Psychaesthetic

I'm trying to settle on the settings that'll give me the must bang per recharge cycle, really, and even on low the backlight shortens the life-span a bit, though in daylight the screen reflects so well you can't even perceive the backlight when set to 100%, so there's no reason whatsoever to use the b/light except in darkness, and wven then, a tiny wattage LED keychain light will illuminate the screen without any issues. Mm. Interesting.

Yeah that occurred to me as I was typing the message, the fact there's no actual illumination in an LCD screen, (though I assume the Oregon utilizes something more advqnced than just LCD, OLED? .. I'm not sure Garmin state what the exact tech is, outside of "Transflective" but yeah when the unit's switched off, the screen of course is grey - not black. So my suspicion is that all the colours on a transflective screen cost the same amount of power, because they're - I assume - all just liquid crystal and colour doesn't have any relevance to power used?

Okay so the first time I used these batteries, I got about 20 hours before the O650 started complaining they were too low. The settings were set to maximize battery life, but I still used it plenty while walking around looking for caches with the dog, including some 50+ 8MP photos of the dog while we were at one of the parks where she could chase birds etc. I snapped, reviewed, and deleted photos on the device, all the while having auto-route blinking and beeping away at me to turn on whatever street was coming up. This time, once their're fully charged I will leave the GPSrs screen in "Night Mode", since so far I've had it perma-set on Day because I like that better. Other than the screen colour-scheme no other settings will be changed. GLONASS: 0, Birds: 0, screen timer set to 1 minute with the backlight completely off. I'm curious to see whether the LCD itself will use less energy displaying mostly dark colours instead of light, since really, the darker the colours, the less power is used. I know phones and tablets use less power with dark colourschemes - black being best since every black pixel is a pixel turned off, so I'll add the on/off and reported charge % here, for curiosities sake.

In any circumstances, I would much prefer a longer-lofe battery than one that recharges 10,000 times. The XX's I got the other day are 2550mAhs, and state up to 500 cycles, which doesn't aound much comparatively, but seriously we're talking about $20 a 4-pack. Break it down a different way, that's two-thousand 2550mAh batteries for $20. Comparing the lifespan of the higher Ah batteries to the lower is splitting hairs when you think about how much a good battery will give you before it's days are up.

I *wish* there were Premium caches around here: I'd feel like there'd be some reason to maintain a subscription. Instead zi got like, 20 caches within a few Km, then zi gotta get in the car to go find any more, and none of them are prem's. *sigh*

$3 a month, geez it's so small an amount it hardly seems worth stopping to post about. Edit: Maybe they're really good caches, too?

They've just given the "low battery" warning, having been on 20 hours all up, so that's not bad for one pair of NiMh's. I hoped they'd last-out the day and hit the 30 hour mark, but had a feeling they'd discharge pretty suddenly towards the end, which they did. Wish they made 10,000mAh Eloops!

I'd order them online if I couldn't get them locally. The Eneloop XX 2550mAh's I've just bought are still at approx. 50% charge in my Oregon after 17 hours on. Any other Eneloops would be perfectly fine too.

Yeah I'll go out on a limb happily and recommend Eneloops. The XX's are i pressing me majorly. The i portant thing it seems, is to not just grab Energizers because you know the brand, and *know* that all batteries are most definately *not* created equally. I have some Varta 2100mAh quick charge AA NiMhs that - even fully charged - on,y last 4-5 hours, which is just deplorable.. Useless. I have found thst Energizer NiMh's are just as bad, they charge fast enough, but go flat just as fast, and I suspect there are plenty of 2500-3000mAh batteries that are just as rubbish. Better off with 1800mAh of great battery, than 30,000mAh of garbage, and there's not even much difference in price, it's just a matter of locating the better brands, and resisting the urge to grab whatever's easiest.

