Confirming Recharge From Usb. 60csx

January 29, 2006

Ok i thought it worked and posted on a few different posts but wasnt positive. But now i am. my batteries were half full so i plugged usb into my laptop and now they are full. bout an hour on charge which is fine cuz i spent that time loading caches into it!

THat rocks! anyone else out there can confirm also?

January 29, 2006

If this gets confirmed, I'm definitely making the switch to rechargables!

January 29, 2006

i am definetly saying this works. I am stoked. just make sure you go to the setup page and select mah batter type. I would assume this will work for lithiums as well but i dont have lithium batts.

January 29, 2006

Now that I think of it, I have some NiMHs from my camera..

Ahh, here a pair that register 1/4 on the meter....

I'll report back in an hour!

January 29, 2006

Ok i thought it worked and posted on a few different posts but wasnt positive. But now i am. my batteries were half full so i plugged usb into my laptop and now they are full. bout an hour on charge which is fine cuz i spent that time loading caches into it!

THat rocks! anyone else out there can confirm also?

did you leave the gps on or off while connected to the usb?

January 29, 2006

USB ports are powered and will recharge numerous devices plugged into them.

IPODs come to mind but Ialso just read a blurb about cell phones and PDAs if USB connected will recharge.

Article here

January 29, 2006

Son of a gun! It works!

Time to run some duration tests to get a figure on how completely it charges...

Also need to see if it'll charge with the unit turned off..

This looks promising!

January 29, 2006

Was that lithium batt issue resolved with these new units?

January 29, 2006

ok ok, Now i am not sure... i had it attached to my pc for an hour and the power seems to drop back down real fast. gonna give it one more test run here...

Had it powered on as well when i was charging.

January 29, 2006

After a brief test.. there appears to be ZERO charging activity while the unit is powered off.

I found another pair of fairly discharged cells and put them in the 60Cx. Turned the handheld on, shut down the receiver and turned off the backlight.

I'm gonna leave it "charging" while I run some errands and grab some dinner.

I'll report my unscientific findings around 2100EST.

January 29, 2006

yeah mine were beeping replace batteries! so i am plugged i nagain we will see how long it takes. I'll jsut leave it plugged in for a couple hours and see what happens

January 30, 2006

If this is like my mp3 player then it takes double the amount of time to charge via USB rather than throwing it in the charger that plugs into the wall.

1.8k · January 30, 2006

This is very cool! I also ran a test on my 1800mAh NiMH rechargeable AA's. I put in two quite dead ones, turned my 60CX to No GPS, left the backlighting on, and left it plugged into my PC via USB and two hours later they showed full charge when I unplugged the USB. I then left my 60CX on, this time with GPS On, and went to dinner. One and a half hours later I looked and the AA's had run down about 1/3 indicated on the batt meter, for what that's worth. So perhaps it gave them a quick-charge in my two hour test, and if you left them charging this way for a longer duration they would be more fully charged? Anyway, this is very cool it will give a charge! Thanks for the heads-up on this bhorocks.

January 30, 2006

no problem! hopefully this works out. i leave my pc on overnight alot so i can always charge it even if it does take 6 hours. I only have to charge once a week..

January 30, 2006

Well, my 60Cx does not charge the batteries, I verified that with a multimeter.

January 30, 2006

The 60c did not charge with the pc/usb cable due to limited available current on the usb, the 60cx may not be that much different power wise.

Edited January 30, 2006 by whitecrow

January 30, 2006

yeh it seems that it shows a charge after you unplug but the power drops off really quik. too bad. I dont know why garmin doesnt support this that would be awesome. I think plenty of us plug our gps into our computer.

bummer so this is busted.

3.8k · January 30, 2006

If the x did this, you would have to tell it that you are using rechargables, and get some sort of warning. Otherwise, it would just try to recharge whatever is in there, and recharging standard alkalines would NOT be a good idea. IPods and other devices that recharge from the USB cable have built-in rechargable (now usually Lithium) batteries, that can't be replaced with standard batteries.

I my humble opinion, I would rather have the ability to drop in off-the-shelf AAs than have a built-in rechargable battery

Rechargers are cheap. Buy 6 recargable AAs. Keep 2 in the GPS, 2 at the ready, and 2 in the charger.

January 30, 2006

You can choose, in the menu, whether you have Alkalines or NiMHs.

- I actually hurt my finger (be electricity) yesterday because I had the battery cover open while the unit was connected via USB. :rolleyes:

Edited January 30, 2006 by krisse

2.9k · January 30, 2006

Would be bad if there were lithiums in the GPS, and you forgot that, and tried to charge them while in the GPS, you would eventually see a smoking GPS 60CSx, or see it smoldering in pieces, so I don't think that there is a true charging capability, maybe just a tiny trickle charge if at all.

2.4k · January 30, 2006

You can choose, in the menu, whether you have Alkalines or NiMHs.

But the question is whether the manufacturer can trust that the users will always set that menu to the correct setting before connecting the device to a USB cable. Leaving it set to NiMH when the user had actually switched to alkalines or primary lithiums could easily result in damage to the unit when the cells leak.

January 30, 2006

ok so it does or doesn't charge it? What is the final result?

Also wondering if it doesn't charge it does it give it another power that it is not draining battery (just sustaining) the battery that is there so you could not waste batteries while plugged in to a laptop say in the car.

Thanks,

kgag..

3.8k · January 30, 2006

Clearly the latter is true. That is, unlike the 60CS, the x units draw power from the USB connection while they are plugged in, so your batteries are not being used when the unit is plugged into a USB power source or computer.

