Lowrance GPS Units

[VelvtRide]

Originally Posted by jas_

Are these units supposed to be as waterproof as the Garmin stuff?
That would be my primary concern (besides that whole "harddrive+vibration=disaster...usually" equation).

Been holding out for the TomTom Rider but the Lowrance is starting to look mighty fine... especially with that huge screen

Very waterproof. Up to 3 meters.

Lowrance's background has been mostly with Fish Finders and boat GPS systems. This is their first auto GPS and the housing is clearly sturdy.


VR

[RoyB]

When you are talking to Lowrance, how about making the unit able to invert 180 degrees so the buttons are now on the left (non throttle) side. Some type of overlay would fix the wording and some menu prompt would invert the image......Damn! What a great idea!

[sdmotor]

Originally Posted by Meathead

Looks great! I have the stock bars on my bike and would probably mount it on the crossbar like I did my magellan. I'm so anal that if it wasn't as close to center as possible it would bug me.

LR/Meathead: on the mp3 end is the unit amplified somehow or do you have to run it through an amp or intercom to hear it while riding.

[VelvtRide]

Originally Posted by RoyB

When you are talking to Lowrance, how about making the unit able to invert 180 degrees so the buttons are now on the left (non throttle) side. Some type of overlay would fix the wording and some menu prompt would invert the image......Damn! What a great idea!

A week or so again I went to Lowrance with these items I wanted to see on the GPS:

1. Buttons on the left sife
2. Ability to enter Lat/Long for waypoints
3. Adding a "Motorycycle" category to finding POI's(with moto shops in database as waypoints)
4. Finding a waypoint within the city you are traveling TO
5. Adding a QWERTY keyboard
6. Ability to add multiple Waypoints
7. Track Log capability
8. Software to plan routes on a PC/Mac and download to the GPS
and more, but I gave them my list and have forgotten what else was on it.


I've got mine mounted on the throttle side and using my left hand to push the buttons is not an issue. It would be nice to see these on the other side, tho.



VR

[VelvtRide]

Originally Posted by sdmotor

LR/Meathead: on the mp3 end is the unit amplified somehow or do you have to run it through an amp or intercom to hear it while riding.

There are 2 ways to connect this thing.

1. Cig adapter
2. Hardwire to vehicle

On the cig adapter, there is a speaker as well as a plug for headphones. I use this in my truck and plug my FM transmitter into it so I can listen to the MP3 and voice directions through my truck speakers. There is no way you want to have it this way on the bike.

The hardwire comes with a ground, power and earphones plug. I hardwired mine to the taillight, grounded it and left the earphone(standard 3.5 ml jack) plug under the seat. Because I have the J & M(which comes with a seperate earphone plug) I just plugged it into the headphone jack of the GPS and left it there(I plug my helmet in to the bike seperately).

If you've got a set of earphone you want to use, route the plug somewhere on the bike you can get to easily so you can just plug it in quickly and go. I will caution you to get a Noise Filter on the hardwire.


VR

[Guzz]

Hey VR,

Had a brain storm last night. Instead of suggesting to have two different models (buttons on the left or the right), suggest to have the buttons below the screen. Then it would ambidextrous!!!

I'm going to hed to Fry's Electronics today to play around a bit more with their demo unit. I messed with it for a bit the other night, but I am not quite sure.

I tried to zoom in an area of Arizona that I know there are a bunch of dirt roads, but they didn't show up!!!

Oh, about the on-screen keyboard... Oh GOD YES!!! Have them add the choice of a QWERTY layout!!! It took me FOREVER to try to type in a location (my own street).

Then, when I did get it typed in, it did it's search and came up with several locations. But I couldn't figure out which one to choose, because the information was wider than the screen... Where the hell was the scroll bar!?!?!?!?

Oh, now if you want a really weird suggestion to submit.... How about a compact flash slot. For pictures It's got 10 gig of space for music, if I don't use it all, it would be cool to copy off my pictures on my CF card from my camera to store on the unit while on a trip. When I get home, then copy them all off the GPS unit to my computer!!! How about that idea!!!!

