Magellan Maestro 3100 POI Questions...???

I have a Magellan 3000T, and the CD it came with included a program called "Magellan POI File Editor". This program, along with "Magellan RoadMate Tools" (also on the CD) are enough to create and transfer POI file to the GPS.

I don't know if these are included with Maestro 3100, but you might have a look around the CD you received to see if these programs are on it.

JM

No there is simply an autorun file that leads me through a warranty registration process, and a downloads folder that simply contains user manuals in .pdf format. i don't see anything there can help.

I've connected the 3100 to the PC in hopes that would start some sort of autorun, but that didn't help either. It simply opened up a folder view of items on the receiver. There is a folder titled "MAP" with a file titled "US48_POI.POI". I'm assuming there has to be some way to update that file.

Any help?

I tried to save a few bucks and other than POI's, I'm happy with it. We live in a rural area and locating department stores, grocery stores, etc. on the fly is more important than I initially thought. What I've been doing is saving the address of stores we frequent so we can locate them from 10 different directions.

The reviews I read online said that the 3100 series supported custom POI's. I guess you can't believe everything you read either.

Hey all...newbie here, and to GPS too (at least on the user side--I work on the other side of the radio from LOTS of users daily).

Anyway, I just bought the Maestro 3100 for my wife, in preparation for a move to a much bigger metro area. In messing around with menus, I think I've discovered the "Custom POI's" feature that is referenced in the above post.

It seems that they really mean "Custom Address Entries". At first I thought you could add POI's, but a little more experimenting doesn't seem to work out.

YMMV.

Scott

deetman,

I might agree with that except that the Maestro 4040 comes with a SD card reader, where one might load so-called "custom POIs" into the unit. Like others, I have found that the CD is useless and contains no utilities for accessing the unit.

The POI editor is installed by clicking the bottom left picture on the splash screen. The trick is getting downloaded files into a format the editor (and the GPS can read). I've used a program called GPSBabel (www.gpsbabel.org) to convert to the GPXXML format. Loads into the editor from the PC and saves to the SD card. When plugged into the USB cable, the GPS looks like two seperate disk drives. The first one is the built in ram, the second is the SD card. Store the gpx files in the SD card's CPOI directory. Access them on the GPS through the POI / Enhanced menus.

Now that's some good info.. I'm a newbie and just started reading up in this forum when this post caught my eye.. I would like to know when you upload the poi file to the sd card does it replace the poi file that's in memory or overwrite a poi file that's already on the sd card.

Thanks

The enhanced POIs will be written to any file that is oprn to writing. Don't use this model but most GPS units will accept POIs in their particular format. Use the Magellan POI editor should be a basic tool for you. Find it on your disks or fownload it from Mag. You will never find a unit (witin reason or otherwise) that will have all the POIs on it for your area or interest- ITS A BIG WORLD. You're at the right place to find and build your own

i brought maestro 3225,mainly for its text to speach feature at affordable cost($199 incl taxes),but poi is only 1.3 million.it came with poi editor,which enable you to save current poi on the unit to your pc and add newones.so i guess it shouldn't be a problem to share poi among likewise units of maestro series with 6million poi(3140 etc).guess it should be in *mgln format for sharing or downloding to other units.thats my opinion and furthur comments are welcome

I purchased this unit a week ago. The editor works great. I've downloaded and converted several POI files from this site and POI Friend site. Very simple and quick process. Then I copied them to an SD card and the 3200 finds them very easily. Just wish I could add custom icons to the unit but I haven't found a way to do that. This is my first GPS and I'm having fun with it.

I too am a newbie to the GPS world. I wonder if I made a mistake by purchasing a Magellan 3100. I used a friends Garmin 340 for a trip in the mountains. It had every poi that you can think of including vinyards. My Magellan doesn't even have Walmart, Target, Home Depot ect. I will be taking this thing back.

Have you had any luck importing another Maestro's mgln file into the 3225? I have the 3200 and so far my only complaint is the lack of POIs. Would love to "update" it with a larger mgln file, but I haven't been able to find any online.

Would anyone be willing to upload the install files for the POI editor that came with the 3140? I have a feeling the 3100 can be updated but they sell it without the software to make it "more affordable" unit. I've searched the Internet far and wide and have not been able to find a copy of the POI file editor for download.

Hey ;have you had any luck updating your GPS?????I just bought mine a week ago and i haven't been able to do it.If so;would you help me with tht please????THnks in advance...

Did you have any luck finding a POI editor for this unit?

I read your post inquiring about using the POI editor for the 3140.

Thanks

I tried the update and it failed and so did my unit. It will not load now. Does anyone know how to reset it?

How we can converted file for the 3140. Thank you

I picked up a Magellan 3225 from Costco ($150). It came with the 1.3 million POI file, I have since updated it to the 6 million POI file. Read the thread here: http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=66&thread... (let me know if this doesn't work for you)
To see how to do it. It is fairly simple.

To upgrade other Magellan units, there are other problems, primarily there isn't enough space in the unit to hold the 200MB of data. But others have come up with solutions for that too. It involves hacking the system to read the data from an SD card.

You should be able to open "My Computer" and right click on the magellan cd icon, and select explore.

I have the 3100 but am traveling so I don't have my cd with me.

The 3225 files will work with the 3100. For info. Please see the links below.

http://www.gpspassion.com/forumsen/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=102368

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=66&thread...

(Moderator Edit: removed reference to an earlier comment from June 2007 that is no longer available.)

The POI Editor from my 4210 CD.

http://members.shaw.ca/cgy_guy/

Go to the link below, it contains some nice tricks and tips for the 3100 such as:

A. Backup Your Magellan 3100
B. Personalize Your Magellan 3100
C. Move the Map Files to a SD Card
D. Replace the POI File
E. Add the File Manager
F. Switching Between Map Files
G. Add "The Core Pocket Media Player" (TCPMP)
H. Known Issues

http://goeken.homedns.org/Weather/Magellan3100/Magellan.htm

Bob

"Read the thread here: http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=66&thread... (let me know if this doesn't work for you)"

OK, got it to work, lots of hacking, but it does work on a 3100 with a 2 gb sdmmc card.

Thanks anyways.

I didn't read all of the post, and I see this is mostly rather old, nonetheless...Magellan support sent me this ftp link

ftp://qaenguser:p3ople@65.38.22.229

it has lots of files that may prove to be helpful since your question is the one I was asking magellan for my 3100.

Hope this helps.

There is a hack to replace the POI file that comes with the 3100 with a much larger one.
http://goeken.homedns.org/Weather/Magellan3100/Magellan.htm

I've tried opening a Magellan *.poi file with a Hex Editor and it looks quite obvious that *.poi files are encrypted or, at least in a highly proprietary format.

Near as I can tell, you can not edit, open or view a Magellan *.poi file with any POI editor whether it's from another Magellan product or not. Magellan did not want you getting features of higher-end products for free, so say "Hello" to encrypted POI files!

I get my Maestro 3100 2morrow and hope to learn more by way of experimentation.

Update: I've been doing a bunch of digging online and it looks like I jumped the gun in deciding that the POI files on the 3100 are encrypted. I'm now convinced that they are just specialized proprietary formats. There is good reason to believe that they incorporate Raima(tm) Embedded Database technology. The tag [Raima_DB] can be seen in *.poi files.

The upshot is that unless Magellan releases a program that will create *.poi files from ordinary *.csv or somebody with great programming talent writes one themselves, we won't be customizing our POI files on Maestro 3100s ever.

Here are some sources of information which may shed some light.

http://www.raima.com/pdf/publications/cots_embedded_database...