January 30, 2006

When connected to the USB port, it does show the external power icon in the top bar, so it appears to be drawing power from there.

January 31, 2006

it seems like it gives a charge but the power drops off quikly after that. which is to bad because this would be an excellent feature. It was a showing a charge on the batteries after you unplug. After testing many times I think it isn't something that is working like i had originally thought.

<_<

could have been the one of my favorite features.... I already use to many batteries on my digital camera!

Edited January 31, 2006 by bhorocks

4.3k · January 31, 2006

Not to put too fine a point on this, but...

You really, really DON'T want a device that takes AA sized batteries to have a built-in charger. If you disagree, you haven't thought it through.

Though the form factor is identical, there are lots of different chemistries available in AA sized batteries. So there's no way for the device to sense if it has alkaline or lithium primary, NiCad, NiMH, or Li-Ion installed. Apply a charge against the wrong kind of batteries, and you can get anything from a minor malfunction to a house fire.

On the other hand, if Garmin had chosen a different kind of battery to accomdate an internal charger, othe users would gripe that they didn't use a "standard" and cheaply replaced one.

3.8k · January 31, 2006

- I actually hurt my finger (be electricity) yesterday because I had the battery cover open while the unit was connected via USB.

Has anyone put a volt meter on this? If significant current is leaking into the battery terminals when hooked up to the USB port, that could be dangerous, not from shocks, but from battery malfunction (per lee_rimar et al.)

2.4k · January 31, 2006

So there's no way for the device to sense if it has alkaline or lithium primary, NiCad, NiMH, or Li-Ion installed. Apply a charge against the wrong kind of batteries, and you can get anything from a minor malfunction to a house fire.

On the other hand, if Garmin had chosen a different kind of battery to accomdate an internal charger, othe users would gripe that they didn't use a "standard" and cheaply replaced one.

There's one form factor that's an exception to your comments: the Li+ RCR-V3.

It's a single cell that's shaped almost the same as a pair of AA cells lying side-by-side. That lets a manufaturer design the battery compartment to take either a pair of AAs or a single RCR-V3. The voltage in both cases is nominally 3.0 VDC. And since the shape is slightly different the battery compartment can include a microswitch to sense when an RCR-V3 is present and only enable the charging circuitry when it is (the user battery-type setting could serve as an additional safeguard).

Designing for that type of cell gives you most of the advantages of proprietary lithium ion designs (in-device charging, light weight, low self-discharge), but also lets the users substitute a readily purchased pair of AA cells when they have a need to.

4.3k · February 1, 2006

... one form factor that's an exception to your comments: the Li+ RCR-V3 ... a single cell that's shaped almost the same as a pair of AA cells lying side-by-side. ...

No, same problem as AA. The RCRV3 has the same form factor as non-rechargeable CRV3.

2.4k · February 1, 2006

No, same problem as AA. The RCRV3 has the same form factor as non-rechargeable CRV3.

I agree that that could pose a problem but would think that it could be overcome with clear warning messages both in the manual and battery compartment. Unlike the case with AA cells that are found everywhere and are viewed as freely interchangeable for every device that they'll physically fit, CRV3 cells are still fairly specialized so there's a much better chance of educating the user on the need to get the right type.

Still I wish the battery makers would take a clue from the now-dying 35mm film industry. By placing a series of strips on the outside of the film cartridge it allowed compatible cameras to figure out the speed (sensitivity) of the film and adjust exposures accordingly. The same approach could allow devices to automatically sense battery type and act appropriately.

February 1, 2006

Still I wish the battery makers would take a clue from the now-dying 35mm film industry. By placing a series of strips on the outside of the film cartridge it allowed compatible cameras to figure out the speed (sensitivity) of the film and adjust exposures accordingly. The same approach could allow devices to automatically sense battery type and act appropriately.

Though nice, it seems like that would raise the price of items which use the "auto-sensing battery compartment". This could be a noticable jump in price. Every product I bought which allows charging inside the case explicitly told you on the packaging, inside the manual, and on a giant piece of cardboard inside the battery compartment. There was no mistaking such things All a company has to do is pick one type or the other, and manufacture their product for that particular type of battery.

As a failsafe, why wouldn't the manufacturer reset the alkaline/rechargable state to the default (alkaline) when the batteries are replaced? If you replace the batteries with rechargables, it will boot up in a mode which is suited to beoth rechargables and alkalines.

That would be my suggested solution if you want a product that takes both. I personally would never use alkalines unless it was a major emergency lol. I've got 3 sets of rechargables (which take forever to charge up, and only show up as 80% remaining inside the GPS when they are full ), and I carry two spare 10-packs of alkalines, just in case i happen to need them! (Due to having a camera and mp3 player as well)

Very interesting factoid about the film's container having a strip on it. I'd never heard that before, but know exactly what you're talking about :huh:

February 1, 2006

thats alot of batteries to carry....

February 1, 2006

Do you guys know if the batteries end up recharging in the unit when hooked up to cigarette lighter connection in the car.

Thanks

Parkview

2.9k · February 1, 2006

Looking at this issue, I now have to say that when you plug the 60CSx into external power, the NiMH batteries are disconnected such that they tend to recover a slight amount of energy, then when you check the battery again, it craps out again quickly. This would be about the same if you had taken the batteries out of the GPS for a couple hours, then put them back in.

This is my guess

-

Geoff

February 1, 2006

I am also reminded that I have a USB (bus powered) external drive which will run fine connected to my desktop, but requires an external power supply when connected to my laptop. Probably at least some of the discussion has to do with just how powered different USB ports really are.

Confirming Recharge From Usb. 60csx

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