Garmin Dakota 20 SD map card

[ericrobo]

I'm planning on doing the HT550 early to mid-May - watching the weather, solo.

I was on it last year but resorted to the HT430 because of my stupid (Maplin) power pack backup for my Edge 800.

So I bought a Garmin Dakota 20.

Thought I should load the route this afternoon in preparation. Did that then obviously wanted to see if the route was on the device (aware of the number of points/waypoints etc. )

Nothing - absolutely nothing...

Scratching my little head I decided to check the SD card - horror of horrors ! No SD card in there !

I did the MTLoop from home a month or so back, and there was definitely a card in then, so where the f**ck did it go ?

The little 'bracket' which folds down over the SD card (under the batteries) does NOT lock in place, so what I think has happened is that changing the batteries (probably in the dark) the SD card dropped out !

Has anybody else experienced this ?

Or on their Dakota does it hold the card firmly in place ?

I'm somewhat fed up with Garmin, such a huge company, selling products which they make a lot of money from, for them to have such a crap design...
not to mention the utter crap holder for the Dakota (it has jumped out several times to be saved by the lanyard).

The Edge on the other hand has a very good holder..

So why didn't they design a GPS which allows batteries and has a good holder...

Their manuals are pretty rubbish too ! To get the limitations of the Dakota you have to do a Google search.

What's the best option for getting an OS 1:50000 GB SD card ?

Any help and comments appreciated...

[Bearbonesnorm]

What's the best option for getting an OS 1:50000 GB SD card ?

http://www.ioffer.com/i/garmin-gb-disco ... -127349741

Don't worry, you haven't got a Friday afternoon one ... they're all like that and great care is needed when changing batteries.

[Richpips]

I did exactly the same thing at the 3 Peaks CX one year.

I now have a SD card gaffa taped into mine.

[johnnystorm]

Doesn't it fold flat then slide down to lock into place?


*edit* Just dug mine out, it folds flat, then slides down to lock shut. Mine even says "lock" and an arrow down and "open" and an arrow up....

[johnnystorm]

[ericrobo]

Yep thanks for that..

I thought it should fold down then lock, but it won't !

Just checked again, it does say OPEN, then LOCK, so tried again with a tool, and at risk of damaging the copper underneath tried hard, but it won't lock !

I'll buy again prob from iOffer

[johnnystorm]

Worth noting that the ioffer ones don't lock to your device so you can probably just buy another sd card and copy the maps across and have a spare handy if it falls out again. Shame you've got a duffer...too late to return for one that locks?

[Bearbonesnorm]

Mine locks but I've still found it easy enough to unlock by accident when fiddling with batteries ... maybe I'm just a ham-fisted gorilla?

[ScotRoutes]

It locks and I've never had it unlock.

My Dakota twice ejected itself from the bar mount, but the Oregon (same mount) never has. I think it's because the latter has a metal bracket on the battery cover rather than the plastic used by the Dakota. FWIW, I found that a couple of layers if insulating tape over the "locking latch" on the mount fixed the ejection issue.

(I still use a lanyard on the Oregon though - just to be sure )