Well the first cycle with the Eloop XX's is going pretty well. Last night, at 7:00pm I inserted the fully charged batteries and switched the 650 on. At 12:30am it was switched off at bedtime, having been on the whole 5.5 hours. This morning at 11:00am I turn the unit on, and for several hours is sat on my desk before I took it to the shop with me, then had a break when I got back for an hoir or so until about 3:30pm when I took the dog for a 2 hour caching doggie-walk. The whole two hours we used auto-routing to navigate to the GZeroes, and all up i took somewhere around 50 8mp Geotagged photos while we were out, mostly of her running around the park where one of the caches was located. The entire 2 hours, also, we had Tracking set to maximum points, without auto-stop, so there are 1500+ track points over the entire 6.3km walk there and back. We got back aboit 20 minutes ago, and the ti e now is (looks) 6:17pm. Battery charge (according to the indicator) is still 4/4 bars, so close enough to full. Recapping, that's 5.5 hours last night, and almost 7.5 hours (with heavy use) today for a total of 13 hours and it still reports fully charged. I *do* expect it will drop a bar soon, but even then that's pretty impressive battery life considering it still has almost full charge, so I'll leave it on until bedtime again tonight and see how long we get before reaching the 25% or 1/4 bars level.

Source? You talking about the StoreDot article? There are certain physics rules that won't be denied. In order to charge that quickly, their battery chemistry will still require that the cell/battery device and charger utilize conductors capable of handling an ENORMOUS amount of current. Should be entertaining to see how that is managed. Assume device is 2000mAh. Charge in 30 seconds, and assuming 100% efficiency = 2A x 120 = 240A. Nah The Feed, a news show on SBS. Their site is sbs.com.au, though you'd need to watch a half our show for the segment, whichw asn't very long, but SBS news is pretty reliable.

I'd be keen if they were Lithium Polymer, or at least a good pair of 2500+mAh cells, but 2K is not really worth getting upset about when better batt's are only $20/4-pack

The avatars this half of the page are like a doggy day-care

I saw a news story last night that could make such things as charging no longer an issue anyhow. Apparently, they have uncovered a new battery tech thst allows a battery to be fully charged in 30 seconds. *thirty seconds* can you imagine thst? They say they aim to have it in the market within 2 years.

heh, heh, heh.... That's Thea, she never fails to bring a smile to my face ! Here's a link to another funny rascal: Dog's are just the best animals on the planet, I reakon. Nothin funny about a cat! But dogs, ah yes.. Cutest of the cute

I got myself a mynxy shewolf who does the same to me!

Yeah it's an issue bypassed completely with any good quality rechargables, so it doesn't bother me how bad the garmin pack is, since good, higher capacity NiMh's are readily available.

8 Hours? I'm not sure about consumer sized like you're using, so that might be normal, but I can charge a 1.7V battery in 20 minutes through USB, or 7.2 5000 MaH in 30minutes. Just curious though-do you recharge the batteries only when they are completely empty, or is there still some power in them? The reason I ask is that depending on the chemistry, some batteries will have a memory. So if you keep charging them before they are empty, they hold less charge. For example if you only discharge it half way before recharging, it will only hold half the charge. If you recharge after only using 10% it will only hold that %10. Occasionally is ok, but doing it all the time will ruin them. It won't happen with LiPo(which you aren't using) and happens less with other lithium types, or NiMh. But with NiCad-well that's pretty likely. Too much BatteryGeek Magazine for you Bro! I am not talking about NiCads, or Lithium Ions, OR "turbo" NiMhs here. The discussion was about GLONASS costing battery charge, and how I *stopped* using Garmin's battery pack because the one I got sucked. Garmin's Siamese battery pack doesn't have a turbo option, it's a standard 2000mAh NiMh that can only be charged via USB, whether that cable plugs into the wall plug or a laptop, the battery stays in the device while it charges. Have you seen or handled the Garmin Battery Pack in question? If so, you'd already know it doesn't come with a turbo-charger, you plug in to charge via USB, and that's that. Both cells are flipped on one another so you cannot charge it in a standard AA cradle even if you want to, since they - generally - only charge in multiples of two and since the Garmin Pack is joined siamese-style, yeah. Go have a look at the batteries we're talking about here, and tell me how you would get them charged at a faster rate than several hours. That's about 8 hours using Garmins own 1000mA wall charger mind you, since there's no other way to charge them without at least destroying your Guarantee. Anyone can charge their mobile phone's lithium ion in half an hour, but Li-Ions - sadly - are absolutely irrelevant to the Oregon 6xx series GPSr!

