DNX693s Kenwood

Recently read the Kenwood DNX693S forum from June 2017. I recently had my second unit install after a year of trouble. Must have been a lemon because the second unit install finally does what it's suppose too. Bluetooth connecting without USB cable was one of the big problems bug and now it works perfect. So anyone with a 2013 Tacoma, or any year for that matter with this stereo have a periodic 3 ding, ring, chime or whatever for no particular reason? The stereo manual, which is not a great manual, has nothing on this issue or has anything on notifications as such. Our Kenwood area local rep and the business we purchased this from has no idea. Thought maybe it was a notification of some sort but for what? It rang like a kid playing with the doorbell today. Checked all Our notifications and can't seem to find anything on our phones timed with the chime. Any ideas out there? Gord

 

Shot in the dark here... I have the same Kenwood, and am no longer able to get map updates, because Kenwood no longer offers updates (per Garmin). Have you discovered any work around, or selected a replacement unit?

 

You can upload your own maps, assuming you have a SD card in the head unit. The OpenStreet maps listed below are way way better than the crappy Garmin maps.

Follow this guys instructions for syncing up your SD card with Garmin basecamp and downloading the free maps!

https://hikingguy.com/hiking-gear/how-to-get-free-garmin-gps-maps-for-hiking/

Source - I run a Kenwood DNX997XR with OSM maps when I’m hunting and out of cell range.

 

Thanks!!

 

Do you get an option to be able to select which map you can use when you add addl maps to the kenwood or is it an all or nothing option? I was pretty disgusted with default garmin map that came with the Kenwood although it's like the rest of the auto GPSs. I went through the map upgrade process through garmin (cost around $60 bucks) which allowed me to install city navigator, it's a huge upgrade from the installed maps but it's still very lacking when you leave the pavement although many dirt and forest roads are shown. (DNX694S) I typically use a series of maps on my garmin montana 600 (City Navigator, USA Topo, and specific state topos). It'd be great to be able to use those on the Kenwood but w/o the ability to load tracks and routes it's still garbage for most offroad use. I eventually started using Gaia app through carplay. I can load tracks and routes up to the gaia app and see them on map screen.

 

Thanks for taking the time to answer. It is an all or nothing proposition unfortunately... I did the same Garmin upgrade process that you did, and the resulting maps were indeed a bit better. My main concern is for city driving, with tons of new construction and a map that is years out of date...I don't typically worry about it for offroad, I use a TOPO maps app on my phone. I worked for a land surveyor for 10 years and the TOPO app has USGS quad sheets as the base maps, which I am used to... The Gaia sounds like it is useful and popular, and contemporary, which the USGS maps are certainly not! I'm going to try what tacoman45 mentioned this weekend.

 

You can definitely change back to the Garmin maps if you choose to, or go between OSM maps and Garmin maps as you’d like.

Here’s the screen where I can pick which map is being shown. OEM is the map set that came with the unit from Garmin, the US maps are the West Coast OSM maps I installed. I’d venture to guess City Navigator would show up here, assuming you have enough space on your SD card





You can also upload saved tracks, etc although I haven’t done that in a while. I use my handheld 66i for saved routes.

 

Thanks much! I ordered a 64G microSD card so I'm going to try to figure my way through it this weekend. I really appreciate all your help and input.

 

Thanks for the info! It sounds like you're running the addl maps off the SD card all the time ??? or do they copy onto the system? When I loaded city nav it was like a map upgrade, the card was only needed for the initial install. I've never seen that map selection screen on my Kenwood. Was it always there on your system or only after you inserted a SD with other maps on it? Sorry for all the questions and I'm going to dig into that link. I use nav off road all the time, being able to load up my routes and tracks on the kenwood screen outside of gaia would be ideal.

 

I believe the 3rd party maps run off the card whereas the OEM Garmin maps are on the head unit itself. Linking an SD card to your unit should allow you to upload maps, update any Garmin maps, etc. Try poking around in your Garmin nav menu to see if you have the same options. I believe you should have something similar that will allow you to switch between maps on the head unit.

