June 29, 2021
The Garmin 64sc
I was given one of these.
Some nitwit put alkaline batteries in it, let them become fully
discharged and gave it plenty of time for the batteries to leak and
corrode the unit. After some careful cleaning it is now working fine.
It is running software version 2.40.
There have been several revisions since 2.40 and the latest
is 3.70. The instructions tell me that I will need "Garmin Express"
to load the new firmware.
Battery charge indicator
I am now using the unit with the NiMH "duo" battery supplied by Garmin.
This has a connecting strap which depresses a button in the battery
compartment to enable charging. This is no doubt to prevent nitwits
from trying to charge alkaline batteries. It also makes it difficult
to carry a few extra pairs of eneloop cells (which are both better and
much cheaper than the Garmin "duo". I may open up the unit and bypass
the stupid switch, taking the responsibility upon myself to never charge
alkaline batteries in the unit.
Regardless of all that, when I hook up a USB cable there is no
indication that charging is taking place, which is lame.
It does display a USB "symbol", but not an image of a battery with
a suggestion of charge level as one might expect.
Specifications
- It uses a mini (not micro) USB connector, which is quaint.
- It includes an 8 megapixel camera.
- It does both GPS and GLONASS
- It has a 2.5 inch color screen (160 by 240 pixels)
- It runs for 16 hours on a pair of AA cells.
- It has 4G of memory built in
- It sells (sold?) for $400 full retail
- It has an SD card slot (up to 32G supported)
Inside
The back is held on by 6 T6 Torx screws, so it is a simple matter
to open it up.
Once inside there is an odd shaped metal shield over the interesting
parts on the PCB. This can easily be pried off.
Underneath we find:
- An ST STA2065N2BC "ARM" processor
- A 26 Mhz crystal oscillator (not under the shield)
- An Alliance AS4C16M32MD1-5BCN ram chip (512M SDRAM)
- A SanDisk SDIN7DP2-4G chip (4G eMMC)
- A TI 6CIC50Y chip (small)
The STA2065 is described as an "infotainment" application processor.
It is in the Cartesio family, which means it includes a GPS subsystem.
The processor is an ARM1176 running at 533 or 624 Mhz.
I have found a 20 page datasheet dated 2009.
With some care, the innards can be lifted up and removed from the case.
Don't try to release the white clips (they hold the LCD to the PCB).
The LCD will come right along with the PCB without a problem.
There is little if anything of interest on the underside anyway,
just the LCD and the pads for the buttons (unless there are things
hiding under the LCD).
Have any comments? Questions?
Drop me a line!
Tom's backpacking pages / tom@mmto.org