Comments on: Silva Atlas GPS pinouts

By: Martin

Martin — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 16:42:09 +0000

Chuck G: Hollito is right - I used my cig lighter plug to make a two-in-one plug, so that I didn’t have to build the plug that goes into the GPS unit. This way, I can connect it to my laptop in a car and at the same time give the unit power from the cig outlet.

After I wrote this post, the open source project gpsbabel finally supports the lcm-format Haven’t tried it too much, but this is some of my old ramblings (probably outdated):
$ tar xzf gpsbabel-1.2.8-beta20060219.tar.gz $ cd gpsbabel-1.2.8-beta20060219/ $ make $ su - # make install $ gpsbabel -t -r -w -i lowranceusr silva-atlas-lowrance-track-format.usr

Have fun

By: Hollito

Hollito — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 14:42:38 +0000

I forgot to mention this link, it shows how to make a simple “plug” for the GPS unit from a piece of plastic, like an old CC or so:

http://www.jens-seiler.de/etrex/datacable.html
http://www.jens-seiler.de/etrex/andere_stecker.html

Regards, Holger

By: Hollito

Hollito — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 14:25:17 +0000

@Chuck
I am not shure about what Martin wrote about this cig lighter, as he did not mention it again. But I think you could build a “2 in 1″ serial/power cable and just use the “+” and “-” contact on the Ifinder to supply it with a *stabilized* 3V power from the cig lighter socket in your car.

What you say about the data cable and using a navigation/routing software is generally right, but nobody will guarantee you that the serial->USB adaptor will work properly. From what I have learnt in the GPS boards, some people where successful with a cheap 5 Euro adaptor, while other bought one for 25 Euros and had a lot of trouble with it… I have no experience with this, as both my notebooks have serial ports I can use…

Regards from grey and rainy Germany, Hollito

By: Chuck G

Chuck G — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 22:47:09 +0000

I see the drawing on the ifinder port and understand making a serial connection - but what’s the part about a cig lighter adapter - you didn’t hook this up to your cig lighter did you?
If I want to just use the Ifinf=der go as a GPS for say MS Streets and Trips - do I just make this cable, get a Male serial end and a USB connection adapter and hook it to the USB port and windows and MS Streets and Tril will find it without doing any hand shaking, or what? thanks

By: Hollito

Hollito — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 13:17:07 +0000

Thanks for the information! I’m thinking about buying an IFinder Go2 and was searching just for this, because 30 Euros for the data cable is a little bit overpriced in my opinion.

By: Kirbert

Kirbert — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 08:46:41 +0000

OK, I have the iFinder GO in hand, and the EasyGPS software doesn’t work. A freeware package called GPS Utility, from

http://www.gpsu.co.uk

does work, though. The freeware version is limited to 100 waypoints at a time, but that’s not a problem.

BTW, you have to go to “System Setup” on the iFinder GO, then to “Com Port”, and check the boxes for “NMEA Input” and “NMEA Output” before transfers to/from the iFinder will work. I just left the baud rate at the default 4800, but it wouldn’t surprise me if you can speed it up and it’ll just work faster.

By: Kirbert

Kirbert — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 16:51:14 +0000

Thanks so much! I had a Garmin eTrex and was using a homemade data cable with it, but I gave it away to a relative. I have the Lowrance iFinder GO on order, was looking for how to connect it up without paying $30 for a piece of wire.

BTW, my EasyGPS software lists the iFinder GO. I think that means we can all forget about trying to figure out what format to use: just use EasyGPS to load data into your Lowrance or Silva Atlas or Brunton or whatever.

By: Martin

Martin — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 16:23:08 +0000

Ellen: Sorry, don’t know much other that it is for sure not an open format.

By: Ellen

Ellen — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 14:30:28 +0000

Do you know some details of the *.lcm format? Silva don’t tell me something about that.

By: Martin

Martin — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 17:47:56 +0000

For my own reference, these are the Lowrance FreedomMaps:
F16 Deutschland
F17 France, Monaco
F18 Great Britain, Ireland (limited detail for Ireland and N. Ireland)
F19 Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland
F20 Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Liechtenstein
F21 Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg
F22 Spain, Andorra, Portugal
F23 Austria, Czechoslovakia (Chech republic), Poland