# Outdoors > Gear and Equipment >  Garmin Free Topo Maps Installs

## faregame

ok since a bunch of us have got Garmin units (few more after the $399 Rino Deal)

How to install TOPO maps

Goto New Zealand Topographic Map - NZ Topo Map

Select the Download arrow (upper left the second one down)
Now the country will have all the map squares in green

Left click on the one you want - select the third option - Garmin / Google KMZ
Download it to your computer

Now connect your GPS - copy the file into the Garmin/Custommaps folder

And enable custom maps on your GPS unit - and bingo should work


However - there is a 100 tile limit (thanks garmin) and each KMZ is 54 tiles in size - so you can only use 1 file at a time

So does anyone have a nice solution to work around this?

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## Gibo

> ok since a bunch of us have got Garmin units (few more after the $399 Rino Deal)
> 
> How to install TOPO maps
> 
> Goto New Zealand Topographic Map - NZ Topo Map
> 
> Select the Download arrow (upper left the second one down)
> Now the country will have all the map squares in green
> 
> ...


Yeah, fresh maps  :Grin:

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## P38

> Yeah, fresh maps


+1

Freshmaps work well.

Cheers
Pete

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## Pengy

I notice that there are some good maps available on TM now, in the region of $70 instead of $200 or so for freshmap etc. 
Mr Purple is advertising quite cleverly. He will sell you an SD card for $69 and then load some maps onto it for free  :Thumbsup:  His maps have got a good reputation

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## Gibo

> I notice that there are some good maps available on TM now, in the region of $70 instead of $200 or so for freshmap etc. 
> Mr Purple is advertising quite cleverly. He will sell you an SD card for $69 and then load some maps onto it for free  His maps have got a good reputation


Thats a good price.

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## StrikerNZ

I use the free NZ Open GPS Project maps, with the Garmin versions of Topo50 compiled by MrPurple. (Google for NZ Open GPS Project, you'll find your way there)

I also have Open Street Maps installed, but set to a different profile on my Rino. 

You can choose different mapsets for each profile, so for example, when set to 'recreational' it shows topomaps in all their glory, but when I change profile to 'automotive' the topomaps are disabled and instead the open street maps are showing. With the open street maps, you can get directions to addresses just like a car-specific GPS.

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## faregame

Right O - that was easy

Thanks to Mr Purple - whoever you are..

If you have a modern Garmin - I have a Rino 650

Goto this link - 
NZ Open GPS Project &bull; View topic - NZ Open Source Topographic Map Series for Garmin (Download)

About half way is a post starting

With the kind permission of MrPurple and LINZ I have created 3 separate mapsets from the v12.2 Topos for direct use on current model Garmin GPS units and BaseCamp.

Coverage is mainland NZ only.

Download your choice from the links below.
If the NZ Open Autorouting mapset is also enabled street level autorouting will (I mean should) work perfectly with any combination of the 3 Topo mapsets.



This is what I did - your on your own of course !!
Simply download them
UnZip them
Use a Mirco SD Card in the Garmin (in case it all goes pear shape - you can pull out the card) - i.e. plug the Rino into the computer via USB
Copy the files to a folder on the SD Card called Garmin

Bingo - Whole country topo maps

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## veitnamcam

I got mine from kiwi gps. Already had whole country topo and doc boundrys loaded :Have A Nice Day:

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## Timmay

Im downloading these maps now ill let you know how these are vs freshmaps in the weekend

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## Pengy

Watching with interest. The mr purple maps have grid lines that can be toggled on and off aparently. I like that idea.

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## Timmay

So first impressions
Fresh loads faster, has more detail when zoomed (same settings)
Mr purple feels a tiny tiny but slower and has less topo lines but is clearer and easy to read.


I feel I get a better idea of how steep a hill is with the freshmaps.

Mr purple



Freshmaps




*you can have both maps loaded on the gps at the same time and choose between the two "on the fly"*

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## 199p

I have followed the instructions above but every time i download and try to open the files, It pops up saying file is corrupted cannot open.

Just bad luck or is my computer retarded?

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## Timmay

You wont be able to open these files on your computer - only to UNZIP them then install on your memory card for the GPS.

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## 199p

Yeah i managed to get them onto the gps the transfer failed twice saying corrupted file re download and unzip. 
Made a folder called garmin on my sdcard and put the maps there, Now they show up in the list of maps on the gps but dose not load anything.
Just get a blank screen when I do into the maps with a flashing "?"

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## Timmay

Do the maps say disabled or enabled when looking at the map list in gps?

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## 199p

I have Disabled all but the 3 i downloaded those ones i have as enabled

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## Timmay

I'm not sure where to go from there then. Are you using MR purples? If so It should just be plug and go.
was it a new memory card or an existing one you are using?

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## Kaweka_Neil

> ... However - there is a 100 tile limit (thanks garmin) and each KMZ is 54 tiles in size - so you can only use 1 file at a time
> 
> So does anyone have a nice solution to work around this?


You can edit the KMZ files and remove unwanted tiles (like areas outside the national park, or area you are hunting.  I do this for the four maps that cover the Tararua's.  I can then have three of the maps displayed on the GPS instead of 1.  This works well, and all I need to do is connect the gps (62S in my case) and copy across the maps that cover the area to which I am going to hunt.

I also use the free nz open org gps mapset.  So if I go off the custom maps (KMZ) the open org maps are displayed.  link below.
NZ Open GPS Project

Seems to work ok but isn't perfect.  But to be honest, the better solution will be to have something like freshmap or maptoaster installed.  But they cost money and I am a tight bastard!

Maptoaster:  New Zealand Topo Maps for your Garmin GPS :: MapToaster Mobile/NZ - NZ Topographical Maps
Freshmap:  Garmin GPS Topographic Mapping

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## 199p

> I'm not sure where to go from there then. Are you using MR purples? If so It should just be plug and go.
> was it a new memory card or an existing one you are using?


Brand new one mate

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## Timmay

As long as you formatted the card as fat32 before you put the maps on it then I have no idea

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## 199p

Might have to try a reformat and try again. Cheers mate

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## 199p

Yip that worked. Just needed a re reformat

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## hunter308

I had problems with my eTrex 20 GPS not showing the KMZ files from the topomap site had reformatted my SD card a few times to try and solve the issue, it turned out all I had to do after a bit of googling was create a folder named garmin on the card then put in a subfolder called CustomMaps put all my maps into subfolder and it worked.

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