Rand McNally intelliRoute TND 500

If he is still wanting to ship his unit back, I would ask that you ship it to me (no charge) and I will forward your information for a refund directly to RM. I would like to test this unit out on the power issue. I work directly with RM on their units and I have a back door to the director of this product. I do not want your unit for my personal use. I have 6 of them laying on my desk all the time as I test them out on different features. So another one would be sitting. I simply want to test the unit out and then I can get it directly back to the engineers at RM. If you can pm me then I can give you my phone number. All that is required of you is too take the unit to a FedEx shipping point, then call me and I will let them know the information required on the FedEx shipping document. Make sure you keep your copy as the receipt... enclose in the box a copy of your bill of sale, put it in a sealed envelope.

Also on the bill of sale write the serial number down (on the back of the unit).. keep a copy of the bill of sale for your records.

I will test the unit and forward your bill of sale to RM.

Once RM gets your bill of sale then a refund would be issued.

Thank you for taking the time to try to move the "rock". LOL...

Have a nice day,
Mark

 

I went back and it seems I missed two other issues you had.

Lets try routing to NYC. put in NYC, NY,,, then put in the house number of 5. how much search time would be spend and how many pages of houses would come back with the 5 on that street.

now lets put in 23rd ave first. notice the unit nows narrows down the search drastically to only one street.

Computers as this unit is do not think in a human form of thinking. You could hear 5 Woods Dr and know that, but a computer doing a search would be looking at the range of 5 on all streets before you put in the street.

Backwards to us, but logical to a computer.

As far as entering exactly the street or highway, that is something that has been looked at, I know I have brought this up. I will get back with RM and see how the unit is handling this type of road naming. But, I am thinking that the unit has the name entered as it is in the database. If we say SR but the database has State Route, then we just need to try a few different combinations. But, a very good point. Would be nice if the USA got all the states together and picked a common naming scheme. Since Federal/state roads then maybe something could be worked out. doubt it though... Try TX...they have roads such as FM.... (farm to market).

As for all the navigation companies setting a standard then you would have no reason to pick one company over the other. Cars, TV's, Houses, anything and everything would be the same. That would be boring, we as consumers like to have a choice. Also realize that all items are patented, so once company cannot infringe upon another without the chance of being sued.

Company A cannot use company's B screen design. That would infringement. So all companies have to be creative.

 

I've been using the TND 500 for a week now. Although it has a multistop route function neither I nor tech support # Randmcnally are able to sort out how it works. I initially contacted them in reference to this issue 5 days ago and as of yet they have not resolved this issue. In addition if you dont keep the power cord connected it will go dead with about 2 seconds warning-not enough time to plug it in.

 

RM is aware of the shortness of when it says battery is low. It does not give you enough warning time. This issue was addressed and forwarded up to RM. I will query them again on this.

As far as tech support not getting back in a timely manner, this issue was brought up this morning in a post. Be aware that this has been noted at the highest levels at RM as of this morning.

Now you are here on this board, I can explain how to use the multi-route functions.

Give me a brief statement of some of the (for forum only) city's, states you would have on a trip for your multi-route.

I am online and will be writing up details on how to do this, so do not think I walked away... may take a little while to write for you..

Thanks,
Mark

 

I am going to show you how to start a multipoint. Their are a few different ways, but for this purpose we are starting from the main screen in Destination (orange screen).

At the main screen, click on "choose destination". The next screen is Destination. Click on "multi-stop trips".

At the bottom in the middle, click on "new trip". Enter a name for your trip, then hit enter.

It should say "trip has been saved". Then either you can click on close at the bottom or after 1-2 seconds it will go back to the section labeled "multi-stop trips. You should see your trip folder.

Click on your trip folder. At the bottom you should see a button labeled "add address". Click on this button. Now you can enter in a new address, from history, saved locations, or POI's. click on "enter new address".

Screen is the same as you entered a regular one stop trip.. for our purposes click on "city center".

Enter in Baltimore, MD. Once you selected Baltimore, MD another screen pops up "destination added to trip", with the question "do you want to add another destination?",, click on yes.

ah... screen look familar? click on "enter new address", city center and enter in Boston, MA.

again, no to add another destination.

