SD Cards?

[Ya Hey Der]

I think I have decided to purchase the Lowrance Expedition C. I have a few questions regarding the SD card for this unit.

1) How does the SD card work for GPS units

2) What is the primary use of SD card? advantages?

3) Would you recommend getting one?

4) If I get a lakemaster MMC card for the unit, is it necessary to also get a SD card?

Thanks for all the help!

YHD

[Giant_Jackpot]

You will need the SD card if you intend to use information from a program like MapCreate in your GPS. Also, you will need it if you want to transfer your waypoints or trails to a PC or another GPS.

[PerchJerker]

SD cards and MMC cards are essentially the same thing. SD is newer and larger capacity, I'm not even sure you can still buy blank MMC cards. Think of them as a blank computer disc - you put data on them, read data from them, erase them when done, and reuse them over and over again. They slide right in and out of the units. Most basic use is copying waypoints between your gps and your pc, or to another gps.

The LakeMaster MMC has a file with lake maps on it. You cannot write your own data (like waypoints) to it so you can't use it to transfer data.

[Powerstroke]

MOre or less what has already been said.

The SD memory card is nothing but a disk for storage. For reference, the old floppy disks we all used to use are 1.44 MB, I use two 256MB SD cards for my digicam and my GPS.

You can save data like street maps and topo details to the SD card. ALso you can save data for specific states if you are traveling.

YOu'll probably notice that teh basemaps in the GPS are pretty low quality. Not a lot of details in the smaller roads.

[Ya Hey Der]

Thanks for all the help. So, if I am understanding this correctly, the MMC card is read only from the GPS. I can't save any points to this card. However, I can save my points to the actual GPS unit and then from there save it to my SD card and then transfer to my computer from the SD card. Is there a data transfer cord that could be connected straight from my unit to the computer? Would 1gb SD card be too much? I would primarily use it for plotting points and getting me to certain spots on the lake. If I did want to save data from street maps and topo details, would I need Topo MapCreate?

Thanks again!

YHD

[redbandit]

You've got the idea on data transfer. Concerning how the data is transfered, assuming we'er only talking about Lowrance, there is no way to directly connect from the GPS to the PC. You need to get a SD card reader that plugs into a USB port. All the data transfering is done through the SD cards. That leads into the the MapCreate question. The only way you'll get detailed topo/street maps is by buying the MapCreate software. You can get it either preloaded on SD cards called FreedomMaps or by buying the CD-Rom version where you load the maps yourself onto an empty SD. Which if you get the right one it will come with 1 empty SD card and LEI card reader all in one pkg. 1GB cards aren't to much. If you end up getting MapCreate the software allows you to format only 5 SD cards so getting the higher capacity cards is a smarter idea in my book. You can get the Expedition, MapCreate, card reader, and 1 empty sd card all together in the + pkg.

[Ya Hey Der]

Thanks!!!

[Try Too Fish]

Hi All

Does any one find the 5 card limit restrictive? Or can you get all the maps needed with room to spare on a few cards??

Thanks

[PierBridge]

Easily...... ........you can use the cards over and over again......

[delcecchi]

It is my understanding that for maps one needs to use the special Lowrance card reader on the pc. A generic one won't work, which is sad because I already have a generic one. Anyway, not a big deal because I have the lakemaster chip. But if I want to install the software upgrade, do I still need the lowrance card reader or will the generic one work.

I could, and probably will, contact lowrance but thought I would give you guys a try.

[PerchJerker]

Generic ones work, I have used 2 different ones without a problem.

[PierBridge]

A regular card reader will work for the upgrades....