The pack that came with mine sure does. i get about 4 hoirs from an 8 hour full charge, compared to the Eneloop 1900mAh, ehich tive me up to yeah 17, but not less than a whole day. Other posters here have said theirs hold a charge mich better, and that I should send it back for an exchange, which I moght, but for now i'm pretty happy with Eneloops, and can easily stick a small flat bit of plastic in the battery compartment to charge them from USB just like garmin's pack. So some people have no issues, I do. Even with the same settings as the Eloops use, the Garmin pack barely makes it through a single 2km walk . Why don't you call Garmin and get it exchanged rather than repeatedly post that it's junk? Give them a chance to send you a new one first. Because i don't care aboit their battery pack really, since I've got good batteries that do the job . I didn't post that it's junk, well i did, but I stipulated that other users have stated that their batt-packs aren't junk. I didn't buy the GPSr for the free battery pack anyway so *shrug*, the unit itself's pretty good at what it does, so the battery is irrelevant. I will send it back eventually anyway, because Garmin - like every business - should be held to account for their product, But 8'm not exactly jonesin for the replacement pack.

Okay so I just took this photo of the unit. I switched it on at 7:00pm on the dot... https://psychaesthetic.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/image8.jpg This is with the Eneloop XX 2550mAhs, sitting on the desk, inside, switched on the whole time. Edit: I switched it off for the night after taking that snap, since I can't see much point in having it drain all night while I'm alseep, but I'll turn it back on tomorrow and note the time, then see how long it takes to lose the first, then second, then third bar while I go about my business. The 1900mAh Eloops would last till tomorrow evening, so these 2550's should last till night. I anticipate about 20 hours of on time, with a few walks with the dog during the day.

The pack that came with mine sure does. i get about 4 hoirs from an 8 hour full charge, compared to the Eneloop 1900mAh, ehich tive me up to yeah 17, but not less than a whole day. Other posters here have said theirs hold a charge mich better, and that I should send it back for an exchange, which I moght, but for now i'm pretty happy with Eneloops, and can easily stick a small flat bit of plastic in the battery compartment to charge them from USB just like garmin's pack. So some people have no issues, I do. Even with the same settings as the Eloops use, the Garmin pack barely makes it through a single 2km walk .

Only 40% less? That's huge! I'd really like to see real tests of battery life based on side by side testing to support claims of such a large difference. Have you done any real testing and recorded hours of runtime, or is this just a gut feeling? It's a gut thing But, it's a gut thing based on my turning features to medium/battery save, then noting the time I changed to fully charged batteries and switched it on. I've found that without GLONASS disabled, the 650 runs anywhere from 12-17 hours (depending how much time the screen is being actively used, photos taken, all that, and with GLONASS enabled, it runs for approximately the course of the day, reaching about 25% charge by 7pm or so. It's not a scientific experiment, but what I've noticed in use. Of course, I haven't ever really ran it flat, and usually switch batteries at 25% - or 1/4 bars on the indicator, so it could be at 30% for all I know. I just count the first three indicator bars, since once it's down to one, i figure it won't run much longer with almost flat batteries. I also haven't had a chance to use it in any canyons or deep woodland areas, so it's not really needed, and it's possible that since it has 16+ satelite signals out in the open, it may use MORE power than it would in a hole where it only has the signal of 3-6 because of obstructions. It's hard to really *measure* just in every day use, so i just use it and pay attention to the length of time it takes to get down to 1 bar.

LOL!! +1 I like that

Yeah he's the one. I assume he's a frog!

Hah! Wait, surely that first reptile wouldn't have done well with the whole reproduction thing, certainly not upon meeting the ground? .. And if his offspring were given to the same impulses, they wouldn't have lived to maturity to get it on with a she-lizard?