It’s seems it’s a fact of life that you end carrying around a variety of battery powered gadgets nowadays, cameras, GPS receivers, flash units and the like so you end up carrying their support stuff as well which is basically batteries. I’ve had a Canon A95 camera for years powered by AA batteries and very quickly started to use rechargeable batteries for it because it looked like buying normal disposable batteries was going to be both expensive and environmentally damaging. More recently I’ve got a Garmin Oregon 550t GPS receiver as an update for an older Garmin Etrex Vista Cx both of which use AA cells. I’ve been buying Energizer NiMH AA rechargeable batteries for a while and I’ve accumulated 16 of them along with 18 other assorted AA and AAA NiMH cells, I’ve probably got more but it was those 34 cells I found when I made a quick search the other day.

batteries….

NiMH is an abbreviation of nickel-metal hydride and is a rechargeable battery technology that’s largely replaced nickel-cadmium (NiCd) cells in common use basically because the NiMH cells can have two or three times the capacity of the older NiCd cells. Normal, disposable, batteries are based on a reaction of zinc and manganese dioxide (Zn/MnO2) and are generally known as alkaline cells and nearly always are not rechargeable.

Typically you can buy AA NiMH cells with capacities ranging from 1100 mAh to 2900 mAh, this measure (milliampere-hour) gives you an indication of how much power the cell stores. An imperfect analogy would be that it’s similar to a measure of the capacity of a petrol tank on a car, how far your car will go on a single tank obviously depends on the size of the tank along with simple issues such as if you’re filling the tank when you refill or only half-filling it and of course how efficient your car is! Basically, the higher the number of of mAh your battery holds when you put it in the the GPS, for example, then the longer the GPS will last.

NiMH batteries are particularly good for electronic gadgets compared to alkaline batteries because of their very flat discharge curve. An alkaline battery typically delivers 1.5v when new but that quickly degrades and can fall below 1.0v or even to the point where chemical damage is caused to the cell. By contrast a new, freshly charged NiMH cell will deliver 1.4V or 1.45V initially but then will run for 80% of the discharge cycle at this level.

You can look at this two ways, for example in a torch you’ll see it potentially brighter with an alkaline cell initially but the light will fade fairly quickly and ultimately it will fade to nothing while a NiMH cell will start slightly less bright but then remain pretty much constant until the battery runs down. Another application though is in the sort of electronic gadgets that require consistent voltage levels to provide clock cycles on processor chips or to control access to memory devices, here you’ll get a short life from an alkaline cell as it will drop below a useful voltage fairly quickly while the NiMH cell providing the required voltage level lasts longer.

While I’m on the subject I ought to mention avalanche transceivers, it’s frequently quoted that they cannot use rechargeable batteries without any reason being given. The problem is that they often use crude battery meters which measure terminal voltage to give an indication of battery strength/life. This works well with alkaline batteries which have a consistent discharge rate with voltage but doesn’t work with NiMH which have this flatter discharge rate. This accounts for the rather breathless accounts you hear from people who describe how their transceiver suddenly went from showing 80-90% battery strength to 0-20% in a few minutes while using rechargeable batteries. So I’d suggest it turns out your transceiver actually runs rather well on modern rechargeable batteries doing it’s main business but because you cannot measure how much power you’ve got managing batteries with NiMH in this application is too problematic and potentially very dangerous. This applies equally to clever modern cells such as the the newer lithium batteries, a discharge curve that’s ideal for gadgets in principle but problematic in this particular application.

my batteries…

I’ve noticed a couple of times recently that I’m getting a variation in the time I’m able to run the Oregon GPS before switching apparently identical batteries around, it’s not too serious and I always have some spares but I’d begun to think I needed to identify these weaker cells and replace or retire them. The only other tool I have to measure the batteries is a simple little battery test which measures the voltage on the (unloaded) terminals. This isn’t very good for NiMH cells, this feature of NiMH where they’re delivering high voltages for about 80% of the discharge cycle means a terminal voltage reading is hard to interpret.

When I started to look around for replacements I came across the idea of getting a battery conditioner or a more sophisticated charger which might revive some of the batteries. And that’s how I found the BC900, it’s sold under a couple of different names but generally keeps the model number BC900. The one I have is German and badged as Technoline but La Crosse also have the same unit.

This little gadget is pretty feature packed and it’s hard to know where to start. The highlights are :

• Works with all NiCd and NiMH “AA” and “AAA” Rechargeable Batteries
• LCD shows capacity for each battery when charging is complete
• Charges AA & AAA rechargeable batteries simultaneously
• Will not charge defective batteries
• Select different charging current for each channel
• Automatically switches to trickle charge when charging is complete to ensure maximum battery capacity
• Overheat detection to protect over-charging
• Charge Mode (charging current)
• Discharge Mode (discharging current)
• Refresh Mode (time elapsed)
• Test Mode (accumulated capacity)
• Input Voltage for AC/DC Adapter:100-240 VAC
• Charging Current Range:200 mA – 1800 mA

The normal Energizer charger I have isn’t so bad but it’s pretty basic compared to this, the Energizer basically pumps a standard current in to all cells at the same time regardless of their state. It works on a timer so it shuts off after 8.5 hours to prevent serious overcharging but in fact I can calculate that the 2500mAh cells I’m using will actually charge in around 6.9 hours.

The BC900 has four modes of operation, charge, discharge, test and refresh. Charge and discharge do what you’d expect with the feature that the power can be varied so cells can be slow charged or rapid charged as required.

The most interesting mode, for me, is the refresh mode. Basically this charges and discharges the individual cells repeatedly until no increase in charge is registered. Not only does this refresh your cell but you can identify the weak cells. This does take several days continuous running to achieve of course. What we’re trying to defeat here is what’s commonly known as a memory effect but more properly is termed as a voltage depression, this is the situation where repeated charging while only partially discharged reduces capacity. Repeated charge/discharge cycles ought to fix this.

If you look at the two photo’s above you can see what happened when I refreshed a set of 4 cells. The cell on the left seems to have a problem, in one display you see that while three cells have charges of 2.33 – 2.38 Ah, or around 90% of new capacity, the one on the left is only at 1.921 Ah despite being charged for the same time (around 77%). Even the terminal voltage isn’t quite as good and the difference here would have been too subtle to detect on my battery meter.

