I have a GPSmap 498 that was working fine until of two of the male pins broke off on the 18 pin Main power/Data cable connector. This connector is a part of the internal wiring harness inside the head unit. Looking at the owners manual pinout diagram the broken pins are #17 (blue) and #18 (black), which are NMEA TX and the main unit Ground, the latter explains why the unit is now inoperative.
I contacted Garmin support and they informed me that this unit is now obsolete, so they do not stock parts for it anymore, and was told my best opportunity would be find a scrap 498 and salvage the internal wiring harness from that. I've been searching for several months now and have not been able to locate a scrap 498 on eBay or with extensive Google searching.
So first off, if anyone has, or knows the whereabouts of, a scrapped GPSmap 498 unit that is available for a reasonable price, or someone that has used GPS parts available, please let me know.
But also, it appears that the round 18 pin style connectors have been used in many Garmin GPSmap products, but I would have to believe that they are not all wired the same internally. So if anyone knows what the cross compatibility is on the internal wiring harnesses, that would be helpful in tracking down other scrapped units that could be a potential donor.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.