February 17, 2006

Hacking eXplorist 100, 200 and 300 GPS Receivers

PC-Mobile.net, a popular aftermarket supplier of GPS cables, has a product that may bring joy to many Magellan owners. It's a PC interface cable for the eXplorist 100, 200 and 300 units. These GPS receivers don't come with this capability, nor can you buy such a cable from Magellan. The only options I know of are this aftermarket unit or a do-it-yourself hack.

Feb 17, 2006 10:58:00 AM | Hardware, Magellan, Software

7 Comments

Hank Roberts

I bought one of these cables figuring it'd be worth the risk to try to connect the eXplorist 300 to the Powerbook (G3, OSX 10.3.9). Though the website just assured some software was needed, with a link to a Russian/English site that actually didn't have either softwrae or advice, just another "ought to work"

GPSy says they're just starting to try to support the eXplorist. Doesn't see the device.

Didn't work yet. I've now found several other scattered reports a year old of people trying this, saying the About finds the device under USB.

One person posted second hand having heard that someone had gotten GPSBabel+ to transfer data to a Mac (no idea what OS level) (I think one of its developers) to work. I haven't found anytying describing how yet.

Pointers welcome.

Posted by: Hank Roberts | July 13, 2007 at 10:44 PM

Hank Roberts

Okay, there's a driver at Prolific. Getting hopeful. PL2303_1.2.1.pkg

Posted by: Hank Roberts | July 13, 2007 at 10:58 PM

Rich Owings

Hank,

Please let us know if it works.

Posted by: Rich Owings | July 13, 2007 at 11:47 PM

Marc E. Mosher

You guys need to enable the interface, otherwise the cable won't help you. See this thread - http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=121370

Posted by: Marc E. Mosher | November 18, 2007 at 09:02 AM

Rich Owings

Thanks for the tip Marc.

Posted by: Rich Owings | November 18, 2007 at 10:55 AM

Charles Hacker

I also have a explorist100, and purchased the cable from pc-mobile net.
It actually worked well, and definitely makes the explorist100 more useful.

Yet, I also found the software/info on the Russian/English site limited, (http://rhamphorinkx.newmail.ru).

So I ended up writing my own software to download/upload data. Over the years, I have been gradually adding capabillity to the software.
For those interested, take a look at the software.
http://132.234.129.50/Downloads/Explorer.html
(It is free, no time limits, no nag-ware etc).

Charles Hacker.

Posted by: Charles Hacker | October 30, 2008 at 07:12 PM

Rich Owings

Excellent! Thanks for posting the link.

Posted by: Rich Owings | October 31, 2008 at 08:20 AM

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Magellan eXplorist 300 Review UPDATE: The Magellan eXplorist line has been officially discontinued. For an overview of our current recommendations, check out our handheld GPS buyers guide. The Magellan eXplorist 300 GPS is one of eight models in the eXplorist line (16 if you differentiate between the North American and European models). With that many different models, you can bet there is confusion over the differences between them, so here's the low-down on the 300. It is very similar to the eXplorist 200, except that the 300 adds an electronic compass and barometric altimeter (features found only in the 300 and 600 models in the eXplorist line). Moving further up in the product line, the 400, 500 and 600 models add SD card slots so that you can load maps to the unit. With the 300 you are limited to the built-in 8 MB base-map. Several readers have posted Magellan eXplorist 300 reviews at Amazon. Compare prices on the Magellan eXplorist 300 Here's what the editors there had to say: "...Explorers will appreciate Magellan's one-button access, which takes you directly to the functions that matter most: the menu, navigation screens, personal points-of-interest, "go to" routing, and backlight. In addition, the eXplorist 300 stores up...
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