The first thing I realize is that I want to keep track of this data, my first thought is to write some PHP code and use a MySQL database but I resist the urge and figure that for 34 cells a spreadsheet will probably be good enough. This is an excerpt of the table :

I’ve used some conditional formatting in the spreadsheet to calculate charge in relation to the original charge and color code anything over 90% as being good, 80-90% as marginal or yellow (not shown) and below 80% as red or below standard. Obviously what I’ve also done is stick little labels on all the cells so I can identify them. My plan is to refresh cells once or twice a year and monitor the capacities to more suitably make sets of similar capacity and to retire any cell that’s below a reasonable standard.

In fact, I still think this weak cell might be rescuable. I’ll no doubt have some more in a similar state so I’ll put them on charge/discharge cycles and see if some life can breathed back into them.

So far I’ve run the charge at the default level which is 200 mA, that’s pretty conservative though and you ought to be able to charge at a rate between 0.5C and C (where C is the capacity) so in this case the rate of 1000 mA is possibly appropriate, it’s certainly going to be much quicker. The problem here is that I’m worried about heat generation, there’s an over-temperature setting but I’d rather not overheat the cells or have the over-temperature trigger without a full charge to the cells. There are some downsides to using a low charge rate with some cells, the smart charger can detect an end of charge signal which is stronger at higher charge rates, some BC-900 users report charges not terminating when using 200 mA charging. That’s not happened to me, the charge is terminating and the batteries are cool to the touch, I’ll probably step up to a 500 mA charge rate which should significantly reduce the refresh time.

conclusion….

I’d say this is a great bit of kit, it’s certainly ideal for the outdoor gear geek but it’s a good way to manage the ever increasing number of batteries we seem to carry. How this genuinely works for cost is hard to say, it’s around £40-45 to buy the unit while a set of 2000+ mAh AA NiMH cells is £8-10 so you need to rescue a few cells before you get payback that way. Another angle though is convenience, if you’re on a trip then taking a couple of good sets of cells is better than taking 4 or 5 sets that might be marginal, it’s obviously lighter but it’s easier than keep trying to charge sets of cells all the time when you may not have access to mains power.

I think if you matched sets of cells together, labelled them up, tried to always fully discharge them and used a clever charger than always discharged you could save a small cost compared to the BC900 but it would be rather inconvenient.

I was also satisfied to see that my guess about having some slightly defective cells in my collection was proven by the first set I placed in the BC900 so it confirmed it was a good idea to buy the BC900 for me.

First, I tried to install the current version in Windows XP and Window 7. In Windows 7 my system just crashed totally which is a first, so SwissTopo have actually managed to produce some software that give me my first ever Windows 7 system crash which is not a great first really.

In Windows XP I was able to use the current installer and then install sector one of the Swiss Map 25 followed by Swiss Map 50 and to run the software. But, I found the exact same problem I had with printing on the Mac was also occurring on XP. In some ways this isn’t surprising, it’s basically the exact same software running through an interpreter but, on the other hand, I’d thought the problem was due to an external conflict so it seems odd the conflict exists on two entirely different operating systems. My XP installation is pretty scaled down, I only installed it recently in a VMware virtual machine so there’s no accumulated rubbish on the machine and there’s no installed applications apart from Microsoft Money and Firefox.

Odd though it seems I reasoned it might well be possible for this conflict to be on both platforms, there’s some common things between them, for example I’ve got Mozilla Firefox installed on both systems and, particularly interestingly, some Adobe components like Flash plugins and Acrobat. However, removing those things from the XP system doesn’t really change the problem so I tried another approach.

If, on Windows XP, I use the install disk for Swiss Map 25 sector One which is software version 1.0.3 build 54 then it works OK running the software from the disk without installing it. This is about as old as the Swiss Map software gets, I think it’s the initial version in fact. I then installed this version onto my XP system and found it still worked satisfactorily.

That’s not as useful as it seemed though, I need to install the Swiss Map 50 maps which requires a later version. The SwissTopo website is confused about this, they claim that version 1.2.3 (Build 87) is the first released version that supports Swiss Map 50 but the DVD actually ships 1.2.1 (Build 85) which is supposedly an unreleased, internal version. Regardless of that confusion in turns out that 1.2.1 (Build 85) doesn’t work.

Although this is interesting I can’t find a way to use the information to be able to actually print all the maps I need. It looks like it’s unlikely there’s any workaround I can make on my systems to get printing to work for both Swiss Map 25 and 50. But, it does look there’s an issue the SwissTopo could address if they were motivated to do so, if it works on version 1.0.3 build 54 and doesn’t work sometime after 1.2.1 (Build 85) then, in a nutshell, they’ve broken something along the way with their packaging and they ought to be able to fix it.

In terms of support, I reported this back on the 29th April, a few days later (3rd May) I got a mail suggesting I try removing a file (smusrpre.smp) which seems to be their standard response to pretty much any problem. I was away so I didn’t reply until the 7th May to report that removing this file didn’t work. I didn’t get a response from that or from the followup I sent late on 10th May.

Both sets support overlays with various paths and trails marked and it’s supposed to be possible to print the maps out. Previously I’d written about printing those maps and using them which is something I’ve found quite useful. The reason this is so very useful is that I travel widely around Switzerland and am often in an area briefly or doing a tour that would need several maps.

So, with SwissMap what I like to do is print a map at 1:25000 just like the Swiss Topo maps with a brown cover but with the paths on them which you only really get on the 1:50000 (yellow) map. This is cheaper than buying new maps all the time and it’s just more effective, instead of needing a couple of maps for an area I can just print off one, with the paths on it, with my planned route on it and any other notes I want to make. I can even laminate that if I want and make it more robust and they’re easier to handle than a large paper map in bad weather. One of the other tricks I have is to print awkward sections at double size which is useful in bad light and even more useful if I’m wearing contact lenses and can’t read the detail normally without reading glasses.

