Saturday, May 06, 2006 at 23:03
Hello Old Scaley ..........
In another life I used to sell and demonstrate GPS' [albeit Marine] .....
These
tools are quite amazing and really are quite sensitive little beasties but they do eventually pack up. Generally speaking, it is either age or inadvertant treatment that causes them grief ............. IMHO iffen you get anything over say 7 - 8 years then you are
well in front. They have a tiny inner battery which retains all your settings, keeps time, etc .... if this runs out [shelf life of 10 years from DATE OF MANUFACTURE not purchase date] generally it becomes RS 'cause it is usually filled with gas [nitrogen?] to make it waterproof ........ which then means it is almost impossible to repair as no facilities exist to re-gas them.... at least it was so in my other life !
The most common problem is that of voltage spikes ........... if they are hooked up to your cigarette lighter for power and you start your engine, with the unit switched on, then it receives a spike/surge/whatever and really being a mini-computer, after a few of these, it just takes it's ball and goes
home.
In the marine world you can imagine what an outboard motor jolt does to them.
The normal solution was to wire them direct to the battery .... like really direct to the battery ..... no busbars, switch panels, spurs off, no nothin' but direct!
Of all the units that came back with problems .... direct wiring solved 90% of the troubles. Not saying that this is the case here, just food for thought.
Then there is the problem of corrosion in the power lead ..........
check the black cabling of the power lead ........... iffen the actual wire has gone black with corrosion then the cancer of corrosion has begun .... next to impossible to stop ...... a change of power lead might be all you need, but
test with a mates lead first, before you buy another one.
Hope this helps ..............
PS
My own unit is a Lowrance GlobalMap 100 ..... still goin' strong after about 8 years!
AnswerID:
171224
Follow Up By: Mad Dog (Australia) - Sunday, May 07, 2006 at 08:01
Sunday, May 07, 2006 at 08:01
Do they still use batteries Pedro. I thought non-volatile memory has been used for many years.
The end of the lithium batteries life doesn't mean the gps is dead, in the case of the old Garmins at the end of the batteries life it will essentially turn into a capacitor, capable of holding memory for about 10 hours when power is removed from the unit.
FollowupID:
426713
Follow Up By: Member - Pedro the One (QLD) - Sunday, May 07, 2006 at 13:20
Sunday, May 07, 2006 at 13:20
G'day Mad Dog .
Quite possible ............. as I say, my unit is about eight years old or longer.
Dont have enough knowledge to comment on the capacitor concept, but I do know that fluctuations in power supply were responsible for the majority of malfunctions in GPS' , along with heat/direct sunlight ['cos we always mount them behind the windscreen, eh, .......as is
mine!].......... just like any computor.
However, technology is advancing exponentially these days ........ even so, I always carry my trusty Silva 'orienteering compass' as an essential part of my back-up kit !!
FollowupID:
426756
Follow Up By: Mad Dog (Australia) - Sunday, May 07, 2006 at 13:44
Sunday, May 07, 2006 at 13:44
Hi Pedro, yes my old Garmin 12xl is still going strong in the ute and although it's permanently connected to external power I keep batteries in it so the lithum battery is not used for memory retention, there is still a 2.5 ma draw on the internal batteries when switched off and external power is applied.
The capacitor concept comes from Garmin themselves so I suppose it's correct.
My old Magellan 2000XL still works
well also.
For some reason my more modern Magellan 320 is my backup.
Just have to remember to keep the batteries up to these devices or remove them completely, old leaky batteries can make bad mess.
FollowupID:
426758