Your Garmin help, please

Goddamn. I guess I’ll look into other units if I want to do bigger distances.

Jep, gpx file.

Gpx files can be many things, a gpx track file, a gpx route file a gpx waypoints file or a file containing any combination of these.
Most gpx files from online websites are gpx track files.

Scuse the ignorance.

I used this option:

GPX Track (.gpx)
Useful for any GPS unit. Contains no cuesheet entries, only track information (breadcrumb trail).

From ridewithgps.

Yeah should be fine.

I'm away or I'd try the file. Best bet is to get someone to do that or try someones file that's goood.

I'd hard reset device first too.

How big is the file, in bytes/MB?

Will look up how to hard reset it.

Used the 100km file and it took some time to calculate but navigation was pretty ok.

@hippy: 52kB

Ok, that's small. Thought it might be choking on a huge exported file.

1030 v8 firmware

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ83aKTsPpM

https://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=12335

Going on my first solo bike packing trip for a week soon to do a couple of sections of the new Great North Trail.
I have zero sense of direction. What Garmin/external battery should I be looking at?

Budget? Needs? Cheapest option would be an etrex run on AA batteries.

Best option would be Edge 1030 + cache battery + dynamo + etrex unit as backup device.

Anker or Zendure for external batteries.

Going on my first solo bike packing trip for a week soon to do a couple of sections of the new Great North Trail.

What section out of interest? I've been eyeing up the southern bit of that near the Peak District for next year.

Also, the Garmin edge explore gets good reviews. I don't have one but am considering it above most others.

The 1030, 830 and 530 can, I believe, all use the Garmin external battery which is quite a neat solution. The 1030+external battery combo gives you 40 hours run time.

I've also used a Wahoo Elemnt with a standard Anker power pack in a bar bag, and that worked fine too.

If you need an non-Garmin external power pack for extra capacity, I'd go for Zendure rather than Anker if you're using a dynamo hub, as Anker power packs don't have charge through.

I've run 800, 810, 1000, 1030 off external power. I don't think there's many that can't be made to run off an external battery.

I think Anker use better cells and my Zendure doesn't seem to do charge through when hooked to dynamo anyway. I prefer not to leave the Garmin plugged into external power all the time - that's why so many people have buggered USB ports on their units. I run mine down to 10-20% and then plug it in to charge full, unplug, repeat.

That's the benefit of the 530, 830 and 1030. They have dedicated power connectors on the rear of the mount which connect up to the Garmin external power pack, so you don't have to use the USB port for charging from the external battery. You can use an external power pack on other units, but you end up having to use the USB port for charging. The Garmin Charge power pack only works with the Garmin flush mount though.

Ah the piggyback packs? They've had enough from me, I'm not giving Garmin any more money, I'd rather use generic battery packs and USB. You can then have multiple packs, choose sizes depending on needs, etc. How do you charge the external Garmin packs? Still USB?

Yep, the battery pack mounts underneath the head unit and has output pins which connect to the charging pins on the back of the head unit. Normal USB micro port on the external battery.

Do you know the capacity of the 1030 and the extended battery? I can probably get 24hr out of just the 1030 I wonder how much the extended adds.

The battery pack has a 3100mAh capacity. Garmin claims up to another 24 hours.

£90 for 3100mah vs. Anker £17 for 6700mah.

I have their old Garmin-specific batteries and they're still taking the piss with pricing.

Yeah, it's a poor proposition in terms of VFM. However, it does have the benefit that you rarely if ever have to use the notoriously flakey USB port for anything. And it does look neater and reduce cableage when compared to a third party power pack.

It's only flakey coz people leave their external power plugged in all the time. I reckon that's not good for batteries either but that's just me thinking about laptops that are always plugged in and how their batteries seem to die sooner. Looking neater lol and I've gotta carry the cables for other stuff anyway. It's probably the best solution if you're right in the timeframe where that power lasts but if you need to charge it anyway I'd just use standard powerbanks.

It's only flakey coz people leave their external power plugged in all the time.

I would beg to differ. I have 3 Garmins with flakey/totally non-operational USB ports, and none have been used with an external power pack. I'm sure charging them in the rain will hasten the progress but they can and do get corroded to the point of fuckedness in 'normal' use.

I don't beg, but I'll differ. I have three Garmins with fully functional USB connectors that have been used with external power, a lot (like, I still don't use Wifi to upload which means I'm plugging in to dump data, load maps, routes, etc as well as race across countries year in year out). You do know USB connectors have a small side and a large side, yeah? :P

Yes, I'm aware that USB connectors before type C have to be inserted the right way round! I've got one 810 with a totally-borked USB port, one 810 with a very dodgy one, and a 1000 with a slightly dodgy one. All due to water ingress and subsequent corrosion, as far as I can tell. The totally borked 810 also fried the mSD card with the maps on.

Try lightly scratching at the connectors with a pin. It can just be a thin oxide layer that needs removing to get them working again. The 800 I charged in the rain. The 1000 I have just wasn't waterproof enough. 1030 going well so far. I lost the 1000 in a massive storm during TCR4. After a couple of days, the SD slot, etc dried out and I stopped using my phone to navigate. Lost a bit of data but it was working for the most part.