Garmin 276c GPS

Garmin 276c Marine Chart Plotter

09/04/06

Looking for a Bike and Auto GPS?

Well, the 276c Isn't the obvious choice, but having gained a year's experience with a Streetpilot III I felt I knew what was needed, and the 276c came closest to meeting that need. It's not sold primarily as a road navigator, but as a marine chart plotter. Where it scores highly over many of the Streetpilot series for me is its significantly larger display which is daylight viewable and its ability to store a very long track of 10,000 points. Depending on the roads you ride,10,000 points can be as much as 1000 road miles.

The display

 In the pictures below, the display illumination is turned down as far as it will go, the sun is behind the bike and quite low, which would have washed out the display of my old Streetpilot III's display. The 276c uses a daylight viewable screen that actually improves with this angle of sun and looks superb.

Display setup

The 276c has a fully configurable display, you can set many of the data fields to show just what you want. This is how I usually have mine set up, it tells me all I need to know to navigate from A to B, though elevation is hardly essential  :-)

Speed

Elevation

Distance to next turn

Distance to destination

Estimated time of arrival at destination

The very useful trip computer page.

The directions page, it only becomes active when a route is set.

The 276c is a talking GPS, but to be honest I have the voice turned off most of the time. It's set to beep to alert me of upcoming turns. For navigating on the bike without the benefit of hearing the voice or beeps, the middle indication 'Dist Next (turn)' is probably the most useful indication, as it counts down your distance to the next turn. If you want, it can be wired in to most intercoms for 'in helmet' directions, you could even wire an earpiece to the unit's speaker audio-out.

Battery power

Another advantage the 276c has over the current Streetpilot series is its replaceable battery. Battery life depends on how bright you set the backlight, from a fresh charge it can very from 5 to 15hrs, If you wire the supplied lead to the bike's battery it will keep it fully charged indefinitely.

Mounting the 276c

Mounting can be a problem, But having made a few mounts for past GPSs this one was quite easy. It's made up of 12mm mild steel strip and tube with a piece of box section to make it adjustable. The cradle the GPS is in is part of the marine mount supplied with the 276c. It cost less than £5 in raw materials and paint and half a day to make up.

Detail of the mount adjustment and my (poor!) welding. A 6mm flange nut is welded to a pre-drilled piece of mild steel box section. A stainless steel grub screw secures it to the 12mm cross tube. It's all painted over in satin black to prevent corrosion and neaten it up.

Details of the mount, it looks like it's touching the paint, but it has around 3mm clearance all around, with plastic washers under the screws.

The power cable hooked behind the marine mount being such a long lead looked untidy at first, but its length makes it very easy to use.

Note the plastic ground away from the mount in the picture below (arrowed) this is to give the power lead more room while fitting and removing the GPS from the mount.

What about the down side?

Well, the main grumble against the 276c is that it uses Garmin's proprietary data cards, these are limited in size and quite expensive. The maximum current size is 512mb. I currently use the 256mb card that came with the Auto Navigation kit and find that adequate for my euro trips.

The other issue is the overall cost to purchase. Currently it does cost more than, say, a Garmin 2610, but that's because the 2610 comes as a complete kit with mapping and car mount. With the 276c you need to buy the Auto Nav kit separately, this includes a data card and a car mount, but it is more expensive to do it this way.

Edited technical specification

Navigation features
Waypoints/icons: 3000 with name and graphic symbol, 10 nearest (automatic), 100 proximity
Routes: 50 reversible routes with up to 300 points each, plus MOB and TracBack® modes
Tracks: 10,000-point automatic track log; 15 saved tracks, 500 points each, let you retrace your path in both directions
Trip computer: Current speed, average speed, re-settable maximum speed, trip timer, and trip distance

Power
Battery: Rechargeable lithium-ion
Battery life: 5 to 15 hours depending upon the backlight setting
Source: 11-35 Vdc

Physical
Size: 5.7" W x 3.2" H x 1.9" D (14.5 x 8.1 x 4.8 cm)
Weight: 13.6 oz. (0.39 kg)
Display: 3.75" diagonal (9.5 cm) transflective, 256-color display with backlighting (480 x 320 pixels)
Case: Fully gasketed, high-impact plastic alloy, waterproof to IEC 60529 IPX7 standards
Temp. range: 5F to 140F (-15C to 60C)

If you need more information, visit the Garmin 276c page on the Garmin website.

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