ianhogg
Race Dog
- Joined
- Apr 24, 2010
- Messages
- 1,506
- Reaction score
- 23
- Location
- 34 Stanbury Street, Proserpine, QLD
- Bike
- Kawasaki Versys
OTG USB for data transfer
Always the worry about garmin GPS units is what they are going to do with your precious recorded data. You would think that as the complete topo series for southern Africa takes up about 2.5 megs and the units will handle at least a 16 meg SD card that the .gpx tracks that the unit records on the SD card shouldn’t be a problem. But you just can’t be sure. I have written a save folder into my garmin SD card and every few days on the road without a laptop I’ve taken out the SD card, put it in my cellphone and written the tracks across just in case it does something odd like overwriting files at record 16 ( as is their wont.) I have thought more about this recently when Mad Mike planned a trip to SWA. He had epoxied his SD card into the unit to overcome a bad connection problem.
I have found a much neater solution which has lots of other data & ancillary applications. It is called USB OTG (on the go) and it is supported by most (smart) cellphones. Android, smarter symbian and windows will all do it. The trick is an OTG USB connector (see picture) which is a micro USB to USB female with the RX pairs inverted and pin 5 powered. This allows your cellphone to work as a USB host. I bought a couple on Bid or Buy for around R40 which my family have already found a use for (also bought a OBD11 connector for R170, a steal if you want to find out what your engine management is up to.) In the pictures you can see a Samsung 11 reading a memory stick and then a Garmin etrex in USB mode being read by same Samsung. Very Handy! Ian Hogg 24/12/21012
Always the worry about garmin GPS units is what they are going to do with your precious recorded data. You would think that as the complete topo series for southern Africa takes up about 2.5 megs and the units will handle at least a 16 meg SD card that the .gpx tracks that the unit records on the SD card shouldn’t be a problem. But you just can’t be sure. I have written a save folder into my garmin SD card and every few days on the road without a laptop I’ve taken out the SD card, put it in my cellphone and written the tracks across just in case it does something odd like overwriting files at record 16 ( as is their wont.) I have thought more about this recently when Mad Mike planned a trip to SWA. He had epoxied his SD card into the unit to overcome a bad connection problem.
I have found a much neater solution which has lots of other data & ancillary applications. It is called USB OTG (on the go) and it is supported by most (smart) cellphones. Android, smarter symbian and windows will all do it. The trick is an OTG USB connector (see picture) which is a micro USB to USB female with the RX pairs inverted and pin 5 powered. This allows your cellphone to work as a USB host. I bought a couple on Bid or Buy for around R40 which my family have already found a use for (also bought a OBD11 connector for R170, a steal if you want to find out what your engine management is up to.) In the pictures you can see a Samsung 11 reading a memory stick and then a Garmin etrex in USB mode being read by same Samsung. Very Handy! Ian Hogg 24/12/21012