[VelvtRide]

Originally Posted by Guzzler

Hey VR,


Oh, now if you want a really weird suggestion to submit.... How about a compact flash slot. For pictures It's got 10 gig of space for music, if I don't use it all, it would be cool to copy off my pictures on my CF card from my camera to store on the unit while on a trip. When I get home, then copy them all off the GPS unit to my computer!!! How about that idea!!!!

My suggestion was to have the unit reccognize movie formats.


They are thinking about adding a CF card slot - but don't think it's as high a priority as most of the other stuff right now.

As for you not being able to find streets and cities - perhaps the GPS wasn't connected with the satelites because it was inside of a store?



VR

[Guzz]

Oh hey!!!

I just found a hack to change the keyboard to QWERTY!!!

http://www.gpspassion.com/upload/iway500_qwerty.zip

Another question... what's the number at Lowrance for pre-purchase questions?

[VelvtRide]

Originally Posted by Guzzler

Oh hey!!!

I just found a hack to change the keyboard to QWERTY!!!

http://www.gpspassion.com/upload/iway500_qwerty.zip

Another question... what's the number at Lowrance for pre-purchase questions?

I think you can get it on Lowrance's website, too.

[Thisguy]

Just mounted and hard wired the unit Bought a RAM handle bar mount last night. Took a 15 mile ride. It seems to track better than in a car. Did not lose the signal like it has in a car without the extra antena.

VR, did Lowrance state what size fuse to use? I have 15amp right now.

Bill

[VelvtRide]

Originally Posted by Thisguy

Just mounted and hard wired the unit Bought a RAM handle bar mount last night. Took a 15 mile ride. It seems to track better than in a car. Did not lose the signal like it has in a car without the extra antena.

VR, did Lowrance state what size fuse to use? I have 15amp right now.

Bill

I don't have my bike with me right at the moment and I can't recall - I seem to think it may have been a 6amp. The manual will, for sure, tell you. Or check out the website - they've got the spec sheet for the iWay500 listed.


VR

[Guzz]

Ok, some more questions:

What PC/MAc software was included with the unit (if any)?

What software (if any) is compatable with the iWay (Mapcreate, Mapcreate Topo USA, Freedom Maps, Delorme, etc)?

This is slowly becoming a "love/hate" thing. Love some of features, hate the missing features. But I do want a GPS (soon!!!)

[sherpa]

I've been thinking about getting a small, notebok computer, largely for the routing it will allow me to do while traveling on the bike. Plotting routes on the 2610 is painful. But this Lowrance unit and the bigger screened ones coming out in the fall are making me think twice. Maybe larger screened, more user friendly, GPS's are coming sooner rather than later.

As someone mentioned previously, this competition should have Garmin on it's toes and coming out with new units sooner too.

The larger Lowrance units coming out in the Fall, are they going to be waterproof like this iWay500?

Good thread. ...thanks for all the info.

[Kailash]

GPS is awesome! I was blown away by the iWay 500c on the way to work today in my car. Killer feature #1 - it says what road I'm currently on. All GPSes probably do this, but I can't tell how many times on solo rides, after not seeing a road sign for 20 minutes, off in the middle of (what was previously known as) nowhere....

The unit arrived yesterday. I tried setting it up in the back yard last night. This wasn't all that productive, since the house was blocking on one side and a sound wall on the other. The manual is very clear, and anticipates over-anxious new users. It took a while, but finally I read how GPS birds may be closer to the horizon, so houses, trees, etc. can block them! I was only connecting to two birds, even with the external antenna connected.

My unit shipped with the suction cup mount and a short and long arm. Since sticking stuff on your windshield isn't legal in California (go figure...), I was able to stick it on the corner of my dashboard cover this morning. Aside from looking like a high tech taxi, it works great.

The power supply (for plugging in the wall) is chunky. I can understand why, but it would add a lot of weight bringing it along on trips. I'd probably just plug into the bike. The iWay 500c itself is heavy, too. It feels like a Mac mini with a screen on top. Didn't try to plug into Virtual PC yet since my software was up to date, as of the last update on 12-28-04 (or thereabouts). I can always use a PC at work, if needed. (In OS X, applications can't talk to hardware directly. Consequently DeLorme doesn't work.)

