Garmin Edge 305 Questions (merged)

Just played with it for a bit and it has some awesome routing options for the road. I used the OSM selection (instead of Google) and it picked the route I road last weekend.

For off-road I might just stick with the Topo maps, adding tracks or waypoints.

 

My Garmin Edge 305 died in the rain up at Lake Tahoe, right before Downieville. I was told by a rep at Garming that it is spec'd to be water resistant. It really makes me wonder, however, with Garmin sponsoring the Tour of California, and there being rain at every event in droves the past three years, how all the riders avoided failure of their GPS units, or did they get something that really was water proof, and not water resistant.

Anyways... figure out a way to keep these things dry. I got a bill from Garmin, they will send me someone elses repaired unit... rather frustrating, as I've heard of people getting repaired units with much shorter battery life and scratched up, when the unit they sent in that went bad had batteries that would run for 13 to 14 hours and were without a scratch.

I'm thinking it's a design flaw, a training device should be able to handle a little rain without failure, I never held the thing under water, just rode it in the rain, and the screen fogged up, then it killed the electronics completely, giving me wild errors in elevation before it finally died.

BTW, my screen and the case has not a single scratch on it, no impact damage whatsoever on the plastic case.

Specs are here:

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/store/assets/pdfs/specs/edge205_305_spec.pdf


Says waterproof for 30 minutes at 1 meter of depth. Mine was only in rain on my bike for 4 hours, never submerged. It died on the rapid descent, wonder if increasing air pressure pressed the moisture into the opening for the barometric altimeter sensor? When I got up to Downieville, at 7000 feet, it was reading that I was at 11,300 feet or thereabouts.

 

There are a couple things that can effect this... Elevation is the least accurate with these devices. The 705 and the 305 have additional barometric altimeters that adds (most of the time) to the accuracy. In addition most Software Like Training center or SportTracks has a smoothing algorithm that can effect elevation totals.

If the weather is changing dramatically i.e. large barometric pressure changes that can effect the totals.

I suspect with all that said is a bug..or issue with Training Center.

Curious ... did you post it to geoladders and see what it came up with? Then someone could download the .gpx and take a look.

Or Try SportTracks, free GPS training software that serioulsy kicks Garmin Training Center's butt!

http://www.zonefivesoftware.com/SportTracks/

 

A possibility is that you didn't give it enough time to stabilize at a new start point. Garmin makes some oblique reference to this but basically turn it on, wait for the satellites to be acquired, and get a realistic altitude from the altimeter. Don't just power up and go.

Road ride: Your 705 will compute your route. You select the destination(s). You select if you want to stay on main roads, etc.

Technically for MTB you want a course and not a route. As said elsewhere a route is a series of waypoints and it's up to you to navigate between each waypoint. That's fine if you're orienteering and have a map. For MTB riding you need a course - second-by-second directions.

Various map programs (Topofusion eg) allow you to draw your course and save it as GPX. Topofusion will also save it directly as a course.

 

Last Sunday I did a road ride with 2000 ft of climbing and when I uploaded to Motion Based it read 3483...sounds like the problem you had...
Here is the PROFILE :?:

Just for bragging purposes, check out the decent speed coming down the 12-25% grade (Laurel Rd in the Gaston area) They do gravity powered racing on this drag strip
61 MPH :bang:

 

That's a long ride.
3483' is 66' per mile.
2000' is 38' per mile.

Either case is virtually flat. +/- 28' per mile is OK.

 

I've gotten into the habit of getting my Edge out, turning it on, first thing out of the car, and installing it in it's mount, then suiting up, putting on riding shoes, gloves, helmet, etc. This almost always gives the GPS unit enough time to gather all the satellite information, triangulate, and get accurate readings for start of ride elevation, as well as get the accuracy down to 12 to 25 feet error with the GPS unit, before I start my ride.
By the time I have all my riding gear on, all I need to do is press the Start/Stop button, the screen automatically advances to the 8 readouts I usually use if I'm not navigating from a track on a new trail.

 

I do the same thing.