So, it’s a complete nuisance if for some reason I can’t print maps. And that seems to be happening increasingly now.

performance…

Previously I’d written this seemed to be actively developed software but that was June 2008 and realistically there’s been no development of this software at all since that time. That wouldn’t matter if it worked well but that’s never really been the case. It’s never run natively on the Intel processors used by the current generation of the Apple Macintosh. Back when I first wrote about Swiss Map that seemed a little out of date but today, in May 2010, it looks positively obsolete. Apple haven’t been shipping hardware with anything other than Intel processors now since 2006 so it’s really long overdue to support this properly.

The problem with not being native software for the hardware we’ve all got now is that performance is awful. Just starting the software and trying to use functions in it takes nearly all the resources my system has and it’s extremely slow to perform even basic tasks. Inevitably, after a couple of years this gets more frustrating each time I need to use Swiss Map.

It should be noted though that life isn’t much better in the Windows world, I’ve installed this software on Windows XP and the performance really hasn’t been any better. It might be, more than being old PowerPC code, that the real performance hit is that the software is written in a high level abstraction presumably to make it portable using some Mactomedia tools. That’s topical right now as Steve Jobs of Apple and Adobe slug it out regarding Flash support on iPad and iPhone platforms. The argument Jobs makes in essence is that these interpreted platforms always give poor performance and are a poor choice which is convincing argument.

printing….

But, that’s something you just have to live with using the product, it’s obviously not really good enough that four years after Intel Mac’s were released that Swiss Map doesn’t run properly on them but it’s the way it is.

What is impossible to accept is that the age of the Macromedia toolset that was used is now giving huge reliability issues. Back in September last year after returning from extended trips in the Himalayas, the UK and Corsica, I needed to plan a route back home in Switzerland and tried to use Swiss Map to do it. It all seemed to be going well until I came to print the maps and realized that in the couple of months I’d been away that somehow printing was broken.

Now when I printed a map with the paths on it the paths were displaced from their real position and placed somewhere else on the map, a picture probably makes it clear what happens:

The yellow lines are supposed to be paths and you get the first clue that all’s not well as a path appears to be in the lake, your eye probably quickly tells you that the path is moved to the left and slightly down. Because this map segment contains some visual cues you can see where the path is, the cues are that the path can’t be in the lake and you can see a physical path marked following a similar line with some turns that allow you guess what’s going on. That’s not really true in some places, in some places it’s actually not immediately obvious what’s happened unless you know exactly what you’re looking for.

self support….

That’s potentially way more annoying than the software being a bit slow but if you report the problem and get a speedy fix it’s not the end of the world. But, that doesn’t happen, nearly three months later, after I send the support team some increasingly irate emails there’s still no sign of any fix. In fact not only that but they’re sending me back strange requests, the most odd being a request for “all available information about [my] system”.

In the end, I reinstall my system several times which takes days of time trying various combinations to isolate the problem with limited success until I speak with the support team on the telephone who mention this all written in a Macromedia toolkit which I’d not known until that time. So, armed with the information they had all along I was able to identify within minutes that this problem was likely to be a conflict with Macromedia runtime components. Most likely given how very old the Swiss Map software was then a more recent update of another product with some use or link to Macromedia created the problem.

And that’s what it turned out to be, I’d installed Adobe PhotoShop Elements 6 which has a whole bundle of things from Adobe Photoshop CS2 including the current versions of some Macromedia files (in /Library/Application Support/Macromedia) which break Swiss Map. Just to be quite clear, this is not a problem with PhotoShop, it’s a problem with Swiss Map being so old and out of date. I found removing the files didn’t break PhotoShop, at least for me, and did fix Swiss Map.

I’d not recommend doing this really, maybe you do something with PhotoShop that needs those files, I didn’t but it’s hard to know. If you have the same problem though and make a backup of the files you can try it at your own risk.

deja vu…

Only now it’s started again, I needed a new map the other day and it’s not printing again. It looks like the cause must be about the same as before but this time I can’t find what files are causing the conflict, at least so far I can’t. I’ve reported this of course but I’m not hopeful that they’ll be a speedy solution and my suspicion is that I’ll end up fixing this myself again.

What makes this so massively irritating is that each time this happens I’m without maps, obviously I can’t be without a map so I end buying a paper version. I only ever bought Swiss Map to avoid amassing a massive pile of paper maps that I used once or twice but now I’ve paid for the Swiss Map product then pay for a map each time I need one which is really maddening if not to say a waste of money.

It’s turned out that Swiss Map is the most expensive, most unreliable and poorest performing piece of software I’ve installed on my Mac and may top all three of those lists for software I’ve ever owned. I hope this will turn around and there’ll be a new version of Swiss Map that actually works, without needing to purchase all the maps all over again which I cannot possibly afford, but I’ve been waiting two years so far and it’s not happened.

about the author……..
Ian is a qualified mountain leader and International Mountain Leader aspirant, he lives and works in the Swiss Alps and has hiked and led expeditions and treks in Europe, North Africa and the Himalayas. He spends his time alpine skiing, ski mountaineering, nordic skiing, mountain biking, hiking, climbing, geocaching and messing around with gadgets.

introduction

I’ve had my Oregon 550t for over six months now so it seems a good time to report in on how it’s working out for me. This is not my first Garmin device, I’ve had an Etrex Vista Cx for a few years and been fairly happy with it, I also have more recently acquired one of the Garmin fitness devices in the form of a Forerunner 305 which is a wrist-top GPS linked to a heart rate monitor for activities like running. This isn’t an exhaustive review, there’s some good resources about listing each feature and discussing them, you can download the manual from Garmin for an even better idea. This is really a whistle stop tour through the main points.

I will also add some reviews of the maps themselves and some general positioning regarding the handheld, mapping GPS receiver marketplace at a later date. I think that will be useful, it looks like some of the reviews of receivers and maps don’t give enough context about the state of technology or the market place to really understand the choices we have.

features

The 550t is the flagship handheld mapping GPS from Garmin, it’s intended for activities like trekking and general use in outdoor environments. At the time I got the 550t the nearest model was the Oregon 400t, the basic difference between the two models for me was the capacity for waypoints. I’d found when leading some extended trips that the limit of 500 waypoints on my Etrex Vista Cx was too restrictive, for example on a 16 day trip I was restricted to around 30 waypoints for each day in planning the route and that really isn’t enough in any complex terrain.

