Glad to hear you're making progress. Rather than explaining it all over again, I should just point out this site with all the information you're likely to need: http://garminmontanagpsr.wikispaces.com/

So I had my first outing with the Montana this weekend. Saturday, I had it on the dirtbike for 5-6 hours, and sunday a quick 2 hour hike with the dog. I had the back-light off, but despite the heavy cloud cover, rain, and being in the woods a lot, it was way easier to see than I thought. My phone, at the highest brightness, doesn't even compare, and it would have been dead long before the end of the day.

My only issue is the draw rate of the map. I have it set to fast, but its still really slow. I have about a gig of satellite imagery loaded to the devices uSD card, as well as 24k topo maps on the uSD card (class 10 32 gig). When riding, I was trying to drag around the map to find places to drop pins to navigate to, but it was painfully slow. I'm looking for land marks that can only be found using the satellite imagery. Would moving the satellite images to the devices onboard memory help? FWIW I also had about 25 tracks loaded on the map in that area (they were on the devices built in memory)

P