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Tales Of Zumo


BonusVFR

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660 looks nice :fing02:

I'm thinking about swapping out my 450 in the new year. But may hold out and see if they bring out a 660 with with SiriusXM like the 550. Everyone I have every talked too questions why Garmin dropped this.

Yep I agree, have no idea why they would drop a feature on such an expensive unit. You would think they would just keep piling the features on but I guess they're saving it as a selling feature for the 770. On the 550 though if I'm not mistaken the XM doesn't transmit via Bluetooth, I'm a wireless fan.

Edited by jasonsmith
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  • 2 months later...
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660 looks nice :fing02:

I'm thinking about swapping out my 450 in the new year. But may hold out and see if they bring out a 660 with with SiriusXM like the 550. Everyone I have every talked too questions why Garmin dropped this.

Your dream has come true my friend, here is the 660 with XM... called the 665.

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=135&pID=65203

Identical to the 660 but comes with and supports XM radio, XM traffic and XM NEXRAD Weather. It's a thousand bucks though.. $999.99 :fing02:

Edited by jasonsmith
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I finally broke down and dropped the coin on a 550. Just got it yesterday and so far it's everything I expected. I haven't mounted it on the VFR yet b/c of the weather and not having a garage. But I have a question already. I was reading the manual (go figure) and it says something to the effect that if you opt for the bare wire connection, it has to be done by a professional who has knowledge and experience with automotive electronics in order to not void the warranty. What's up with that?! I planned on doing the bare wire rather than the power outlet but now I'm a little concerned. What do you guys think?

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I finally broke down and dropped the coin on a 550. Just got it yesterday and so far it's everything I expected. I haven't mounted it on the VFR yet b/c of the weather and not having a garage. But I have a question already. I was reading the manual (go figure) and it says something to the effect that if you opt for the bare wire connection, it has to be done by a professional who has knowledge and experience with automotive electronics in order to not void the warranty. What's up with that?! I planned on doing the bare wire rather than the power outlet but now I'm a little concerned. What do you guys think?

No problem is you can match the red Zumo wire to the red battery connection. Black to Black! The Zumo wire kit comes with the right fuse...You are done. That gives you a powered connection all the time. Just do not leave the Zumo in the mount all the time.

Later you can put in fusebox or something that is switched if you want.

I ran my Zumo direct to the bike battery on my KLR for a while till I put in a switched connection. Some folks actually prefer the direct hookup method....it is all good.

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Thanks Bonus. :goofy:

I posted the question on the Zumo forum, also, and everybody there said the same thing, that it's not a problem installing it yourself. I just found the wording of that a little odd.

I have Tightwad's fuse box that I need to install yet. I'm going to wire the Zumo to that. I'm also going to wire my grip heaters and heated jacket liner to it. I'm just waiting for the weather to cooperate.

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  • 4 months later...

Bonus, thanks for this great thread. I have been trying to decide on a GPS and whether it's even worth me getting one. With your report I think it is a necessity. Especially in the Land of the Rising Sun. I ordered a 660 for out here and I hope my adventures with it are even half as exciting as yours have been. Thanks again.

Edit: I also appreciate the great pictures on your setup and allowing us to learn from your troubleshooting.

Edited by DIMford
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Thanks DIMford.

I just did my last Zumo 550 tour.......................... My Zumo finally bit the dust (really) in Alaska. It survived rain every day (except one) but my recent dirt riding back in CA and AZ did too much damage to the screen so I lost the ability to use screen touch commands. THank goodness for the hard buttons.

I will report on what Garmin does for me?!

Anybody want an Alaskan KLR tour report?

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I'd like to hear about your northern travels. Post up.

Thanks DIMford.

I just did my last Zumo 550 tour.......................... My Zumo finally bit the dust (really) in Alaska. It survived rain every day (except one) but my recent dirt riding back in CA and AZ did too much damage to the screen so I lost the ability to use screen touch commands. THank goodness for the hard buttons.

I will report on what Garmin does for me?!

Anybody want an Alaskan KLR tour report?

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Just hooked my Zumo 550 up yesterday. It's a piece of cake.

Ran the wires up under the tank and zip tied it to the brake line to keep it out of the way.

Hooked it up straight to the battery and "Bob's Your Uncle" - worked like a charm!

P.S. Don't do what I did and fill up your gas just days before having to lift the tank off. :goofy:

Thanks Bonus. :blush:

I posted the question on the Zumo forum, also, and everybody there said the same thing, that it's not a problem installing it yourself. I just found the wording of that a little odd.

I have Tightwad's fuse box that I need to install yet. I'm going to wire the Zumo to that. I'm also going to wire my grip heaters and heated jacket liner to it. I'm just waiting for the weather to cooperate.