My other requirement was that I wanted to be able to use a new device in the car, I’d previously had a built-in GPS system but I decided when we changed the car that this was a luxury and it made more sense to have a single high-end handheld device that I could use for driving, trekking and cycling.

In terms of the Garmin product position the real differences between the 400t and the 550t are these

• the 550t has a far more sophisticated compass, having a built-in 3-axis tilt compensated compass.
• the 550t supports 2000 waypoints (versus 1000)
• the 550t can store 200 routes (versus 50)
• the 550t has a built-in 3.2 megapixel camera
• the 550t has a faster USB interface

The 3-axis tilt compensated compass is an interesting feature. It basically means that you don’t need to hold the device rock steady exactly horizontal, that’s handy not only when handholding the device but also if it’s mounted off the horizontal such as on the handle bars of a bike or in a car mount.

The other main headlines of the 550t specification are :

• 240 x 400 pixels color touch screen
• 850mb internal memory
• microSD card support
• 10,000 point track lock with 200 saved tracks
• pre-loaded topographic maps
• IPX7 waterproof standard (see below)
• 16 hours battery (advertised by Garmin, see below)
• barometric altimeter

a note about IP-X7

IP Code, or International Protection Rating or Ingress Protection Rating from international standard IEC 60529, is a way of describing how ruggard a device is. The code is two part, “X” and “7″. In this case the “X” denotes that the device is not tested for if the enclosure provides against access to hazardous parts (e.g., electrical conductors, moving parts) and the ingress of solid foreign objects.

The next part “7″, gives the level of protection of the equipment inside the enclosure against harmful ingress of water. This runs from 0, providing no protection, to 8 which protects for immersions greater than one metre. A level of 7 denotes protection from significant water ingress up to a depth of one metre. Basically, this means you can’t go swimming with the 550t but it’s most suitable for mountaineering use and will easily withstand use in rain or snow.

maps and mapping

The “t” designation of the 550t model basically means you have some preloaded topographical maps. What’s actually on the device depends on the region you purchase it in. In Europe I have a recreational map of Europe which is actually very good, I’m not sure how much use it really is though as I have the TopoSwiss maps and the European City Navigator maps which cover in different details most places I go.

I also have the complete Topo France maps and the OS GB Snowdonia maps.

The way the device performs in terms of map display and routing is as much about the quality of those maps as the device itself and the firmware. As a result I’ll write about the maps in more detail another time.

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]]> http://snowslider.net/2010/04/27/garmin-oregon-550t/feed/ 1 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://snowslider.net/2009/05/26/camp-via-ferrata-rewind-set/ http://snowslider.net/2009/05/26/camp-via-ferrata-rewind-set/#comments Tue, 26 May 2009 13:56:20 +0000 ise http://snowslider.net/?p=662 We recently got Camp rewinds for local VF’s after looking at a bunch of other sets on the market.

The main choice comes to whether you want a stitched shock absorber like the Petzl or Black Diamond sets or ones with a friction device like this or the Salewa one for example. I’m not entirely happy with stitched ones, once you fall and tear through the stitching it’s good only for the bin and if you’re halfway up a VF at the time, assuming you’re able to continue, you’ve now got a non-functioning set. I think a lot of people argue that no one falls off a VF so it’s moot but I’m not much convinced by that argument, once I’ve left the ground on anything I try not to fall off

There’s a couple of Eastern European manufacturers knocking out VF sets and some of the local stores have them, they look reasonable, mostly friction devices and UIAA approved but some inferior quality around non-safety components. For example, I looked at one with the squeeze action locking carabiners and the squeeze mechanism felt flimsy, this matters I think as you end up bashing the gear around the crag.

I also felt I liked the squeeze action idea as opposed to the older twist lock and variants, a squeeze action is quicker and easier and there’s no failure case (I can detect) where the gate can be left partly open.

The other feature I liked in the Camp set is the elasticised lanyards, this really helps keep them out of way moving around and lets Camp get a half decent run of dynamic cord into the system without leaving the lanyard a metre over your head. This feature is available on other sets of course.

The only feature I saw on another set, the Petzl, was a extra loop from the harness attachment for resting that allows you to clip to a bit of gear. That looked like a good idea but I’m not sure in practice if it would be much use, it’s easier to keep a belay sling on and use that, it’s longer and I can clip to a couple of bits of gear as a rule so it’s more flexible.

Here’s Julie using the Camp rewind in France :

]]> http://snowslider.net/2009/05/26/camp-via-ferrata-rewind-set/feed/ 6 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://snowslider.net/2009/04/01/abs-airbag-takes-extended-trip/ http://snowslider.net/2009/04/01/abs-airbag-takes-extended-trip/#comments Wed, 01 Apr 2009 07:55:17 +0000 ise http://snowslider.net/?p=613 For anyone that doesn’t know already, an ABS bag for skiing has airbags on the side inflated from a small cylinder in the rucksack and fired using a small pyrotechnic in a trigger on the rucksack. I’ve had one for a few years and it’s something I don’t use a lot but from time to time skiing alone in certain conditions it seems a good thing to carry.

Monday 10th March 2009

So it was back on the 10th March that I was skiing with the rucksack over in Grimentz on a stormy day with a lot of fresh snow. When I’d finished for the day I was sat at the bus stop and tried to remove the trigger from the sack and could tell immediately it was a little stuck, I didn’t want to pull it sharply off as that would inflate the airbags so I removed the gas cylinder to stop that happening. But, I still managed to fire the trigger which is a nuisance as you can only fire them once before needing them recharged. Still, I live in a ski station in the Valais, how hard could it be to get a new trigger?

First, I discover according to the manufacturer there’s basically no local dealer I can go to. I’d bought the bag in Neuchâtel so it was out of the question that I go there. At this point I’m still thinking, “how hard could it be to get a new trigger”?

