Is there any good travel logging Garmin?

You can download those from your unit into Garmin's MapSource or RoadTrip (mac) and gather the needed data from them.

Newer Garmins have it.
http://www8.garmin.com/support/faqs/faq.jsp?faq=21
However, I think this feature does not store data of past several days, or does it?

How often would I have to upload the data from GPS to PC? Do you know?

From a Garmin FAQ:

Question: What is a trip log and how does it work on a nuvi or zumo device?

Last modified on: 08/11/2010

Great info. Thanks for digging it up and posting it. When I'm buying a new Garmin it will be something I really need.

I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but to add to CraigW's post, I understand one 'point' is one second.

That means on 200,000 points, you'll have 55.6 hours of travel time logged. Wow!

You can also download the data to Google Earth and see your tracks. Any point can be accessed for exact time, speed, and so on. On my nuvi I don't believe the points are evenly spaced every second, they seem spaced tighter on turns than on straight roads at constant speed. Still, I can hold several full days of driving before the trip log starts eating it's own tail, one would likely get a lot more than that if making a lot of business stops.

Just be careful how much you give your management. Give too much and they will always want it in future.

That sort of thing can come back to bite you.

I believe this varies based on the speed, and perhaps other factors. I bet Motorcycle Mama knows.

It couldn't be more clear

Good point. In my case, however, I get mileage paid for some trips in my own vehicle, but need to present detailed log. It would be nice to get the GPS do it for me.

That could be easily compiled from a track log.

That's fine as long as you also use the same mileage when you submit numbers for taxes under use of company vehicle. Otherwise the revenuers might want to back track.

In my case when I use my own car for company business I get paid 50 cents per each mile being the combined average cost of gas & maintenance. There is no estimated loss or income in it for me and no taxes involved since I don't double dip.

Thanks for sharing the knowledge.

I received a PriceGrabber alert for the lifetime update from the following merchant.

http://www.erwincomputers.com/0101126900.html

Mark,

I don't see any archive folder or files on my 855, either. But I see that my current.gpx file is just 290kb in size and in viewing it with Notepad, I doubt that it has the 10,000 breadcrumb points yet.* For me, it might be that my breadcrumb trail since my last hard reset is small enough that there's not a need for an archive yet and maybe the folder and archive file is only created when it's needed.

Is there any chance that you've deleted your triplog or done a reset recently enough that you also don't need an archive? How big is your current.gpx file? If viewed in Notepad or other text editor, how many points do you have?

* Aha, I did a rough estimate of the size of my trip log in my current.gpx file. (I believe the points start after the "trkseg" in the current.gpx text file--with a "<" before the trkseg and a ">" after it.) My trip log starts on 8/4/2010 and ends today. I assume I did a hard reset or otherwise deleted my trip log on the 4th of August. In roughly counting the number of points in my file, I see about 1000 points. So if my log is typical--probably not true as I imagine I drive less than many of us--1000 points covers the past ten days. If true, my active trip long won't reach 10,000 points until after 100 days after the last log reset. If archives are not created before they're needed, that may explain why we don't see the Archive folder or files.

[Edit] I also imported the Tracks from my 855 into Mapsource. I see several tracks and the number of points in all tracks totals 2808. So my estimate of having 1000 points in my log is probably low and the actual value is about 2800 points over my past 10 days. Still, since I have under 10,000 points in my active track log, my 855 doesn't need to archive older track points. So my assumption that if an archive folder and files are created only when they're needed, that may explain not seeing the archives on my GPS.

Anyone else with a idea?

I periodically save the tracks with Mapsource in gdb format. All the files are ~235KB in size and typically contain 30 tracks with about 300 points each so I do get the nominal 10,000 points in the current.gpx file. As new tracks are added, old tracks are removed from the file. I've never performed the hard reset procedure ( http://www.poi-factory.com/node/26136 ), only the "power cycle". I have never found an instance where I have lost any tracks (the tracks saved with Mapsource all have overlapping data). The only noticeable thing that happens during the power cycle is that the voice personality switches back to Jill. I think it's safe to conclude that my 855 has never created the archive folder and archived tracks.
Mark

Interesting. I've just scrolled through the options on my 855 and don't see anything that looks like an option that we haven't yet activated, but is needed for archives to be created.

