Zumo User Forums

jfheath wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2019 10:54 pm 1 I assume you are using Basecamp - when you refer to the elastic band thing ?

I use waypoints to mark the key points and then use 'Create a route from the selected points' to generate the first approximate route. (nb - Waypoints refers to any point that is in the system database, including the ones you add with the flag tool) - Waypoints may a or may not be part of a route.

I create a single folder for my entire route, then a list folder for each separate day, named with a number and destination. eg 06 Ullapool.

For each day's route, I select the list folder for the day and then use the flag tool to mark the beginning, the end and any places that are potential stop-off points. Each named with the day number and something that will make sense on the Zumo display - eg one might be "06 am Coffee". So I might have 5 points for day 6. Start, end, lunch and two coffee stops.

Then highlight these 5 Waypoints - selecting them with CTRL click in the correct order, and right click and select 'Create Route from Selected Waypoints. This creates a route and puts it into the day 6 list folder. I name the route so that it too is named 06 Ullapool. So my list folder has 6 entries - 5 waypoints and a route. All start with 06.

2 One route per day - one folder for the trip, one list file per day, one route per day. I never use Trip Planner.

3 Whenever people complain that their Zumo isn't working as they think it should, it is very often related to the face that they are using a different map in the Zumo from the one that they used to plot the route. But since they are the only UK maps you have …. I have no way of knowing if they are the same. In anycase, it only needs a recalculation once the official maps are downloaded.

If you are handy with technical stuff on a PC, you could try the OSM (Open Source Maps) - navigable versions. I downloaded the UK area some time ago - they work very well on the Zumo 590 and in Basecamp - but I can't remember how I did it - except followed the instructions. Much more detailed in the built up areas than Garmin's - but they don't have the speed limit information on them. OpenStreetMap.org

rbentnail wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 2:05 pm This is where you also choose each point to be shaping or via, they behave differently. I never, ever use waypoints for routing- the zumo behaves unpredictably with waypoints and they're nearly impossible to manage on the fly. At least for me anyway.

jfheath wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 5:44 pm Thanks @rbentnail. Useful stuff.
Just a note about the comment below - hopefully to help with any confusion:

rbentnail wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 2:05 pm This is where you also choose each point to be shaping or via, they behave differently. I never, ever use waypoints for routing- the zumo behaves unpredictably with waypoints and they're nearly impossible to manage on the fly. At least for me anyway.

'Waypoints' is a term used to refer to locations that are stored in the database. These can be the thousands of locations that are provided with the map, or they can be the points that you have dropped onto the map. Double click on a waypoint and it will open up a dialogue box that includes such info as address and phone number.

That definition out of the way, when using the rubber band tool to drop a point onto the map, it may drop onto an unmarked location in which case it is given a name based on the road number, or it may be near to an invisible location that is already defined as a waypoint in the database - in which case it will jump to it - rather than to where you intended to drop the route point. This feature can be a pain, but if you do as you suggested and turn on the centre on map feature (as you should as a final check), any of these points can be moved, and they can also be changed in bulk from Via to Shaping (Alert / do not alert).

Now - by default, anything deemed to be an existing waypoint is automatically placed on the route as a Via Point. Anything that is a new route point that is named on the fly by Basecamp defaults to being a shaping point. But as a matter of course, once the route is finished it makes sense to decide which ones you want as Vias.

Shaping points and Via points do the same job. They guarantee that the route that you follow on the satnav will pass through them.

Briefly - imagine you have placed a point, and it lands accidentally a few hundred metres up a side road. The route has you going up the side road, doing a u turn and then returning to the road that you were on.

A Via point will insist that you visit that errant point. You choose to ignore the instructions, but it will forever try to get you to go back to it. And if you have 'allow U turns turned off, it will lull you into a false sense of security. 3 miles up the road, it will find a side road into housing estate and get you to ride round it so that you can go back to visit that missed via point.

A Shaping Point - The Zumo will also navigate you a few hundred metres up the side road to visit the point. But you ignore it and continue on the magenta route. The satnav continues navigating you to the next route point - just as if you had followed its instructions. The same happens if the point is up a side road, and the route it has plotted brings you back onto the main road a mile or two further on. The satnav will nag you to go back, but as soon as you join the magenta route beyond the shaping point it continues as before.

In the latter case however, the satnav may recalculate the route back to the shaping point. But that's OK - it doesn't recalculate the route beyond the shaping point, and since you haven't visited it yet, the original route beyond the shaping point will remain intact.

All of this is documented and explained with screen shots and examples in a document I produced a couple of years ago - here. Download the pdf in Post#1. There are also links to a few short videos specifically to do with creating routes that get around the little quirks that crop up with the later Zumos that have Trip Planner.

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