The best route seems to be to send an email to the manufacturer, afterall, it’s after working hours but someone will see it first thing in the morning and get back to me, I’ll pick the mail up when I’m out skiing on my iPhone and we’ll sort out how to get the trigger fixed.

Friday 13th March 2009

Wrong! Three days later I get a response from the manufacturer telling me the bag needs checking and the importer needs to get it back. This is bit irritating, it shouldn’t take three days to reply to a customer support request for some safety gear and I only want a new trigger, really after three days I ought to have that by now.

So, I contact the importer by email copied to the manufacturer and the first reply I get is from the manufacturer telling me the importer’s not available until the next week. Obviously, this isn’t really good enough and I tell the manufacturer this, to which I get this bizzare response:

We understand that you need your pack but please keep in mind that it was you who pulled the trigger without cartridge inside.

Funnily enough, I do recall it was me that pulled the trigger, I was there at the time.

Then it seems there’s a stroke of luck, the importer is available and sends me a mail apologising for not helping me faster saying the service from the manufacturer is sometimes a problem. Even better, he says if I send them the bag they’ll send it back the same day, or if there’s a problem send me another to use. That sounds great, it’s just the sort of service I expect.

Monday 16th March 2009 - Thursday 19th March 2009

So, first thing Monday morning I go to the post office and send the bag by priority post to them, they’ll have it by Tuesday so I think there’s no reason I’ll not get it back by Wednesday or Thursday. But, it gets to Thursday (19 March) and there’s no contact from them, so I email them again asking if they’d actually received it. This doesn’t get any response at all.

Tuesday 24th March 2009 – Thursday 26th March 2009

On Tuesday 24th March, by now two weeks since I’d tried to get this sorted out, I emailed them again and got a response on Wednesday 25th. There was no explanation about why they’d not contacted me earlier or where this promise to send it in 24 hours had disappeared to simply a demand for my postal address to give to DHL as they won’t deliver to a “postbox”, in fact I’d not asked them to, I’d given them my “PickPost” address. Pickpost is a thing we have here in Switzerland that allows you to get things delivered to any main post office and get a text or email telling you they’re available for pick up.

Why do I use “pickpost”? It’s quick and easy and they keep things for a couple of weeks, it’s really handy as couriers struggle to find our main house, the chalet has no post box and it’s much easier than waiting for the delivery people to arrive. This is a case in point, I know I’m certainly not going to be around for a couple of days so a courier will just end returning the rucksack to the sender. I explain all this to the importer and by Thursday 26th I’ve a response from them saying it’s not a problem, they can still send via the post service but they need an address and won’t send it to a postbox. Assuming this is some of billing address I send them my home address.

Of course then I realise they’re proposing to mail it my main address which is exactly what I don’t want to happen so I ring them and vent some of my irritation with them. It’s the afternoon of Thursday 26th March by now, I’d fired the trigger on the 10th of March, the importer had promised 24 hour return from the 16th but I’m beginning to give up hope of seeing my rucksack again.

But, apparently it’s all OK now, they’re going to send it by post to the address I’d given them originally, there’s no explanation given about why they’d not bothered to contact me between the 16th and 24th of March but at least the rucksack is on the way back.

Wednesday 1st April 2009

Only it’s now Wednesday 1st of April and I still don’t have my rucksack. I emailed them yesterday and asked where it was. I got this helpful response :

The Swisspost informed me, that the Postfach address you sent me is not authorised to take packets. Anyway, they are so kind to keep the packet till you pick it up. It is really a nightmare and don’t tell me that this is our mistake. Please call the Post where your Postfach is

This of course is nonsense, I’ve given my Pickpost address , the Pickpost service exists only to receive parcels but it doesn’t explain why Pickpost haven’t contacted me so I ask the importer what address it’s been sent to and, of course, the answer comes back with the wrong address. It’s been sent to a local Post Office but without my Pickpost account details so they’ve no idea what to do with it.

I think this is some of the most appalling customer service I’ve ever experienced. This is safety equipment and it’s not cheap to buy, if you need support then you expect it to be quick and efficient, there’s really no way that I should have been left for three weeks without my rucksack or had to chase the importer to even get a response at all. The importer acts like they’re doing me a favour and tells me normally they only deal with shops, that’s absolutely super but it was the manufacturer who told me to contact the importer so they’re not doing me any special favour at all. I wouldn’t need to deal with the importer or manufacturer at all if they’d a dealer and service network of any size, I’d contacted the nearest dealer, who was miles away, and they’d not bothered to respond.

My very strongest advice is anyone is think of getting an ABS rucksack is not to bother, it’s vital that there’s a good support network for this type of gear and my experience is that the support isn’t up to an acceptable standard, at least here in Switzerland. There’s a new Swiss product called SnowPulse which cannot fail to be better, all they need to do is actually have some dealers in sensible places like ski stations and they’ll be a lot better.

Do I have the sack even now (Wednesday April 1st) ? No, I don’t. I’m just going to the post office to see if they can find it. Of course, by this time I could have hopped backwards to and from the original dealer in Neuchâtel who was Défi Montagne who are fantastically helpful and would have sorted this out quickly.

]]> http://snowslider.net/2009/04/01/abs-airbag-takes-extended-trip/feed/ 2 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://snowslider.net/2008/06/16/swiss-map-25-2/ http://snowslider.net/2008/06/16/swiss-map-25-2/#comments Mon, 16 Jun 2008 11:41:44 +0000 ise http://snowslider.net/?page_id=361 Vendor Webpage : Swiss Map 25

Swiss Maps

Swiss Topo have a set of eight DVD’s covering different parts of Switzerland, there’s a small overlap between each volume in the set which is helpful when buying them. I’ve been thinking of getting some of these for a while instead of accumulating more and more paper maps, I’ve started with volume 1 which covers “Suisse Occidentale” which is the Western part of Switzerland.