It does seem to me that your 855 should be creating archives but it isn't. So there's either an issue with our 855s creating archives as Garmin's FAQ states and maybe the FAQ is incorrect...or there's some setting in your 855 that's preventing the archives from being created as we expect--which is set to "non-archives" instead. I'm out of ideas but I'll keep an eye on this thread. With luck, someone like Motorcycle Mama or DorkusNimrod will have a better idea.

Speaking of "Jill": I find that my 855 is unexpectedly reverting to Jill way too often. I haven't figured out what's going on so often but it does bother me. I even did a hard reset of my 855 but Jill keeps coming back to haunt me. Luckily, it's easy to distinguish Karen from Jill so I know when it's time to reset Karen and my Voice-Of-Choice.

I don't think this is correct. In looking over the track logs from my 760, curvy roads get more points than a straight road. I believe it has to do with how many points it takes to define a curve vs a straight line. It might be laying one point per second on a straight road, but I'm pretty sure it lays more points than that on a twisty scenic road.

thank you for this tip

I have 765T. The 765T logs all trips I take where I am actually using the GPS to navigate the route. In other words, if I tell the GPS I want to go somewhere then it records where I actually go. By default it does not seem to record my tracks simply because the GPS is on.

The 765T outputs the track information in the current.GPX file located in the garmin/gpx folder of the GPS. After a certain period of time the tracks are archived into files in the garmin/gpx/archive folder. The files created by the garmin in this archive folder are named automatically "1.gpx", "2.gpx", "3.gpx", etc... They contain only track data.

I read track information into a mapsource file personally called "history.gdb" regularly, just for fun.

Anyhow, when I analyze the tracks and calculate some averages, it appears that it records a new point on average of about every 10 seconds.

The 765T has a hidden full-time logging feature that I recently learned about. This logging feature records tracks whenever the GPS is on, regardless of whether is it being used for navigation. Here is a link to description of how to activate it (http://www.gpspassion.com/upload2/HiddenTrackLogHowTo.pdf). This featuer even allows tracks to be replayed on the GPS similar to simulation mode.

Because of the extra steps in converting the binary log files created by the full-time logger, using the standard track recorder feature of the 765 is far easier to work with. Simply connect computer to GPS and using Mapsource pull the tracks out and you have all the information you need for your reports.

Hope this helps.

mbrun

I'm having trouble looking at my tracks using Google Earth. Is anybody else experiencing similar problems or it is my system? It's telling me it can't locate my GPS and when I try to load "from file" it gives me an error. I have installed the latest garmin comunicator plugin (2.9.2) and the latest version of Google Earth (5.2.1.1329 beta).
Thanks

I just used Google Earth 5.1.3535.3218 to view my tracks. When my GPS (765T) is connected a "F:\" drive appears. Using GE I navigated to "f:\garmin\gpx\current.gpx" and opened the file. All waypoints, tracks and routes imported and appeared OK in GE.

I also used the import routine >Tools>GPS>GPS Import>Garmin and had interesting results. The import was actually successful multiple times but GE always represented that no tracks were imported when infact they always were. In fact, all waypoints, tracks and routes were imported each and every time I did an import regardless of what I selected to import (waypoints only, waypoints & tracks, tracks only, etc...)

See http://www.poi-factory.com/node/29967 for a previous discussion and workaround for this problem.

@WAASup: Thank you, I appreciate your help.

FYI, there is an annoying bug in GE 5.2 with GPX waypoints that contain an "&" character, e.g. as in "Fish & Chips". The import will fail.

Either change the "&" to "&amp;" or use the GE 5.1 version.

This is what I was looking for. Thanks very much for sharing the valuable knowledge.