Checked out mount potentials on my bike, too. I ordered the speedometer mount from Michel. Until that arrives, I think I'll try a handlebar mount over the clutch fluid reserve (left blinker, light switch housing). I just discovered my friends at RKA are a RAM mount dealer. We already have plans to stop at BMW of Santa Cruz tomorrow morning on the way to Carmel. It was quite amusing explaining what I needed to someone there who also wasn't all that familiar with the vocabulary, but it seems they have the two necessary pieces, and I'll use the long and short arms that it shipped with.

Getting back to this morning. I thought I checked it all out last night, but I couldn't figure out how to make the cursor go away (it's tap on the Red X, I found out later). So I found my saved location Home in the Address Book and tapped Go to. (notice I said "tapped" - this is a lot like a Palm handheld). What I didn't realize is that the iWay thought I wanted to go Home, and since I was leaving from Home, this led to some curious and humorous voice advices. Once I got this straightened out, it did a good job of re-routing when I didn't take the recommended route. Since I know all the options on this commute, each time I knew exactly what it was suggesting. All were good advice, I thought, although this depends of course on the roads being there in the first place.

The voice sounds a little like the female PA announcer in the movie "Airport", so I'm OK with that! Not sure if/when/how I'd take advantage of that riding on the bike. My ideal would be to have BlueTooth connecting to a small imbedded safe speaker near my left ear (which I use on the phone), i.e. all wireless without putting mini-buds in my molded earplugs, which is also possible). I see their point that sound can be important for GPS, and I could understand that riding in an unknown area, too. Another cool feature, you can turn voice off, and then click the top button (Speak/Volume) and it will repeat the last voice advice. I don't expect to have a Bluetooth solution for the iWay 500c, but it would be a nice enhancement down the road...

The external antenna makes a big difference in the car. Be careful mounting the suction caps to the antenna. A little chapstick or white grease should prevent shaving part of the connector off, like I did. Maybe it was that second glass of wine last night. Anyway, I got somewhere between 6 and 8 satellite connections on the way to work. So the reception was great! Learned all sorts of stuff about the surrounding geography that I never knew before. I did turn off the Marine part, though. Knowing about buoys in San Francisco Bay was a little over the top...

I like the birds-eye view that rotates with your direction of travel the best. My wife, who confuses her lefts and rights, is real interested in trying the 3D view in her car!

I like the auto zoom and transparency in the info overlays, too. I need to work a little more with auto zoom to maybe get it more in sync with my needs. You can always tap on the mileage scale overlay and change it, too.

They recommend NOT leaving the iWay in a hot car. I think this may be the downside of the hard drive. Nowadays, these mini-hard drives can withstand probably close to everything a bike could give it, but heat is a problem. Extreme cold might be, too. I've heard keychain drives (which are basically RAM chips) can also have heat related problems. Lugging the iWay out the car might be a little inconvenient. I'll save room in my tankbag, and just being off the curve of the gas tank may be enough. Hopefully, I can wrap it up in the trunk to keep it cool enough...

This is probably more than enough for now. It's the first time I've used any GPS. Garmin and Magellan may do a lot of this, too. I do like the big screen, especially for car use. The info overlays take up some room and provide good info. The trip calculator is cool, too. Can't believe I got up to 74.98 mpg maximum speed! Hope the cops can't use that!

[VelvtRide]

Originally Posted by Kailash

They recommend NOT leaving the iWay in a hot car. I think this may be the downside of the hard drive. Nowadays, these mini-hard drives can withstand probably close to everything a bike could give it, but heat is a problem. Extreme cold might be, too. I've heard keychain drives (which are basically RAM chips) can also have heat related problems. Lugging the iWay out the car might be a little inconvenient. I'll save room in my tankbag, and just being off the curve of the gas tank may be enough. Hopefully, I can wrap it up in the trunk to keep it cool enough...

I've left mine in the truck before when the weather was 90 degrees and almost 85% humidity. As long as you turn the unit OFF before you get out of the car, the heat shouldn't be a problem.

I left it on once when it was about 102 degrees out - left the truck for about 30/45 mins and came back to see a warning on the screen:

"Internal temprature is too hot. Turn unit off or place in a cool dry place(or something like that) or the unit will shut off to prevent damage."



It IS a pretty slick gadget. I love it.


VR