I have a problem with the Swiss maps, there’s too many versions for the same areas. We have the brown 1:25000 maps which are the most detailed, marking paths and showing enough detail to navigate through some complex terrain, these don’t distinguish between paths though, every path is marked with no notation to signify which are the marked and accepted routes on the ground. The yellow 1:50000 maps are more use for paths, these are marked in solid red lines for normal paths and broken red lines for higher level or more serious paths, however in some terrain it’s hard to navigate using the 1:50000 scale, there’s not really enough detail. Then there’s the blue ski touring maps, these are 1:50000 scale but mark ski lifts and ski tour routes, they also use a terrain marking that lets you identify slopes in excess of 30′ which are liable to avalanche, I find these are adequate for navigating on a ski tour. In addition, I have electronic versions of the 1:25000 maps with my mapping GPS.

One of the key things the Swiss Map 25 offers is a 1:25000 scale map with recognised paths marked on them, in some ways the data from the yellow maps at the brown map scale. Swiss Map 25 actually includes the data from both the 1:50000 and the 1:25000 maps.

The Software

You can run the maps straight off the DVD but it makes more sense to install them onto your hard drive. This takes about 900 megabytes for the Suisse Occidentale volume. Once it’s on the hard disk you can update to the latest version of the software from the Internet. Later if you add more volumes there’s a method to just add the map data to the existing installation. I’m using an Apple computer running Mac OSX but it’s much the same in Windows. No other operating systems are supported at this time.

It’s here my problems started though. The performance of the software (on Mac OSX) was poor, it took a huge amount of system resources to run the software and was slow to respond to commands. This appears to be due to the program being built for an earlier and obsolete version of Apple hardware (PowerPC), when it runs on the new (Intel) version it does using emulation and that’s very slow.

I contacted Swiss Topo and had a chat with them about this, in the first instance they recommend a special installation method which they have a guide for. Basically that means not installing from the DVD then performing an update, their improved method is to install a clean version and add your maps to it. This does certainly help, the CPU usage is down from as much as 80 or 90% to a more reasonable 50%, now moving between items in the multi-tool is a lot more responsive and an activity like turning the display of hiking paths on or off is much more responsive.

Making Routes

There’s special overlays for most Swiss trails, there’s a slight problem in that the data is slightly incomplete where the trail shares the route with a small road, the overly doesn’t extend to this and you cannot select that leg to add to your map, the workaround is make a line and way-points manually. The problem here is one of definition and Swiss Topo were saying that it’s largely dependent on the data that the canton provide to them.

Anyway, these overlays let you select segments of paths and join them together to make a route. This route can be downloaded to a GPS, there’s nominally a set of supported GPS devices but in practice you can export and/or save the route in a number of different formats that your GPS is likely to be able to read. It’s just with a supported device you’re able to cut a step out and transfer the route directly. There’s one little trick here though, in the raw form there’s a lot of way-points in the route and my first attempt for a 20km route exceeding my GPS memory, I found that there’s a function to reduce the number of points which is invaluable. Also, you can save a route as a GPX, KML or KMZ, any of these would work in Google Earth.

The routes can be profiled giving some information about ascent and descent, this is one from L’Etivaz, for some reason it’s not recognised it as circular and it’s giving a return time though:

 

Printing

This is a little frustrating, first, there’s some limitations built into the software to protect Swiss Topo from copyright theft, for example a limit to the print size, you couldn’t get a big flat bed printer and make your own full 1:25000 sheets.

What’s really painful is for linear routes, and longer routes, these won’t fit on a single sheet so you need to plan a little what segments you print on each sheet. It works out that a piece of A4 paper will hold a map of 7km x 5km and can be landscape or portrait. I’d like to see a function that lets me plot a route and then have the software print multiple sheets as required. You could select the area around the route and just hit the print button but this isn’t really a good idea at all, you’re making the scale of the map alter and not only is it going to be difficult to read but also the romer scale on your compass isn’t going to work.

Some care in printing sections is required, obviously there are situations where we need to alter our route and we need maps for that, in practise this shouldn’t be a challenge for an experienced navigator but it’s just the sort of trap the inexperienced can fall into with electronic mapping and GPS devices.

On the Hill

Before I’d bought this DVD my plan was that I’d pre-print a few maps of areas I go a lot and laminate them, in fact I’d started to look at laminators. Once I’d installed the software I soon realised that wasn’t going to work. It makes more sense to print sections around the area you need on any day and just stick them in a plastic bag, that works well and you can stick the map in any pocket then.

The quality of the print is just fine in terms of usability, in fact my printer’s been warning me for ages that it’s running out ink so I’m not entirely sure I’m seeing these maps at full quality so it might get better.

I used just the A4 print for a walk around L’Etivaz and was really pleased with the map. I had downloaded the route to GPS but I don’t really navigate by GPS so I didn’t use it. The GPS data looks just fine and I can’t see any issue with it all though.

In Use

It’s actually early days for this with me. I think I’ll probably have a few minor variations in the way I’m using the product. I still like the pre-printed paper maps though, my thinking at the moment is that it’s worth carrying the 1:50000 map as well, this lets you get an overview of the area, for example when you’re wondering what the name of a nearby peak is or considering a route for another day. That’s consistent with why I got the product as well, I’d decided I needed that 1:25000 scale coverage and it was a choice between buying this or the brown paper maps. As the paper versions are about 11 chf each and this product has 42 maps for 178 chf (158 chf for CAS members) then it looks good value although you need to factor in the cost of printing as ink cartridges can get expensive.

In fact, I think it’s early days for products like this as well. GPS devices are still regarded with some suspicion in parts of the outdoor community and how we use and interact with GPS and electronic mapping still hasn’t stabilised. For ski touring in particular I’ve really found it useful to plot routes which makes me look at the map carefully and then look at those routes in Google Earth, that means I’ve got a good understanding of new terrain before I go there and a good idea what hazards to expect. 

Who’s it For?

I can’t quite weight this up. If you were coming to Switzerland for a trip would this work? It might be difficult, if you were coming to a particular area with fairly fixed plans then you print out and laminate the map sections you need ahead of time and that would work well. If you had more flexible plans then lacking access to a printer (and probably a computer) might be a problem.

