who here works for Garmin Inc?

Better mount/cabling
engineering is needed, too.

Good point about the cabling! I forgot how horribily the power cable end is
engineered to fit into the back of the 396. That is a known weak point and
fails frequently. I am on my third power cable. Garmin asked no questions
and just sent me a new one.

I hope my postings are not an indication that I am dissatisfied with the
396. Quite the contrary...I love the unit and all the functionality that it
brings to the cockpit for the cost. I just hope there's room for the
improvements I mentioned without driving the cost up over 3,000.00. Other
than the touch screen, most of what I want should be able to be done with
new software, albeit it would also then need a faster processor and more
memory.

Kobra

john smith wrote:
: Any touch screen that is used for any length of time will have the touch
: membrane worn through. The combination of dirt, pressure and contant
: touching of the most often used screen position will lead to failure.

My 20ish year old Tek 1240 logic analyzer has a touch screen that uses
crossed beams of IR light. It will never wear out. The resistive or
acoustic touch screens will eventually die.
--
Aaron C.

Which part on the power cable breaks specifically?

--Dan


Kobra wrote:
Better mount/cabling
engineering is needed, too.

Good point about the cabling! I forgot how horribily the power cable end is
engineered to fit into the back of the 396. That is a known weak point and
fails frequently. I am on my third power cable. Garmin asked no questions
and just sent me a new one.

I hope my postings are not an indication that I am dissatisfied with the
396. Quite the contrary...I love the unit and all the functionality that it
brings to the cockpit for the cost. I just hope there's room for the
improvements I mentioned without driving the cost up over 3,000.00. Other
than the touch screen, most of what I want should be able to be done with
new software, albeit it would also then need a faster processor and more
memory.

Kobra

"Dan" wrote:

Which part on the power cable breaks specifically?

The plug that goes into the GPS. It comes apart when you try to unplug it.

In a previous article, "Dan Luke" said:
"Dan" wrote:
Which part on the power cable breaks specifically?

The plug that goes into the GPS. It comes apart when you try to unplug it.

I recently bought a used 296. It came with a wall charger, a plane
charger and a car charger (the car charger differs from the plane charger
in that it has a speaker on it to give you directions when driving). The
car charger cord is broken in that the plastic shield has separated at the
strain relief, leaving just the internal wires to hold it together.


--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
USER, n.:
The word computer professionals use when they mean "idiot".

On Wed, 05 Jul 2006 17:37:20 -0500, Dan Luke wrote:

b.. Airways (so you can enter airways for your route instead of each
fix
on the airway)

Yes!

I once spoke to someone at Garmin about future upgrades for the 430. One
about which I specifically asked was airway-based route entry. This is a
feature of the 480, from what I understand, and it would be a huge win for
IFR pilots.

Yet the representative to whom I spoke claimed that there was a concern
that this would make the 430's UI too complex.

I don't understand this myself (esp. if they retain the klunky route entry
solution as well), but that's what I was told.

- Andrew

"The
car charger cord is broken in that the plastic shield has separated at the
strain relief, leaving just the internal wires to hold it together.


Call Garmin...they will replace it free.

Kobra

In article ,
Andrew Gideon wrote:

Yet the representative to whom I spoke claimed that there was a concern
that this would make the 430's UI too complex.
I don't understand this myself (esp. if they retain the klunky route entry
solution as well), but that's what I was told.

The 430 was developed by Garmin.
The 480 was developed by UPSAT and inherited by Garmin.
Two different, incompatible design philosophies.
UPSAT, the successor to APOLLO/IIMORROW had years of experience to hone
their design skills and produce a successful product that is intuitive
to use. The 430 was Garmin's first try. That fact that they are still
promising an upgrade that was to be delivered five years ago shows how
wrong their design philosophy was.

On Thu, 06 Jul 2006 17:01:52 +0000, john smith wrote:


The 430 was developed by Garmin.
The 480 was developed by UPSAT and inherited by Garmin.

I know. But now that they own both, they should be free to steal the UI
from one for the other.

[...]
That fact that they are still promising an upgrade
that was to be delivered five years ago shows how wrong their design
philosophy was.

Laugh Good point. In their defense, though, the TSO for a VNAV/WAAS GPS
wasn't defined at the time.

- Andrew

AFAIK, what most pilots are screaming for are all the features of the 396
plus...
a.. TOUCH SCREEN...HELLO...TOUCH SCREEN!!!!
b.. Airways (so you can enter airways for your route instead of each fix
on the airway)
c.. The FULL IFR approach
d.. ALTITUDES shown for the IFR approaches as well as the MEA's on the
airways
e.. ALL taxiways with GPS navigation on ALL the airports
f.. I won't mind a graphical representation of the airport's traffic
patterns with the 45 entry shown.
I hope the rumor of the above mentioned new features is not true...I have
had MUCH higher hopes for the 496.

And a moving map to the vending machines inside the FBO.

And......

And.....

Sorry, could not resist.
Mike