Lowrance 480c - What size memory card?

[RRose]

Hey guys.... I just bought a lowrance 480c gps for my truck.... I need to know what size memory card to buy for it? What size are you guys on race teams running? I don't want to come up short.

[C. Bucher]

I wondered the same thing. I bought the mapping software with the card reader and card that both PCI and Lowrance offer for the units. The smaller card, the one it comes with is 64 mb I believe and so far I have SCORE's PRIMM, BAJA 500, and Baja 1000 all downloaded on the card. You can go to STAPLES or FRY'S or any other store that carries office supplies, computers, etc...and buy the larger cards (SD) Secure Digital. I bought a 256 mb card for $40 or so. I would say it should hold quite a few race courses and notes on it. Best place to look is where ever they sell digital camera's.

[Dezertpilot]

I run a 512mb card that should be good enough for now. Id say dont chance it run a gig but 512 should be fine. I bought mine off of like newwave.com for like $39 shipped.

[Jack]

If you are only using it for racing and just loading course maps, the one it comes with should be fine for at least 100 courses. I have the software and have a 256 loaded with most of CA AR and NV down to steet level and I still have room to load the course maps in. The roads are nice to have for chasing, you can see right where the roads cross the corse at what mile marker. Somtimes power lines are also marked.

[Dave@3F]

I have to agree with Jack. I do about the same thing. I have all the street info from all the race areas loaded easily on a 256 card. I run a 6000C which has two memory card slots, (not sure if the 480's do or not?) I then keep the baby 16 card which came with the GPS and use it to save the current pre-run/ race data on. I have found that works well when I am passing the info off to teams that could not make the pre-run.

[RRose]

Hey guys.... just to keep you informed... I bought a 512mb card for my gps. Using MapCreate 6.3 I loaded the entire west coast from cabo to canada all the way over to colorado and it took 286mb on my card. Incase any of you wanted a referance.

[Jack]

Hey guys.... just to keep you informed... I bought a 512mb card for my gps. Using MapCreate 6.3 I loaded the entire west coast from cabo to canada all the way over to colorado and it took 286mb on my card. Incase any of you wanted a referance.

Why would you include down to Cobo? On mine there was no info for Mexico and you can always add your own info. Maybe it at least has the coast lines?

[RRose]

Why would you include down to Cobo? On mine there was no info for Mexico and you can always add your own info. Maybe it at least has the coast lines?

Because it has the major highways.... and.... why not?

[MikeLeung]

Can you guys post some of those maps you have created on Mapcreate?

[Jack]

Because it has the major highways.... and.... why not?

I wonder why my software did not have this? Or maybe I need to select somthing to turnit on, I will have to take a closer look.

[Junior]

RRose I presume you have the Non-Topo version of Mapcreate. The guys with the topo version will find that file sizes are much larger.

Junior

[endeavor]

Has anyone tried the 1GB card with this unit? Mine won't recognize them, and I've tried 2. No problems with a 256k or 512k. I've got 2 of the 480C's, and tried 2 different 1GB cards. No luck. Seems like a firmware issue with the 480 to me, but nothing on the Lowrance site about it. Thought I would check here.

[powerbox_builder]

Has anyone tried the 1GB card with this unit? Mine won't recognize them, and I've tried 2. No problems with a 256k or 512k. I've got 2 of the 480C's, and tried 2 different 1GB cards. No luck. Seems like a firmware issue with the 480 to me, but nothing on the Lowrance site about it. Thought I would check here.
I've seen 2 different 1gb cards work in 2 different 3500Cs.(same unit) I'll try one in my 480c and get back to you.

[TDORSloppy]

Check lowrances website for updates. My 3000MT wouldn't reconize a 128MB card until I updated the firmware, now I can use up to a 512MB. Here's the site
http://www.lowrance.com/Software/upgrades/upgrades.asp

[endeavor]

Thanks - I did upgrade the firmware, but no go. Very strange.

[MH20]

Has anyone tried the 1GB card with this unit? Mine won't recognize them, and I've tried 2. No problems with a 256k or 512k. I've got 2 of the 480C's, and tried 2 different 1GB cards. No luck. Seems like a firmware issue with the 480 to me, but nothing on the Lowrance site about it. Thought I would check here.

Yes, I have used the 1GB with the 480C and the Topo software. I did get some errors in the mapcreate software when writing to the card if the mapsize was too much over 500mb though.

But the 1GB card is nice for baja because you can save your own entire prerun plottrail in high-def as well as the one you were using to prerun.

[MH20]

Oh, you are talking about the GPS unit recognizing the map on the card. I had the same problem and it is because you have more than 1 map and/or more than one .usr file on the same card.

[endeavor]

Oh, you are talking about the GPS unit recognizing the map on the card. I had the same problem and it is because you have more than 1 map and/or more than one .usr file on the same card.
Yes -- I create the map with mapcreate (upgraded to 6.2 hoping that would solve it). I can see the file ok on the PC card reader, and I made sure the card was formatted to FAT rather than FAT32. When I put the card into the 480, the map doesn't load. When I try to view the files on the card with the 480, it says that there isn't a card installed. This is only for the 1GB cards..the 512/256/64MB cards all work fine. I might try another "brand" card if no one else is having this issue. Thanks for all the replies! It's helpful to have guys helping, who have a clue!

[Desert_Roller]

Can you guys post some of those maps you have created on Mapcreate?

Mike here is what I mapped for the MDR race.

And a link to the finished map: http://www.position1design.com/pages/maps.htm

[endeavor]

Mike here is what I mapped for the MDR race.

And a link to the finished map: http://www.position1design.com/pages/maps.htm

Will PCI be mapping the Vegas to Reno race? I've never run that, but it's a strong possibility this year. Thanks.

[Stephen]

It's probably old news by now but I had the same problem with the 480c not reading big files off my 1gig card and lowrance tech help said they have some problems reading the file size, not necessarily the card size. So for our last big trip, I made a map of each individual state instead of the whole central west in one shot and it works just fine. I ended up using about 850K of my 1gig card with UT, CO, NV, WY, ID, MT and part of CA. These were full feature topo maps. Densly populated areas really eat up space. All of WY took up less than just part of NV around LV.

.usr files seem to be pretty small comparatively.

[BHTool]

incase anyones interested... 2 gig for $35

http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=202381374&adid=17070&dcaid=17070

[Mcadwell]

Does anyone elses Lowrance gps show you 100 feet off the road when you are actually on the road and also it showed me on the next street over than the street i was on!

[Stephen]

The maps aren't always as accurate as the GPS,especially in city situations. It's easy to get messed up on closely packed streets.

[endeavor]

It's probably old news by now but I had the same problem with the 480c not reading big files off my 1gig card and lowrance tech help said they have some problems reading the file size, not necessarily the card size. So for our last big trip, I made a map of each individual state instead of the whole central west in one shot and it works just fine. I ended up using about 850K of my 1gig card with UT, CO, NV, WY, ID, MT and part of CA. These were full feature topo maps. Densly populated areas really eat up space. All of WY took up less than just part of NV around LV.

.usr files seem to be pretty small comparatively.

That solved my problem! I was creating an 800k map on the 1gb card and the GPS would recognize it. I skinnied them down into smaller files like you suggest, and I'm good to go with my 1GB cards! Thanks MUCH!!

Does anyone elses Lowrance gps show you 100 feet off the road when you are actually on the road and also it showed me on the next street over than the street i was on!LOL! that happened to me this weekend just when I was trying to impress my kids with the GPS! I powered the GPS down, then back up and got back on track! But by then, I had lost all credibility with the kids! :D