Ski Routes

I discussed the fact that the ski routes on the blue maps aren’t available as overlays with Swiss Topo and they have some reservations about this. Obviously winter navigation is really problematic and any route is as much a function of a local snow pack analysis on the day as it is of the marked route on a map. Swiss Topo expressed a concern that offering an ability to download the ski route to a GPS would encourage the inexperienced to follow that line somewhat blindly. I understand this concern but I do think by the same logic we could say the mere existence of a the blue ski maps could encourage the inexperienced to venture into dangerous terrain, in fact we might say this of any map it’s just a question where you draw the line. Clearly it’s something Swiss Topo have been thinking about and I hope personally it’s something we see in the future.

Product Updates

What’s clear after talking with Swiss Topo is that this is an active product and it will be updated, those updates are free and available online. I think it’s likely that the next major version will have some significant improvements in performance and features.

 

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Esperina at the Swiss Federal Office of Topography (Swisstopo), who helped me work out how to get the best from the system.

]]> http://snowslider.net/2008/06/16/swiss-map-25-2/feed/ 4 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://snowslider.net/2008/02/14/black-diamond-voodoo/ http://snowslider.net/2008/02/14/black-diamond-voodoo/#comments Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:20:57 +0000 ise http://snowslider.net/reviews/black-diamond-voodoo/ Name : Black Diamond Voodoo

Manufacturer Web site : http://www.skibd.com/gear.php

First Use : December 2007

length (cm)	tip (mm)	waist (mm)	tail (mm)	radius (m)	weight (kg/pr)
185	124	88	115	22.5	3.5
175	123	88	112	21.0	3.3
165	122	88	110	20.0	3.0

Black Diamond have two main ski ranges right now, the Efficient and Power range. The Power range contains skis like the Havoc, Kilowatt or Zealot which are powerful freeride skis, and the Efficient series which are basically lighter more orientated to longer touring and bigger ascents but aiming to keep downhill performance high. Looking at the range I was initially drawn to the Havoc or the Kilowatt but after some thought went for the Voodoo from the Efficient series.

The Voodoo uses a lightweight version of the Dual Torsion Box used by the Havoc (and others), this keeps the same longitudinal stiffness but has a more relaxed torsional stiffness. Effectively you’ve got a Havoc but with a few less layers in it, this saves about 200g at the 185cm length. What really grabbed my attention with the whole Black Diamond range was that they’re designed from the bottom up to be strong, light and high performance, I caught a really interesting interview with Thomas Laakso who does ski design work for Black Diamond, that interview can be watched online at TelemarkTips.com.

I spent a long time thinking about what bindings to put on these skis, I’d recently (Spring 2007) got some Dynafit bindings on some ultralight skis along with some Dynafit compatible boots in the Garmont Megarides. I really couldn’t convince myself that the slightly soft Megaride would drive the ski effectively, I’d been riding my Stormriders with Garmont Endorphins and thought I might need to use the Endorphin on the Voodoos as well. That drove me to mounting some Fritschi Freerides on the Voodoos, the logic being that I could use either the Megaride or Endorphin but the downside being the weight penalty of that heavier binding.

What I’ve discovered is that Megarides work just fine with the Voodoos, I think this is down to having a consistent flex all through the system. I took a quick test of my Endorphins on the Voodoos and found it a fairly poor combination at least for me. Obviously I’m now left wondering if I ought to have just mounted some Dynafits but that’s hindsight I guess!

Having cleared the hurdle of what bindings to use and received the skis (from the excellent Telemark-Pyrenees) the next thing to worry about was how good they’d be uphill, they’re significantly wider than any skis I’ve toured with before so I was concerned. It turns out that they’re really very good indeed, in fact the better flotation from the wider ski that’s desirable for downhill is actually quite useful on the ascent, compared to my ultra light Stormrider PIT lights I’m not crashing through the snow when breaking trail and it’s actually a lot less effort on some kinds of snow. I’m skiing them at 185cm which is fairly long for a pure touring ski and there’s a slight difficulty kick turning them although my own technique is partly to blame probably.

I have to say it’s taken me a little time to get used the ski, the length and the width differing from my previous skis and being unfamiliar. We’ve had a variety of conditions this season, from crust and hard-pack to fantastic powder days and now I’m familar with the Voodoo I’m pretty comfortable on most surface I think. So far I’ve not skied them much on piste and certainly not too much in bumps or anything like that so I’m not sure how they behave there. I’ve a couple (at least, so far) of multi-day tours planned in the spring and I’m not hesitating to take the Voodoos along, before Xmas I’d assumed that I’d use my ultra light Stormrider PIT lights but downhill performance of the Voodoos is so good it’s worth the weight penaltly.

Downhill I’m finding the Voodoos amazingly good, stable and secure at much higher speeds than I expected on all kinds of snow including the piste, okay they’re a bit plankey on plain ice sometimes and rattle around a bit but it’s not a big deal. The compromises I expected with a lighter ski having that slightly softer flex just aren’t there.

come on Black Diamond, make an effort ….

I’ve got a load of other Black Diamond kit, gloves, a rucksack, ice axes, ice screws, an avalung etc and I’m a big fan, they’ve just released some ski touring boots, so far only “Power” series, and when I need some more boots I’ll look at what they have. But …….. they need to get a better range of stockists and test centres up and running, I know there’s a place at La Grave but I’m not about to travel all the way down there to test some skis, I live in one of the best freeride ski areas in Switzerland, if not the best, and you can’t buy or test Black Diamond skis. I even emailed a couple of dealers in Zermatt and didn’t get anywhere. The range is actually almost too big, it’s really hard to choose without a proper test facility, my eye went between the Stigma, Voodoo, Kilowatt and Havoc and I’d have liked to try the Verdict. I often see people looking at my skis and people come up and ask me how they are so there’s an interest in the Black Diamond range but I have yet to see another pair of Voodoos around here, in fact I’ve seen just one other pair of Black Diamond skis in the Anniviers all season. It looks to me if you’re going to sell a ski range you need to create a buzz around, which they’ve done, then make sure you’ve got the channels in place to satisfy demand which so far look inadequate. They should open a test centre here, I’ll keep the kit in my workshop and I’ll promise to look after it really well!