You should see your two locations. now at the bottom click on "optimize trip"

you can now select your first stop, or no preference... for our example, click on "select first stop".

pick Boston, MA

now select last stop which should be Auburn, ME.

it should ask you if you want to return to your current location. if you say yes it adds that stop, if you say no, then only the two stops you entered will be calculated.

say no to return to current location.

now start trip.

that is how a multi-route is done.

Thanks,
Mark

 

Whole post went to cyberspace, well here I go again.

The unit is pitiful. RM may be listening but, unit should be much, much better. I64, I71, I75, I70 OH, IN, IL, KY and MO most speed limits give are for 4 wheelers. Sent Me on 9T road in Rockport, IN thankfully understanding sheriff didn't ticket me. (I am sending donuts.)

I78 to I81S wrong directions. LIE, Clearview Exp, CrossBronx, and George Washington Bridge. Said no trucks then routed me to lower level. These are not little errors or like the Rockport a local road these are major Interstates. Seems like we are the beta testers.

I paid a premium price and expect a premium product. Simple, this is not a premium product. It will be returned next hometime.

Mark, I sent unit logs and note on the things I could remember. Don't have time to record all the stuff while driving, and until I have 50 posts can't pm.

Unit has also said to turn and complete a u turn if possible, especially with a re-routes, not acceptable especially in the NorthEast states. Again premium price, not a premium product.

BTW it will do state total miles by month if on. Ok for IFTA but not IRP which needs routes. Needs daily trace with routes/roads/streets used to do IRP.

 

Sounds like it needs the ability to mark roads on the fly as simply as possible for later explanation and upload. Or maybe you pull up to a turn, see that it's bad, hit a button and it comes up with a small list, "Why this is a bad road, etc." Turn too tight, overweight, restricted, overheight, other (fill in later.)

We need to be able to mark as many roads as possible as quickly as possible in a very simple way, for those of us interested in making that effort. It also needs a plain "avoid road" button or something like that that is very easy to get too. None of these functions should be buried in any kind of menu. I should be able to stop at a light and update in about 3 seconds.

 

As stated before with other drivers...if you know you are not supposed to be on that road, then DO NOT GO on it..... the GPS is a tool. Common sense prevails. Do you own an MCRA and what year?

As far as the dual posted speed limits we are aware of them. And yes RM is working on it.

whom did you send your unit logs too?

A feature that is on the drawing board is dealing with U-turns. Yes we are aware of that.

Getting a semi-truck turned around is not as easy to do in coding as you think. The coding has to look at available truck approved roads and try to get you turned around. Databases are not 100% correct and RM has to go in and tweak those items that are not correct.

The map data is being tweaked for the NYC area as well as other areas. This has a lot to do with what "weight" is assigned a road. RM is aware of this and it is being worked on with the engineers.

Nuudge you not being thrown a product and expected to do all the testing.

The unit went through a lot of code writing, and based upon budget, time, when to hit the market, etc, etc. this is what the general user does not see.

RM got the product to a very usable stage with the features needed. Yes as with all new products,, their is a breaking in period.

No unit can be 100% perfect in all states 100% of the time. The product would never hit the market and you would have a Cray computer instead of a bunk. The navigation units has a certain amount of brain power and this has to be divided amongst all the modules running in the code.

So, sometimes the unit has to be slow in one area that is not a high priority and speedy in the higher priorities.

You are most welcome to call DieselBoss and he will give you my E-mail address since you cannot post.

Behave in your E-Mails, I respect your opinion and will try to help you as much as possible.

Did you get the update that came out a few days ago? If not please update asap..

Thank you,
Mark

 

cannot tell you much, but in the works..

Thanks,
Mark

 

I have to say one thing.
I have not tried mine yet.
But I-95 in NYC at the GW, should be high weight. This is as important a fix as they would ever ever ever be asked to do.
Heck even a 90 dollar garman set for truck (basically a setting for campers) knows not to do that. And it knows how to stay on the truck usable main roads around there and will not try to use a parkway.
This is all basic trucks stuff that there is no way should have made it past the first week of testing without a fix.

And yes, I am being a little hard on the unit not having used it. But little things like what LVL to use on the GW, give me a break. You even know that there is no way the unit should have been released with that screw up.