Garmin 2610 Screen Restoration

Well this is what happened to my 2610 after some temperature shock and rain. It was showing the signs of delamination since the start of spring with a few little dots but I never thought it would come to this!!
The one thing that you might think is why bother! Money is the biggest reason. Six large for the new Zumo with all the tricks and then I would need a two hundred and fifty dollar touratech mount. No thanks! I have four kids to feed, so here we go!

Got the six weatherproof screws out and four screen screws out, plus what looks like a ground cable screw.


Once you get the screen off of the face, pull out the screen water seal and rinse off all the built up dirt.

For the case screws DON’T lose the little red seals. They tend to stick in the case.


Disconnect the ribbon cables from the backboard to the screen and also the front cover ribbon to the screen or you might mess them up while moving stuff around like I did below.                                                                                                                                                                          

                                                               OOPS!

As you can see my screen is pretty scratched up.
Buffing out the screen with a Dremel on low speed using a cotton wheel and some cleaner wax for cars.

First pass and better.

Second pass and getting better.


This is the first protector I attempted to use.

Cut to shape.

Protector laid down and has a very soft tack to it.

Unit together and looks ok but the top of the screen is a little funky.
When the unit was powered up it looked great until it was in the sun and was impossible to see. These units always had a lot of sun washout and this was useless.
Step two was crack it back open and try again and find something clear to lay on.


Zagg is my new best friend but you have to put it on very carefully. It is applied with a soap solution like car window tint. When I applied it I had paper towels covering everything around the screen and you squeegee the water and air out the sides. I had two little spots that would not squeegee out and the instructions state they will go away. A few hours later and they were gone. Also I left the memory card door open to let any moisture escape once the unit was back together. Zagg also says to let the unit sit for 24 hours before using.


Zagg screen done. Sun wash was the same as stock and touch screen worked like stock.

Example of a stock screen.

Zagg.

Stock.
Since this went good I did my friends screen and it went smoother and came out looking way better than mine. It seems this was a big problem with these units all in the streetpilot 2XXX class.
If you want me to do a repair for you I would charge $35 and you would have to also pay for two way prepaid shipping. FATTKAW@hotmail.com

Trans Wisconsin Adventure Trail Taster

I've been meaning to do The Wisconsin trail for years now (at least 1/3rd of it) and finally got my chance. Here is some info for the trail. Lone Wolf. Some good stuff to know and some links to some very nice pictures of the trail.

First day.  This is a very common photo opportunity and just slightly after the route leaves the asphalt. Beautiful stop marked up by spray paint and also after three small stream crossings. All I was thinking was when on the road with the crossings and being a person in a car with the GPS routing them through these roads. 

Little water break and some very active cattle. Mr.Bull with brass ring in his nose was not leaving this lady's side. The thing you also see is sun and the thing you don't is the large drops of rain falling. I can't see the north west sky with a bluff behind me and my phone has no signal so it was ride on.

A little bit of logging still happens in south-west WI.

So I mentioned the rain and the next town was prairie du chien and I made a stop for a Mc. Donald's dinner and also a full view of the north-west sky. It was beautiful behind me and black all north-west. The campground was ten miles west of town and as I made my way to the bridge over the Mississippi River all hell was just staring to crack open and also a great motel to my immediate right. It was a easy choice since I have plenty of experience of wet camping.

The hotel was king!

It rained and hailed so hard that I ran out and put the bike on the kickstand opposite of the wind. I truly think I would of found it on it's side in the morning if I hadn't. I flipped on my weather radio and we had tornado warnings coming out of the north about 15 miles away. Nothing happened in prairie du chien but it did rain till about 4AM.

I was talking to the lady at the front desk at check-out and she lives a few miles from campground I was headed for and she told me they had 5 inches of rain. After she said that, the guilt of paying for the room went away as I was trying to keep the cost down. 

Second day. So how do you like this? A common problem with the garmin streetpilot  20xx series but why now and to this extent? When I left hotel it just looked wet and BAM, it looks like a plastic bag melted to it 30 minutes later. With my finger nail, the coating all pulled off and just some was left to the outer edges. Now the issue was no glare protection and it was scratching the screen every time it was touched. The left over water also was making the GPS think I was pressing the screen and it was zooming and panning by itself. :(
I have made a screen fix for this and will post up some picture that make it look and work great.

I got the screen cleaned up with a sox good enough to point it stopped glitching and went on .

The trail route does go over into Iowa and down some more empty roads. The storm did bring down a tree in the way.

                I cleared the tree enough to get by and the next downed tree I was not getting by.

              Just a little back track and went up a little north to catch back up to the route.

          How do you say YTTRI?? I'm thinking its Amish since a lot of the farms I'm passing are missing tractors.  

You just can't go more than a couple hundred miles without seeing a Harley bar with a jap bike strung up in front of the place. This is the town of Yuba and the spot I went off the trail to head over to see my cousins at my uncle's lake house.
I never had plans to ride the whole route, just a little sampler. Tires are key and the Anakees are not right for this job. Next spring I will run the Michelin T63 and the KLR should be more stable.

Cousins Jen and Steve. 

Steve is the cousin who showed me how to use a clutch and sold me my first bike -- a 1974 Honda MR50.