Did direct sunlight kill my GPS-360?

entranced · 06-24-2008, 06:10 PM

Hello all,

I recently had my Pharos GPS-360 die on me (came w/S&T 2006, I think) and I wonder if it was because of the intense heat associate with all the sun we get in LA. The unit itself just stopped being seen in iGuidance and taking it to another machine with both iGuidance and S&T installed yielded no signal nor recognition. The light comes on, but no signal is received. In fact, S&T gives an error with regard to the communications port being available, but no signal being received. Anyway, I have since replaced it with a GPS-500 bundled w/S&T 2007 off Woot for $30 and everything appears to be working again.

My question is with regard to why my original puck only lasted me like 1.5 years. Is this a normal lifetime? Should I remove the puck from my car when I'm going to park it out in the sun all day (it usually hangs from my rear window in my 2000 Celica). Anyway, I just want to make sure I didn't do something wrong to lose my first puck.

TIA!

entranced

Sonicxtacy02 · 06-24-2008, 07:15 PM

had 3.. they all died.. they just werent a very well built gps unit. The 500 should work much better than the faulty 360

JPolito830 · 06-25-2008, 10:41 AM

Whats the price jump from a 360 to the 500?

2k1Toaster · 06-25-2008, 10:46 AM

I can vouch for crappy design. My 360 (bundled with S&T 2006) died randomly with no warning. Got a BU-353 and have been happy since. Also the 353 is weatherproof and magnetic mount, not a stupid suction cup.

blk02si · 06-26-2008, 09:04 PM

Weird, my 360 is going on 3 years now, no hiccups. I have it in my rear deck looking out the back window.

cMags · 07-09-2008, 02:10 PM

I Think the hotlanta sun killed my BU-323 recently too. I have GPS recognition, just 0 satellites locked. Looking at the NMEA stream out of XPort, it looks as if it may be corrupted, but I can't really read NMEA. Still gotta test on another machine and capture some of the NMEA, but I think even the BU-323 isn't impervious to direct sun/heat in the summer.

If this is so, the next iteration will find my GPS inside my dash - it should still get good signal through the glass and plastic, but will be out of the direct sun.