]]> http://snowslider.net/2008/02/14/black-diamond-voodoo/feed/ 7 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://snowslider.net/2007/10/09/some-new-toys/ http://snowslider.net/2007/10/09/some-new-toys/#comments Tue, 09 Oct 2007 11:15:14 +0000 ise http://snowslider.net/2007/10/09/some-new-toys/ Waiting for the first snow to fall and getting ready for the upcoming is always fun as it always means a few new pieces of kit. In fact, I’ve been replacing a load of old climbing gear as well and I’d already posted an inventory of that here, primarily that’s just my way of keeping track of what stuff weighs.

First, a pair of Black Diamond Voodoo’s for me. My Stormrider XL’s are starting to get slightly tired and I’m not sure they’ll last the whole season. The XL’s are a little heavy at around 4-4.5 kg so I wanted something a little lighter. For ultra light I’ve a pair of Stormrider PIT Lights with Dynafit TLT Speed bindings which are only around 3.6kg all together so I was looking to save around 1kg on this ski. The XL is a versatile ski at 112-76-102 mm but I’ve decided that fatter skis have improved enough to size up slightly so I’m taking this Voodoo at 124-88-115 mm in the longest 185cm length.

I’d looked at the Black Diamond Havocs as well which are a similar ski but use a few more wood layers to make them stiffer and slightly heavier. I also seriously considerd the Black Diamond Kilowatt but at 127-95-116 mm I think it might be awkward on some of the snow we get at times.

I’ve gone back and forth over what bindings to mount on these, on one hand some dynafits and use my Megarides. On the other hand, Fritschi or Silvretta and have the choice of boots. The reason I’d like to use my Megarides is that they’re 1 kg lighter than my Endorphins and that would extend the range of use for the ski. In the end I’ve opted for the Fritschi option, I’d like to be able to use either the Endorphin or Megaride and I’m familiar with Fritschi as I have some Freeride Plus bindings already.

I did consider going for the Fritschi Explores but when you add a brake they’re barely lighter than the Freerides and I get that higher DIN range for skiing with a pack etc.

In fact these skis haven’t been shipped to me yet so I guess I can still change my mind about the bindings !

The next pair of skis are actually for Julie, we wanted something for an occasional tour and light off-piste as her current Stöckli Laser skis are a FIS masters ski and rather thin underfoot. Looking for something light(ish) with a reasonable footprint we came to the K2 Shuks Anne which is a women’s version of the Shuksan. The Shuksan, developed in conjunction with Swiss Guide and Pro Guiding Service owner Martin Volken, is the staple tour ski now from K2 and this is the first year it’s offered in a women’s version. It’s a nice light ski at 2950g per pair and 122-80-107 mm.

These actually are shipped and they’re right here now with some Diamir Fritschi Explores on them, being lighter than me the DIN range on these is just fine for Julie.

I’ve been looking for a new rucksack for ages. I’ve been having some problems with my back for various reasons and I’ve found I need exactly the right sack to be able to comfortably carry any load at all for a full day. I’m still delighted with my Salewa Inversion but they’ve stopped making them and it’s just too small for some days. I think this is a shame, I still reckon the Inversion is one of the best rucksacks ever made by anyone.

The Inversion weighs 1200g and some bits can be stripped to reduce that further. One of the reasons I like the Inversion and dislike many other sacks is the weight. Some manufacturers are shipping ski, ski tour or off piste sacks that weight a ridiculous amount, over 2kg which is just daft, why do people buy these? Don’t they look at the weight? I presume they’re more concerned if their shovel is visible and makes them look sufficiently “hardcore”.

The Black Diamond Revelation is 42L in capacity which is exactly what I wanted and weighs 1550g, again some bits can be stripped to reduce that more. It’s a single compartment top loading sack which I quite like but I know a lot of people don’t. It’s got all the attachments I want, straps for multiple ice tools, crampon straps, ski carrier etc. In fact the ice axe attaches nicely as you can see in the photo’ neatly tucking the pick out of harms way. So far I’ve used this for a two day hike and climbing on the Mönch and it’s been great.

Finally, I’ve been so impressed with the fit of the new g-fit inners on my Megarides that I’ve had some done for my Endorphins as well. The fit on the Endorphins was already good but this just makes it perfect. After a season usage the padlock liners on the Endorphin showed some wear but nothing too excessive so I’ve now got two shells and three inners which I can mix and match.

]]> http://snowslider.net/2007/10/09/some-new-toys/feed/ 1 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://snowslider.net/2007/06/28/garmin-etrex-vista-cx-gps-part-two/ http://snowslider.net/2007/06/28/garmin-etrex-vista-cx-gps-part-two/#comments Thu, 28 Jun 2007 10:58:25 +0000 ise http://snowslider.net/2007/06/28/garmin-etrex-vista-cx-gps-part-two/ I’d posted about my Garmin etrex VISTA Cx GPS recently and basically said I was quite happy with it. Since then I’ve noticed a fairly serious problem with it. To recap, I really use it in two ways, to navigate between way points I’ve entered ahead of time and to store my track for geo-tagging photographs. For these things it’s been working fine.

But, a couple of weeks ago we were descending Teysachaux, a local peak, and I happened to glance at the GPS and noticed it was displaying the wrong coordinates, the North position was correct but the East position was wrong placing me 20km further south. I presumed I’d programmed the wrong map datum onto it and didn’t think too much more about it. Later when I checked this at home I found exactly the same error with the same margin and confirmed that it was using the Swiss Grid CH1903. Some more tests showed that the latitude and longitude was perfectly correct and that positions transferred to the PC would be displayed correctly, I presume that the base system is latitude and longitude and that the translation is in error.

I think if I didn’t actually really just use a normal Swisstopo paper map I’d probably have noticed this sooner, in fact I’m not sure if this is new behaviour or it’s been doing this since new. Possibly one of the firmware updates introduced this. Anyway, I managed to contact Garmin by phone as their trouble ticket system wasn’t working and a couple of days later they’ve confirmed the problem and are suggesting they’ll be an update sometime in the next month to address this

]]> http://snowslider.net/2007/06/28/garmin-etrex-vista-cx-gps-part-two/feed/ 5 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/