GPS - Disposable Garmin nuvi?

Author

Disposable Garmin nuvi?

G-Man

2006-08-30, 10:33 am

I'm concerned that the manual states the lithium battery is not replaceable.
Please dispose of the unit properly.

$700 disposable nuvi? What the hell was Garmin thinking.

And don't think that if the internal battery dies you can just run on AC.
Every time you disconnect, you will loose all settings. I have heard the
unit will not even work unless it has some kind of charge.

Comments on this?

G-man

Bob

2006-08-30, 12:33 pm

Sounds like it has to be sent back to Garmin for battery replacement. Don't
they have a $200plus flat fee rate. It would be expensive to get a battery
replaced. I wonder why they didn't make that a consumer replaceable battery
'cause there going to die sometime?

"G-Man" <shoot.digital@gwfweb.com> wrote in message
news:12fbbkm4vvc4tcf
@news.supernews.com...
> I'm concerned that the manual states the lithium battery is not
> replaceable. Please dispose of the unit properly.
>
> $700 disposable nuvi? What the hell was Garmin thinking.
>
> And don't think that if the internal battery dies you can just run on AC.
> Every time you disconnect, you will loose all settings. I have heard the
> unit will not even work unless it has some kind of charge.
>
> Comments on this?
>
>
> G-man
>

Jack Erbes

2006-08-30, 10:33 pm

G-Man wrote:
> I'm concerned that the manual states the lithium battery is not replaceable.
> Please dispose of the unit properly.
>
> $700 disposable nuvi? What the hell was Garmin thinking.
>
> And don't think that if the internal battery dies you can just run on AC.
> Every time you disconnect, you will loose all settings. I have heard the
> unit will not even work unless it has some kind of charge.
>
> Comments on this?
>

There are any number of PDAs (Palm, iPAQ, etc.) that came with internal
lithium-ion batteries that were not intended to be replaced by the end
users. Most of those had a one, or at the most, two year warranty and
the battery would typically be serviceable for the life of the warranty.

Here is a good discussion of those types of batteries, note that the
typical service life is described as 300-500 discharge/charge cycles.

http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm

As the batteries in the PDAs mentioned above started to fail, some
people would send them to the maker for battery replacement, some would
find dealers of of high tech electronics that would sell them batteries
and install them, others would buy the batteries and install them
themselves. The batteries used in any sealed mainstream electronics
will become available on the Internet within a year or so it its release
date, I cannot think of a single case where this did not happen.

The installation would probably be best described as a moderately
technical in nature. It usually required no special tools beyond
smaller screw and Torx drivers, maybe a knife or other small tools for
releasing catches or lifting self adhesive flexible cables.

The major challenge was to be patient enough and cunning enough to
figure out myriad locking connectors and complex disassembly procedures
and get the work done without rendering the device useless in the
process of trying to repair it. In many cases, the procedures for
replacing the batteries could be found explicitly explained on the
Internet.

For me, when I wanted to get GPS receivers, PDAs, and similar items on
the cheap in order to satisfy my curiosity and/or experiment with them,
a dead or dying battery and the glories of eBay is what put it within my
reach and in price range that was attractive to me.

I have disassembled a number of Garmin GPS receivers, simply
disregarding all the warnings about about losing the nitrogen charge or
future watertight integrity. The nitrogen charge was already long gone
and the waterproofing was already failing or failed on the units I
worked on. Internal water damage was often the cause of the problem I
was trying to fix.

So the bottom line to me is that if I had a nuvi, the battery failing
after a typical service life would not be an issue. I would simply find
one, I'd expect to pay about $20 for the battery, and I would figure out
how to replace it. If I had to guess at a "turn key" replacement cost
done by a third party, I would start guessing at $75 to $100 or about
half of Garmin's flat rate repair charge.

I have already read somewhere that battery replacements on the nuvi
would probably run around $50 or so, that was not an authoritative
estimate, it did not say who would do it for that, and I don't know that
it is or will be true.

Jack

--
Jack Erbes in Ellsworth, Maine, USA (jackerbes at adelphia dot net)
(also receiving email at jacker at midmaine dot com)

Dave Saville

2006-08-31, 7:33 am

On Wed, 30 Aug 2006 12:26:10 -0500, Bob wrote:

>Sounds like it has to be sent back to Garmin for battery replacement. Don't
>they have a $200plus flat fee rate. It would be expensive to get a battery
>replaced. I wonder why they didn't make that a consumer replaceable battery
>'cause there going to die sometime?

So you would go buy a new one? GPS that is. :-)

--

Regards

Dave Saville

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