Nubie 540TM user has questions

[ehunter]

I received my 540TM the other day. The first thing I did was plug it into my laptop for 5 hours. Then I followed DHNs posting for making a backup copy of the device. After this, I started practicing using the unit, and now I have some questions.

1) After charging, I was expecting the green charging light at the bottom to go out eventually and it never has. I have checked the battery level after unplugging from either the laptop or the car charger and both times it is just a sliver less than 100% full. Q- Is the green light ever supposed to go out?

2) I understood that my unit was to have 2GB of memory. When I go to Preferences > Version Information, the unit shows there is 64MB of RAM. Why does it not show 2GB? Am I not looking in the right place?

Device AKTGS DAC5N
App 9.061.576030.2, OS567329
(1034, 15/9/2010)
64MB RAM (free: 17.2MB)
GPS v1.20, Boot 5.5279
Map: ‘USA_Canada_and_Mexico_P’ v845.2670
Language: English UK

3) This being my first GPS I am probably lacking a few concepts so bare with me. What is the difference (advantages?) between the Favorites and Recent Destination information? I am thinking if I want to repeat travel to a point I can either make a Favorite out of the destination or just use the Recent Destination entry.

4) The Recent Destination list has a DELETE button at the bottom of the screen but it does not work. When I select an old destination to “delete”, the unit takes me to the travel screen to guide me to that point. What am I missing here? I don’t see how to delete the entry.

5) How do I activate photorealistic images? My instruction booklet says the feature is available under the advanced lane guidance functionality (US only). So far all I have seen on the unit are the crayon-like maps when navigating from one point to another.

 

[dhn]

1) After charging, I was expecting the green charging light at the bottom to go out eventually and it never has. I have checked the battery level after unplugging from either the laptop or the car charger and both times it is just a sliver less than 100% full. Q- Is the green light ever supposed to go out?

Nope. Always stays on when it is connected to a car charger or the computer. Signifies that the unit is getting power. When you disconnect, the battery level does tend to drop. Just the way the app works

2) I understood that my unit was to have 2GB of memory. When I go to Preferences > Version Information, the unit shows there is 64MB of RAM. Why does it not show 2GB? Am I not looking in the right place?

You are mistaking the size of internal storage (2 gigs) with the size of flash ram (64 megs). Think of your computer. you may have a hard drive of, say, 320 gigs but your ram size may be 4 gigs. Same idea with the unit.

3) This being my first GPS I am probably lacking a few concepts so bare with me. What is the difference (advantages?) between the Favorites and Recent Destination information? I am thinking if I want to repeat travel to a point I can either make a Favorite out of the destination or just use the Recent Destination entry.

Well, in a way, you can achieve what you want by using either favourites or recent destinations but favourites will get shown as points on your map in view map. You can save a max of 48 favourites. A favourite is a specific destination. A recent destination is, in a sense, the route to that destination.

4) The Recent Destination list has a DELETE button at the bottom of the screen but it does not work. When I select an old destination to ?delete?, the unit takes me to the travel screen to guide me to that point. What am I missing here? I don?t see how to delete the entry.

If you navigate to-->Recent Destination, there is the delete button but it will delete ALL destinations, not just specific ones. Dumb, eh?

5) How do I activate photorealistic images? My instruction booklet says the feature is available under the advanced lane guidance functionality (US only). So far all I have seen on the unit are the crayon-like maps when navigating from one point to another

If you are talking about lane images, make sure in preferences, you have it set to HIDE lane images. Then the Reality View images will show, if available, on your map and the road (usually highways) that you are on.

 

[ehunter]

Well, in a way, you can achieve what you want by using either favourites or recent destinations but favourites will get shown as points on your map in view map. You can save a max of 48 favourites. A favourite is a specific destination. A recent destination is, in a sense, the route to that destination.

I guess since one cant delete individual "recent destinations" the list would get pretty ugly to use as a common "repeat route" tool. So I guess I should start getting used to using the Favorites instead. Ya your right, pretty dumb having to delete ALL destinations even if I want just only one deleted.

If you are talking about lane images, make sure in preferences, you have it set to HIDE lane images. Then the Reality View images will show, if available, on your map and the road (usually highways) that you are on.

