Alan F.
Well travelled
- Location
- North of Boston, MA
This is based on a thread found on another forum, you can create custom routes with real turn-by-turn directions and upload them to any old Garmin GPS you may have. I bought a Nuvi 205 from 2008 at savers for $6 last year and finally tried it yesterday, Basecamp software is a little odd to learn but there are a large number of YouTube videos to help. There are also videos on replacing/upgrading batteries in these GPS units as most of them are pretty tired by now. Amazon has handlebar ball mounts for these units cheap too. I've got one between the handlebar clamps on my Interceptor and I've run this GPS all day on a cheap powerbank in a tankbag as I haven't added a USB power port to my bike yet.
My Nuvi has a MicroSD slot so I'll put the complete OSM map on it, but for now after deleting all of the non-English language packs and other crap, I was able to fit maps for all of New England. Cheers, I hope someone finds this interesting.
"There are some questions floating around about updating the maps on old Garmin GPS devices. Garmin builds a solid GPS with great hardware, but their map updates for older units is silly and expensive. The good news is you can download free, updated topo maps that are rotatable (turn-by-turn directions) and have way more detail than your old Garmin maps did. For some light reading about the Open Street Map (OSM), see https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OSM_Map_On_Garmin/Download
GMapTool is my "go-to" OSM Topo map source for USA at the moment. Hopefully other users will contribute their favorite OSM map source.
http://www.gmaptool.eu/en/content/usa-osm-topo-routable
The process is somewhat cumbersome, but worth it once you get it figured out. These are the general steps for a Windows PC:
I have updated an old 60CSx, Montana 650 and even a cheap Nuvi. The Nuvi was really limited in the map size (only fit the state of Kansas on it) due to its small internal storage and no SD card.
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My Nuvi has a MicroSD slot so I'll put the complete OSM map on it, but for now after deleting all of the non-English language packs and other crap, I was able to fit maps for all of New England. Cheers, I hope someone finds this interesting.
"There are some questions floating around about updating the maps on old Garmin GPS devices. Garmin builds a solid GPS with great hardware, but their map updates for older units is silly and expensive. The good news is you can download free, updated topo maps that are rotatable (turn-by-turn directions) and have way more detail than your old Garmin maps did. For some light reading about the Open Street Map (OSM), see https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OSM_Map_On_Garmin/Download
GMapTool is my "go-to" OSM Topo map source for USA at the moment. Hopefully other users will contribute their favorite OSM map source.
http://www.gmaptool.eu/en/content/usa-osm-topo-routable
The process is somewhat cumbersome, but worth it once you get it figured out. These are the general steps for a Windows PC:
- Download Garmin Basecamp
- Download the OSM Topo map(s) you want
- Go to the folder you downloaded the OSM topo maps to and extract them
- Run the batch file, this automatically links the OSM maps to the Garmin directory in Basecamp
- To view the OSM maps within Basecamp, go to Maps > Check the map you want to view
- Plug your Garmin GPS into the computer
- Go to Basecamp and right click your GPS unit in the left side margin
- Install the maps you want on the GPS
I have updated an old 60CSx, Montana 650 and even a cheap Nuvi. The Nuvi was really limited in the map size (only fit the state of Kansas on it) due to its small internal storage and no SD card.
View attachment 8858
View attachment 8857