I spoke (again) to Garmin. They said there have been some bugs in the newest firmware and want me to revert back to the older version.

FWIW, I downloaded and tried the SportTracks software. Jury is still out on that one for me. I really like some of the features, but the program just didn't feel intuitive for me to use. I wish I could blend Training Center with SportTracks...that would be awesome.

 

But the older firmware had the same bug didn't it?

Can you share the rides (GPX) with inconsistent altitude gain?

 

It's possible you've jacked up your usb port where the cable plugs in to your computer. Happens on laptops, quite a bit. Try a different USB port on your PC.

As a feature for all of you that lose your GPS's when they fall off your bike. You should put a WAYPOInT in your unit where you live and label it "HOME" That way, if someone honest finds your GPS unit, they can return it to you. A little sleuthing and finding the waypoint on Google Earth will get your wayward unit back where it belongs, HOME.

 

This has been happening to me becuase mine has been turning itself off at random...not a vibration issue. It started to happen at the big bear race in the starting line and then happened a couple times along the route...I would see it, turn it back on and hit start right away...elevation gain for race course per garmin was 56 feet.

On a side note Garmin warrantee department is awesome. I called, told them my unit shuts off at random. She told me I had to send it in. I told her no way i use it too much and to send me one out in the mail. She did...should have it today or tomorrow and will ship mine back when I get it. Also told her the plastic clips for holding it to the bike suck major donkydick and she said she would toss a few in. Kudos to garmin for great customer service.

 

The random shutoff is a design flaw - and is somewhat vibration induced. The Edge 305 is comprised of two halves. One half houses the battery, the other half contains the screen, circuit board, etc. There are 8 spring loaded fingers that are used to transmit current across the two halves. The problem is...the two halves are glued together with a piece of rubber in between. So if there's any weird vibration that causes the fingers to lose contact at all, it shuts off.

And FWIW, the Edge 605/705 uses Torx screws to hold the two halves together.

 

It happened sitting on top of my toolbox yesterday...no earthquake involved...filled up my waterbottle came back and it was off. Battery was full song. Worked for 2/3 of ride, shut off and I just said f-it and left it off.

It has happened maybe 6 times stationary and 6 times in motion...

I wash my bike with my garmin and spot tracker attached since they are both ziptied to bike currently...granted my garmin has an issue now, it is not water related.

 

Just FYI, tonight's woot looks like it might be useful for charging the edge on long rides, they're disposable mini USB cell phone chargers.

 

I don't think the edge works while charging though. So that might only help between long rides...

 

Random?

i have had mine a month and now have two random occurrences.

A) In the middle of a ride it shut off. I restarted it and was able to pick up where I left off, but the new starting point was registered at a much lower elevation (by 1000 ft)

B) Next time I fired it up the elevation was off by +3000ft! The ride registered the elevations changes correctly, just +3000ft higher than it should of been.

I cycled the unit several times so it could find its location, and the elevation is still off.

Am i missing something? Or is it time to call customer support?

 

I have the Garmin 305. I've had it over a year. Got it used off eBay but it was in cherry condition (and still is). I have the one with the heart monitor strap but without the cadence feature. It's been a very reliable unit and no issues with it - then again, it hasn't seen rain or precipitation. My only issue, which is self-inflicted, is that although I'll turn the unit on, I occasionally forget to click the "start" button at the beginning of my ride and won't realize it until I'm half way or midway into the ride which just skews my tracking/historical info. Last week, I remembered to turn it on but forgot to wear the heart monitor #-oI've been thinking about getting the newer model so I might sell my 305. Maybe it'll remind me to turn on the tracking feature

 

This is where the low tech cylocomputers have the advantage, they turn on and off by themselves and they start and stop by themselves. It's taken me a while to get used to turning my Garmin off after a ride and remembering to plug it in....

 

Anybody know where I can pick a 305 up locally in OC or LA at a good price? You can get them on Ebay all day for $150-180 but retail stores still sell them for $300+.

 

Not sure if they're in-store at any of them, but costco.com has them for 219 - http://www.costco.com/Browse/Produc...=4&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&Nty=1&topnav=&s=1