On Sun, 4 Jul 2004 18:50:34 -0300, "John Helgerson" wrote:

I have a Garmin 230 Chartplotter. When I turned it on today, I found a
narrow vertical line extending down the middle of the screen from top to
bottom. Although the line is narrow, it blocks the underlying information.
If it gets wider, it will be a real problem. Any ideas as to what is going
on will be appreciated.

John in Grenada

line driver for that row isn't being turned on, could be a bad
transistor (?) or a loose connection or ?

if it's under warranty that might be the "safe" ticket

moisture can corrode a contact, so if it becomes trash, first open it
up and wipe the contacts down with alcohol (no rum or tequilla please)
let dry and give it a try.

I never tried that with anything I was worried about making worse,
but when the tv remote stops working right I open it up and clean the
visibly mucked contacts and it's all better again. You'd be amazed at
the junk on the contacts.

Back to your problem ...

since the 230 has been discontinued it is probably out of warranty (?)
http://www.garmin.com/support/outofwarranty.html
GPSMAP 230 flat rate repair is $179

when that unit was available at it's end of life, it was still going
for mid $500, I see there is a "new" one on Ebay for $400 start (no
bids after 5 days).

If you like the unit and the line doesn't bother you I'd probably
ignore it for now. If it starts to spread decide on the cost to
repair / ship to Garmin vs opening it up and risking turning it to
junk. Depending on how easy it is to open I'd probably open it and
see if I could spot corrosion or something loose or blown. I assume
the transistors are surface mount and not easily replaced by most of
us.

available replacements are kind of pricey (but then again I'm cheap
... I mean thrifty) so perhaps $179 repair isn't too bad ?

- Ed
--
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