Ok I will play with this. I will use the Show Route Demo functionality to see the difference with Hide Lanes turned off and on. I am not 100% sure Hide Lanes is related to the pic on page 12 of the manual though. If it seems different I will post back.

I guess I am close to needing to figure out how to get TTHome working and selecting to do what ever things can be updated with my unit. My manual has no step procedure but I will figure it out one way or another.

 

[ehunter]

You were right about the lane image stuff. I see it working now. I really like the route demo tool. Saves gas learning how to use this thing.

Well I got Tomtom Home installed. At first I was not sure I had the correct version because nowhere was XXL mentioned on the download website. Just GO, ONE, XL, START and RIDER devices were referenced. Since google produced no alternative DLs I went with this only version.

It installed fine, got my map update. The DL took one hour on my 6Mbps DSL; new map installed to memory and I DLed some tiny POIs for my area and the safety cams. Then I entered my code for lifetime maps. I woke up this morning, reconnected, and TTHome says “device is up to date, so I think I did good.

Q- I noticed there are different map combos for the USA that are bundled or standalone from CAN/MEX. Are all these maps the same as far as USA representation is concerned? That is, might one map be better or more detailed than another? I realize that lifetime TM would not be active with other maps not originally with the unit, but I am just curious.

Q- When removing some voices through TTHome there are two buttons. One is to copy items to my computer and the second to just CONTINUE. I did not care to save the items (French for example) so I hit “continue”. The system then informed me the items were being copied to my computer. <shrug>. It does not seem like it is an option to not save to the computer when deleting, right?

Q- I noticed many fuel stations don’t have icons like Shell or Chevron for example. Is it possible to get or make these? I find it cumbersome to strain my eyes to try and tell f the marker is a gas station or some other indicator.

 

[dhn]

The best way to get specific brand gas station pois is to download them from sites on the web such as here:
Petrol in the United States - GPS POI Data

Select the ones you want and save them as a tomtom format on the next screen that appears.

You may then see duplicate gas station pois in the same spot on the map, one generic, one name brand.

Make sure your custom ov2 file and associated .bmp file go in the specific map folder on your unit and under Manage pois, select the category to show on the map.

If you want to see just specific brand gas stations, there should be an option to 'show poi on map' and uncheck gas stations.

 

[ehunter]

Is there a description out there that describes how to do a gas station POI enhancement? I see other enhancements are there too.

Anyway, the download site points to 4 different TT download links. There are BMP, OV2 download options. Then there are Custom and Large Custom links. But it seems the C and LC links require some kind of login, registration with mandatory $7 lifetime fee so I pushed away.

 

[dhn]

Just select the second option (ov2) It'll contain the ov2 file and the bmp file.

 

[ehunter]

Maybe I need to understand the what is going on a little better.

I found a 76station icon on a different map area but the 76 by my house does not display the icon. The marker position for both places says "76 (ph number)" so I am stumped why it shows up in some places and not in others.

I did try the DL anyway, first the OV2 file placed in the map directory. When that did not work I accompanied the BMP file with it with the same end results... so I am stumped. Any ideas?

 

[mvl]

The Tomtom maps have many built in gas stations. Only a subset of these are "branded", and have a brand image to display. Generic gas stations can't have their image changed.

What DHN is recommending is a supplemental 3rd-party POI add on. 3rd party POI add-ons can have custom icons assigned to them, but they won't overwrite the built-in icons. So in essence you'll have two gas stations at each location , a generic-icon one, and the 3rd party one with an icon.

One more point regarding recent destinations. Tomtom starts deleting the oldest after a while (I think it maxes at 24). So if you truly have a place you want to store for future use, keep it as a favorite.

 

[ehunter]

Thank you MVL for the insight.

I tried the 3rd party POI to try to get an icon showing for one of my known gas stations. Like I wrote I was not so successful getting it to work.

I decided to drop the topic, because as DHL pointed out, having double icons were going to clutter up my screens even more thus distracting me from the topic at hand which should be concentrating on getting from point A to B.

I am a ?favorites? fan now for repeatable destinations so I wont be relying on ?recent destinations? for much anymore. Twenty four max destinations saved? Cool.

Thanks for following up? G?night ;-)