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Phantom Fingers? Navigator III 3 GPS Failing?

J

jay1622

Guest
I have a six year old BMW / Garmin Navigator III / Streetpilot. Recently, something started to happen on an intermitent basis that resembles somebody touching the screen in the middle left hand portion of the screen. It behaves as if someone is touching the same spot and holding their finger there. As a result, the GPS defaults to calibration mode. Yes, I know I can send it to Garmin and have it rebuilt for the cost of a new one, but I sure as heck don't want to if I don't have to. I am pretty good with electronics, and figured I'd bust it open and give it a good cleaning.

But before I do, I wanted to see if there is any knowledge out there. Thank's in advance to anyone who has knowledge of this and responds.

Jay
 
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Email or Call Garmin

Contact Garmin regarding this problem. I had the same issue with my 2720. They emailed me the proceedure to completely recalibrate the unit. They were very pleasent and helpful. No issues since.
 
Fixed... For Now.

Thanks for your reply Chasman. I dug up my notes from a phone call with a rep... Tried all of the factory calibration stuff... No dice.

I did some digging and learned Garmin basically laughs people away at this point with this GPS (Navigator III/Streetpilot 2720/30); too old, no replacement parts and so on. Figuring it was either the digitizer or something else, I tore in to it. Although relatively clean, I was surprised to see how simple the sealing mechanisms were. Basically, it's just a rubber gasket that seals against the body and the glass digitizer and another one between the plastic body halfs.

All I did was take everything down to the boards, separated and cleaned all of the wire contacts and blew everything out with filtered air. I did; however, pay special attention to the digitizer. Blasted everything I could with air and gave all of the points an alcohol & CRC electric parts cleaner spray bath. I threw it back together after the parts had dried (the CRC stuff makes the parts very cold and they condense). So far, so good!

One thing is for sure... I will force myself to be more responsible with the hard plastic GPS cover that I have for it. It's on most, but not all of the time. I am also going to get in to the habit of keeping it inside the house when not in use.
 

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Back together and working perfectly.

Overall, a 30-45 minute job... Counting dinner.
 

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Switched the Digitizer from a Garmin Streetpilot 2620... Woohoo!!!

Alrighty then... It seems I may have spoken too soon. As Murphy would have it, my Navigator III digitizer failed again about three weeks after my last post on this thread. I tried again, in vain, to find a digitizer for this thing.

Since I don't use the BT option and I can care less about the 3D effect, I bought a Garmin Streetpilot 2620 via eBay for peanuts; thinking I would just that instead. Then, something occured to me as I looked at the two side by side. I tore into them and switched the digitizers. I am very very happy to say the digitizers are an exact match. I now have a perfectly working BMW Navigator III and a not so perfectly working Streetpilot.
 

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The "new" digitizer in the old harness.
 

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The "new" digitizer in the old harness.

I realize it was some time ago that you did this "digitizer" swap...maybe you can recall what you did to get the "new" digitizer canibalized from the garmin 2620 into the "old harness" as you called it. I am repeating what you did, got a cheap 2620 on ebay for the parts I needed for my navigator III. But I am stuck...
 
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