My baby came home!!!

[Rockin Roddy]

A few months or so back, I left my PN-40 sitting on my hood and drove off, it fell off somewhere on my way home and I never did find it. Today, the road commission brought my baby back home! How? Even though the battery was dead since I had left it on when I drove off, it powered up long enough for my name and address to pop up, he wrote it down and brought me back my beloved ORANGE!

Damages: The adaptor is missing from the back, the screensaver took a slight bit of scratching on the right side just outside the actual viewing screen, the body is broken and deformed on the right side with cracks in the orange casing near the bottom and top corners of the screen. The "gasket" between the orange top and the black bottom is smashed out a bit on the right side and I just noticed the bottom (black) part is "buckled" out from the orange top a bit!The buttons are chewed up from road rash as well.

I changed out the batteries and powered her up, she acquired sat lock within 2 minutes and works perfectly as far as I can tell without putting it through some testing! I did ask it to route for me and it worked fine! This is AMAZING to me, the unit has OBVIOUS waterproof failure issues which, since it was out in the rain (sometimes hard enough to flood areas), it didn't suffer any damage due to the lack of protection! And, it's fairly deformed on the right side, meaning it took one HECK of a slam when hitting the pavement at around 55 mph....WOW!

Guy found it about 12 miles from where I took off, I only searched out about 10 miles...D'OH! Moral of this story, put your info in your unit!!

I should add, WELL DONE DeLorme, WELL DONE!!

[BrokenLug]

And I thought when I wiped out one day while hiking the PN took a heck of a HIT!

Outstanding!

Put your contact info on the welcome screen folks, and your baby can find home too....

[Robert Shelley]

That's a great story. Would you mind posting a picture of your ORANGE?
I have address, phone, and email in mine just in case.

Sounds like you could use new "back plastics", and front and sides...
I bet DeLorme could make it like new again -- or maybe you feel the damage is a sorta PN badge of honor

[Rockin Roddy]

I may just ask DeLorme how much a repair of this nature would cost!! I'll take some pics soon!!

[WonderMonkey]

Glad your nightmares of separation can finally end.

[TotemLake]

Very cool Roddy. Glad to hear your success story!

[benjamin921]

Very Cool!

[3ton]

Great story and well done Delorme! But Roddy....Rockin Roddy....I'm not going along with the

around 55 mph

I'm picturing something more like the "Red Rockr" I CAN'T DRIVE..."!

[Cham101]

Good for you. The road commission was very nice to make the effort to return it.

[Rockin Roddy]

Here's a view of my PN-40, looks fairly normal doesn't it? One would never guess from this picture that it fell from my hood at around 55 mph!!

Here's a closer view showing the keypad and bottom of the screen.Can you see the crack in the orange casing near the bottom right of the screen?

Here's a side view, notice the cracks and scuffs in the orange upper casing. Also notice the rubber gasket that was squished out upon impact. This unit took a hard hit. You can also notice the "buckling" of the black casingwhere it meets the rubber gasket and upper casing...it almost looks pried up.

Closer view of the side showing the cracks and the buckling of the bottom casing. The velcro on the back cover is my hillbilly car/kayak mount lol.

Screen view. Aside from smudges and some scuffing around the outside of the viewing area, no real damage here. You can see the deformity and cracks in the casing though...really took a beating, but works like a charm!

Here's my old reliable with my new baby, I turned the old one on to let it acquire signal which took about 30 secs to settle down to 14'.

I am really impressed with the ruggedness of this unit, WOW!!

[alandb]

Reminds me of the old Timex commercials "Takes a licking and keeps on ticking".

(Methinks I just gave away my age).

[TotemLake]

Hey Roddy, I'm no engineer, but I have some experience with how things squish out. That squished gasket has the appearance of being pressed in a vice. It looks like the unit took on a heavy vehicle instead of an impact causing it to happen. The odds of landing square enough with enough force to cause that kind of pressure is pretty high. In fact, those scuff marks on the black casing have the characteristics of a tire.

[Rockin Roddy]

That sounds feasable TL, never thought of that. I know it ended up in a ditch a bit off the road, the guy told mewhere he had found it, so maybe after being run over, it got thrown to the ditch?

[Rockin Roddy]

Great story and well done Delorme! But Roddy....Rockin Roddy....I'm not going along with the

around 55 mph

I'm picturing something more like the "Red Rockr" I CAN'T DRIVE..."!

Nah, I might have been closer to 60 mph, but I've really mellowed in my older years. Too many friends have been taken due to careless drivers and I'm usually on my motorcycle...this has wisened me to driving more careful!! lol

[xapie128]

That squished gasket has the appearance of being pressed in a vice.
It looks like the unit took on a heavy vehicle instead of an impact causing it to happen.
The odds of landing square enough with enough force to cause that kind of pressure is pretty high.

I very much agree with assessment. I was going to post something like that the other day but didn't get around to it.
Not only did you beat me to it, but you said it much better

I like the "takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin' " comment above (and, yes, I remember John Cameron Swayze too ).