Any GPS Techno Monkeys out there?? GPS Died??!!

[zedjack33]

HI all.....fishing trip next week n GPS just died...all marks gone!!!...Grrrr

GPS is Lowrance H2Oc hand held.

When power button i spushed the screen light comes on until i take my finger of it......Thats it...thats all I get.

Have looked up manual, no help, nothing i can find on line.

Any suggestions???

Cheers

[finga]

Crook screen??
If so then marks are still OK in there somewhere.

[tunaticer]

My GlobalMAP12 did the same thing. I noticed one corner of the screen had slight fogging the morning it played up. I took the batteries out and filled the battery cavity with rice and replaced the cover and out it in the sun for a day to bake.
Took the rice out the next morning and put new batteries in and fired it up and it worked again......for a week then died completely.
You might get a chance at recording the waypoints if you give it a dry out and fresh batts.

[zedjack33]

Thanx guys....looks like the marks are still there..will try the rice thing....not holding my breathe though...

Maybe I should share some of marks in case this happens....thats life i guess..

Cheers 4 ur help

[Noelm]

always pays to keep either a hand written back up or an electronic one (if your device allows it), that way if your unit dies or gets stolen, you still have all your marks, I found that out the hard way a long time ago, keep them all in a small book now, also easy to give marks to friends without getting up in the boat.

[SatNav]

1. First GPS commandment - never rely on GPS or storage technology to store or keep your marks.

2. You could have very easily prevented this from occuring but hindsight is of little use in this instance. Next time.

[thylacene]

Does it have a memory card in the unit? You may be able to recover your marks from. Plug it into a PC and check the files on the card. You may be able to import them with GPS software.

Cheers

Thy

[mac64pc]

I have a globalmap100 that came with the boat - had same issue just turned off when I took my finger off, when plugged in to the boat power.
No joy at all at all when off the boat. I swapped the batteries for a new set of rechargeables and it switched on and then lasted about 3 mins. I ended up trying new alkalines in and it runs fine on those till I get my upgrade.

maybe you can get something from the above

[testlab]

The isn't specific to Lowrance but for some of the units that use "conductive rubber" membranes humidity is a real problem. The little contacts on the circuit board inside get a film forming over them and the keypad becomes erratic.

If the unit has tiny mechanical push-button switches then the above doesn't apply.

Dismantling the unit and cleaning the keypad membrane and the gold coloured contacts on the circuit board with metho and a cotton bud should get it working but it will happen again.

A word of warning though, some units use a conducting strip to pass signals from the circuit board to the display. Loosening or moving this strip can make it really difficult to get the display working properly again. So if you open the case, first see if the membrane keypad will come free without further disassembling the unit. If not, leave it unless feeling brave or you know what you're doing.

These sorts of membrane keys are great as they are waterproof and rugged, but once a little moisture eventually works its way inside they suffer the above problem after a period of time. Storing the unit away from big changes in temperature and humidiy helps prevent it. The rice trick is good advice, plus put some rice in the box where it is kept when not on the boat.