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My 550 packed up. The screen digitiser failed; if you touched the screen it kept getting the input after you lifted your finger. Had to wait an age for the false input to go away. I did a little Googling & found there is a $28 spare part available. I have it on order from Hong Kong. Thread with pictures of how to fit it here:

http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=528905

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My 550 packed up. The screen digitiser failed; if you touched the screen it kept getting the input after you lifted your finger. Had to wait an age for the false input to go away. I did a little Googling & found there is a $28 spare part available. I have it on order from Hong Kong. Thread with pictures of how to fit it here:

http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=528905

That is most likely the problem with my unit too. I have one of those on standbye ..........depending on what Garmin says.

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  • 6 months later...
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Two things on the Zumo front.

As reported earlier my Zumo barely managed to get thru my Alaska tour this summer. I opted for a refurbished unit instead of going the do it yourself digitizer replacement "route". I forget but the exact price was in the $150 range. So my Zumo 550 (RIP) lasted from Dec 2006 - July 2010. Again, I believe most of my screen damage was due to my dirt riding in the last two years. I now use a screen protector and try to use the hard buttons to minimize screen touches especially when the screen is covered in dirt.

I was hoping for new maps on my refurbished unit. However, the returned unit had my 2009 maps....so what to do?

Since I had in essence a new unit, I elected to purchase the nuMaps Lifetime from Garmin (actually I picked them up at Amazon). There are several updates each year. I had received one time updates in the past years.

Like my waistine, the maps girth has expanded over the years and the North America mapset will no longer fit in the unit in its entirety. I stripped the unit of all unessecary files. (BACKUP before you do this!). The newer 660/665 units have enough space on the unit so this is not a problem.

There are of course lots of options on how to manage the download on the 550. Since you are downloading the updated Maps from Garmin instead of using a DVD you need a fast connection. And since you downloading and backing up to the Zumo unit itself over a slow USB connection plan on spending some time updating your maps. I did this while my wife was at school so I could not blame her toooo much. I was cooled off enough when she returned so our marriage is still intact.

There are three options on the download using the Mapinstall application from Garmin: to the unit, unit and you computer and lastly to just the computer. I opted for just the computer and planned to use Mapsource itself to send the maps to the unit after I had a bird in the hand with the maps on the computer and in Mapsource. Regardless you need to have the Zumo on the wire so that Garmin can check the serial numbers to make sure you are legal and such.

Important - in order to make room for the new maps, I had to remove my old 2009 maps from the 550 unit. It is the biggest file on the Zumo "gmapprom.img" and depending on the year of your last update will be at least 1 gig. Double check this and backup!!!! Read the Zumo forums first - warning!!!! If in doubt call Garmin tech support!

So now the maps were on my PC. By selecting map regions from within Mapsource, I was able to mark about 1.1 gigs of maps for download to the 550. Obviously you will select regions where you travel the most. In my case, I selected the USA plus Western Canada where I have MC toured in both 2009 and 2010. After using the Map Tool to select the appropriate map areas, I sent the maps using the "Send to the Device" tool to the unit itself . You could send the entire mapset to a SD card but some have complained that the screen redraw is a bit slower than with the maps on the unit itself. After the download to the unit , then I selected the remaining areas (rest of Canada and Mexico) and sent those to the SD card in the unit.

BTW this is the same procedure (Mapsource Map select Tool) you use to load Topo to your SD card except that in my case the original 24K Western Region Topos came from a CD.

I ended up with about 200 megs of CItyNav maps on the SD card. So my 8 Gig SD card will have the following on it:

1. Left over City Nav maps

2. MP3s

3. Supplemental POIs

4. Topo

After my PC and Zumo were remapped I used the same Mapinstall application from Garmin to update the maps on my Laptop. Again on a high speed cable connection that took a little over half an hour.

Having a general familiarity with Mapsource was helpful when updating the maps. Note - there have been a few threads recently on using another application besides Mapsource to plan routes. I continue to use Mapsource to plan my tour daily routes. Most times I use Microsoft's Street and Trips first to do a master tour plan as it now has the GPX export capability.

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Again, I believe most of my screen damage was due to my dirt riding in the last two years. I now use a screen protector and try to use the hard buttons to minimize screen touches especially when the screen is covered in dirt.

That's what I liked about the Streepilot III, that it had buttons for e.g. zooming and panning. My SP2820 didn't and that's why I got myself a "perfect cradle", works a lot better than a touch screen.

pp-gpsnl1-kl.jpg

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I pretty much use the hard buttons all the time unless I really need a screen touch. The newer 660/665 do not have as many hard buttons so be careful.

Here along the border the dust can get really bad especially during the dry summer.

2128997540099738507S600x600Q85.jpg

Screwed up my RAM camera too.

2100391980099738507S600x600Q85.jpg

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