On a side note, you can always download your Gaia map areas before you go. I do this to highlight hunting unit boundaries or to pull up old maps to find old roads & ghost towns out in Eastern Oregon using the older USGS map data in Gaia

 

Couldn't get it to work.... got the US Mountain topo gmap downloaded and unzipped. Couldn't get it to import to basecamp, nor would it work just put directly onto the sd card for the head unit. There are files within the gmap that are have the same map number as you have displayed on your head unit (although not labelled US-Seaside, etc.) I'm using a PC which makes the example instructions more difficult since they are for a Mac... I think perhaps a beer is in order...

 

Keep at it! I had some trouble too at first but I think formatting the card made a difference in the end. Allowed base camp to read my card and add files to it

 

I've got it unzipped and on my desktop, but when I try to import into "my collection" it just keeps drilling down, opening folders. Can't quite figure it out... I've been screwing with it for three hours and I think my brain is done. I'll take another crack at it tomorrow...

 

I was able to install the US Mountain topo into BaseCamp by running the batch file maps_windows.bat that's in the map directory, it showed me where the maps directory is on my PC. I had to tell windows to show hidden data and files for it to show these directories.


I just dumped the whole US_Mountain_OSM_Topo.gmap directory in both locations since I wasn't sure which one it used, wierdly there were no maps in ether directory and I have a number of maps installed that I can access in BC on the same PC. When I opened basecamp the new maps were one of the selectable map options, They're decent topos, the fact that you can route with them is nice. I followed up by using the directions and got the same map installed on my Mac, that allowed me to transfer pretty easily it over to a Montana 600 with the map install program. Lastly I formatted a 64G SD card with XFAT and copied the same US_Mountain_OSM_Topo.gmap onto it. Powered up the Kenwood and put it into navigation mode and stuck in the card, it said "copying maps, do not remove card". Finished up an I can see a new map in MyMaps (found under Settings from the nav screen) I've enabled and disabled the new map it to see the difference in the display and it's showing the topo details although they don't translate to the kenwood screen as nicely as they do the computer. That's still pretty cool though. After digging into this stereo's Nav a little more I'm pretty sure it will display tracks although it doesn't have a track manager like the montana. I'll have to play with that a little more.

 

Sorry guys, but it's been a while since I've had to update my maps through Basecamp! Thinking back, this is exactly what I had to do on my PC to get the files to show up. Apparently Windows treats the maps like they're a virus or something?

Either way, looks like @ridefreak was able to get it figured out. Hopefully this will help other folks get their Garmin units up to speed with some better map data!

 

Success!! Super convoluted install for sure! Basecamp could "see" the map, but when I would click it, it would give an error message. I ran the maps_windows.bat and there was a shortcut to the map in the Program Files, and nothing in the Users file. I deleted the shortcut, and copied the map to both the Program and User files, but still the same error. Uninstalled and reinstalled Basecamp with a restart but no joy. I finally uninstalled Basecamp, deleted the zipped and unzipped topo files, deleted maps from and cleared cookies and cache (with Advanced System Care, but that's a whole other conversation...) and restarted. Confirmed no maps in Program and Users using maps_windows.bat.
Installed Basecamp, downloaded and unzipped topo, copied to both Program and Users file, and opened Basecamp. Was able to see and select US Mountain OSM Topo, and as far as roads go, it is far more current that the one I've been using. Was able to select and transfer maps to a micro-SD card, and it works in the Kenwood head unit! I am really looking forward to driving around with it, and see how it does! There is not much topo detail (didn't really expect much) but it does show some backwoods roads I use. Thanks much for all the help guys!!!

 

Wow, that was convoluted, glad you were able to get it working. I'm going to try and add some other .gmap files to the card and see if they show up in my map list.

 

That would be cool if they did show up! I drove around a bit last night, and it seemed to work fine. The only bummer is that the auto-zoom feature doesn't seem to work anymore. I underestimated how useful that function was. I don't suppose it really matters... I'd have to put on my reading glasses to see the screen anyway