JakeRich

Ok, I've been following these folks ever since the Axim came out, waiting for them to get the cables out. I had cables from them for my Magellan that connected to my old Casio and they worked really well. Now it seems they have finally gotten hold of an Axim and have created cables for the Ax! They have cables for both Magellan and Garmin.

I ordered from them before, and it came in 2 weeks. That's not bad for shipping from Hong Kong to Virginia!

PC-Mobile Garmin Cables

PC-Mobile Magellan cables

Bucky

Jake...

I found this too but the cables are still in production.

http://www.thesupplynet.com/productD...fm?prodID=6842

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Axim 400
256MB Lexar SD
Holux CF GPS
Mapopolis

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JakeRich

The nice thing about the PC-Mobile cables is that they should be just ONE cable from the GPS to the Axim, and won't need a Null Modem splice. At least that's the way it worked with my Casio. That got the cable length down to 3 feet, not 6 feet.

PC-Mobile says shipping in a "couple of weeks." I'll keep watching to see when they do and sent them an email to clarify how they are doing this and post here.

Bucky

See Jake... That's the reason I went the CF gps route. I already had a Garmin V but the whole cable issue is just starting to get ironed out and the cables are way overpriced. I may switch in the future because I would like to get a one or two gigabyte CF to keep my maps on. SD is currently lagging behind CF. For now the CF gps will have to take up my CF slot. The seperate gps/pda route still has several advantages over the CF gps route.

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Axim 400
256MB Lexar SD
Holux CF GPS
Mapopolis

Select Trailer #1

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JakeRich

I agree that the separate systems have some definite advantages. I prefer a more robust GPS unit for outdoor work. I wouldn't take my Ax out in heavy rain, for example, but my Magellan is water resistant, so it goes with me. The cable thing is not really that bad, since most of the CF cards have add-on external antennas, anyway. So, since I already had the Magellan, it made more sense to me to use it with the cables. Three feet was ok, but 6 got bizarre, so I made a short six-inch cable from the Magellan to a DB9 connector and use that. So my cable is 3.5 feet long and workable.

And I have found a new trick. I put the WiFI card in the CF slot, plug in the Magellan and run PocketWarrior as I drive and note the lat/long of open networks I see, then try to figure out where they are located from the various results I get. I don't do anything with it, but it's fun to see how many there are out there!

JakeRich

I emailed PC-Mobile to see if the cables from the GPS to the Axim replaced the Dell Serial cables. Here is the reply:


23:03 03/14/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>The Dell serial cable has a small circuit board in the cable to
>translate from USB to Serial. Your pictures don't seem to show that.
>How does the Axim cable (GAX5 and GMDC together) do that conversion?
>Do we have to use the Dell cable in addition to yours or does yours
>connect directly from the GPS to the Axim?


You just connect the interface with one of our GPS cable for Garmin/Magellan.

No other cable or driver is needed.
You are right that a circuit board/converter is needed and it is built into the interface (GAX5).

Ir0nman

I am excited about these, my question would be is an old standard Garmin Etrex, will it be useful, and be compatible with all the software that is out there. I'm completely new to GPS other than playing with my garmin by itself. This would be great if I could use it with some sophiusticated software. I could save a lot of money not buying a new bluetooth GPS.
Thanks in advance for the advice,
Ir0nman

JakeRich

Ir0nman, search here at Aximsite for "Etrex" and you'll find a few threads where you can see what it takes to get an older etrex to work with a serial cable. There may be some soldering to make it work for you. Otherwise, if the Etrex will output NMEA, it should work with any of the software commonly used, as they all are looking for NMEA inputs.