Rand McNally ELD-50 - Are we the only ones having issues?

What i did was when i was done for the day and put myself in sleeper berth i waited a hour then i unplugged the eld-50 and connected it this morning

 

Yea you can’t change drive time you can fix break or on duty but nothing when it comes to driving

 

I bought the Rand Mcnally 80 bundle. Well, that just frozen most of the time. The manager where I work is a jerk and threatened to write me up. So I bought a OverDryve 8 Pro LOL ya froze up none stop.

So I turned my dell laptop into an Andriod running Lollipop and guess what it still froze. AHHHHH bingo!!!!!!!!
So I pulled into a truck stop and bought a dc 200 for like 400$ So now I have spent what like 1500 or so?
Oh and ya they would not take the one machine back as I lost the lens cover I guess.

But hey I am a trucker and I am made of money!
At first, it ran much better with the Dc 200.
But hours later it started having issues. Now, this all started on the 18th of Dec. I uninstalled the app and reinstalled over and over.

So when I made it home ripped everything apart. The DC 200 seems to run a chip pro.
Everything seems to boil down to the amount of data my truck is sending and what the plug itself can handle. The little blue plug could not handle my truck at all and would cause the app to choke and make my unit seem frozen.
Lab top showed me I had plenty of ram and everything on the unit was running fine. The app was just stuck.

So, if I shut down my unit and leave off and truck sit for 2 days. Plug unit in everything once again just freezes constantly.
So since I ripped the DC 200 apart I left the cover off. I unplug it and pull the little battery. Put it back in and bam everything works great.

Thoughts are these plugs all need MEMORY as it tries to store all this info and just fills up and chokes the app.
So now I have all this stuff and I am not a fan.

RM-020592 So Rand McNally guy knows I am not kidding here is my account number. I even had to sign up a second membership for some reason. Then I JUST realized I forgot to cancel the first one. lol

Whatever I am made of money IM a trucker!
Hope I helped a major company with my trucker programming and tech skills!
John Eppehimer

 

#1,, do not post that you took it apart ... you just voided the warranty..

 

ELD-50, RM is aware of the changing logs. They are working on a solution.

 

My cousin is a mail hauler back east. He said his company has those, and they are junk. They are having an awful time with them.

 

That is very kind sir. Do not care about any warranty. It would cost me more in time to deal with that part then its worth.

You sir and many other companies may start to worry about me though!
As I am saddened by all this!

#Disruption, in this case, came to the trucking industry.
RD and many other companies decided to get into the business of selling to truck drivers because you saw a way to make a lot of money.

Personally, I think the majority of you all got into something you did not think out.
I see so many guys with 1 to 5 trucks still using flip phones. Even if guys are using smartphones and computers I can assure you most do not know anything beyond plug and play!

So what in the world were you all thinking when you set up your platforms.
Drivers are going to stress out enough because of the mandate for good reason but the reason is not the mandate. Its the products you and many other companies decided to make available.
Driver scoring, tablets with cameras and microphones running vmware collecting info drivers do not even know are being collected etc etc etc. Issue goes way past HOS.

But Rand McNally do you really think guys have a clue how to update apps, uninstall apps?
So many guys are leaving an industry because they have no tech skills and feel like they are being pushed out.

Sucks if someone would have made a ELD for dummies I think they would have cleaned up.
I lost my lease over the HOS mandate. As I would not accept a tablet with a microphone and cameras running VMware. I felt I had the right to know what data was being collected from the unit and for some reason they would not answer me. Guess they felt they deserved some privacy on the issue.

Someone needs to get it together with all of this. Simplify things so you do not watch tons of younger and definitely tons of 50 plus-year-old people walk from an industry.

Consider every owner operators truck probably has some lights on. Maybe the bulbs are burnt out but each warning the engine has ads up on data to the plug. Every option a truck has increased data to the plug. Maybe get an app on the front page of the units that flashes saying update now Click here.

I am just a truck driver but trust me so many of you all could solve this issue quickly.
Me I wanted to help all the older guys I know and show them they could keep going as I would help them learn this crap. Never did I think so many companies would sell a product that is truly complex for many drivers.
KEEP IT STUPID SIMPLE and build an empire as guys will love the company that realizes tech is not front and center for guys who drive non stop. Sadly RD most guys only have rest time to play with this crap.

Good people in this industry build a product that works with them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

As far as Keeping it Simple that will be impossible. There is a huge PDF that has a lot of things that each ELD must preform. Each ELD must be able to do each step.

It is physically impossible to test every combination of phone/tablet/laptop with all the different models, versions, OS's against all the truck models since 2000.. It is tested on the most common for RM. Others I cannot say. Volvo's that have the rectangular plug for the J port have to use a spider cable off the Fuse panel. The Rectangular to round adapters will not provide nor does the rectangular plug provide the needed signals for the ELD. Volvo has said they cannot guarantee that port.

Your keep is simple is more in tune with the ELD Mandate. Paper logs are one thing, but you have to now program all the thoughts of the paper log into an ELD. The test criteria does that.

Yes I know trucking. I was OTR for 3 years on paper.

You drive a truck to make money. As far as I knew the world goes by, you make a product to make money. In this case the ELD. It was not an overnight thought. At least two years went into research and development. Your truck makes money because you delivery a raw product from point A to point B in the manufacturing process.. Those people work to make money putting the products together. You make money delivering the finished product to stores so they can make money.... So money is common between all aspects of the industry.

I know many truck drivers that hold BS and Masters in IT. I never said anything about that.

WHAT I AM TRYING TO STRESS IS - I don't want everybody to now think is that it is okay to just take apart your ELD and then expect the warranty to cover it. Any new product is void once you open the case. SO EVERYONE... DO NOT TAKE your ELD apart if it is still in warranty.

Posting was just as bad as YouTube with them doing stuff there.. now it is public. (take the underlying point I am trying to make here).

ELD - Electronic Logging Devices

Mark

 

I think they're all garbage at this point.

Our ELD provider came out with a new Android-based screen over a year ago. All was fine for the past year in the trucks we did the testing in for final rollout on Dec 1, mostly anyway. Then the clock decided we were in a new year Sunday at midnight. Now all hell is breaking loose on them in 20 trucks. 13 days into this BS and we're back to paper logs til "development" finds a fix.