Magellan Gold high altitude power problem?

[+adjensen]

We were doing our first cache in the mountains last week. My usual method is to use either my iQue or my Nuvi to get us near the cache, then I punch the coordinates into a Magellan Meridian Gold for the actual hunt, because you can't zoom in either of the Garmins close enough for the map to be much use.

 

Well, when I went to turn on the Magellan, it came up with a "Extremely low power, turning off" message immediately and shut itself off before you could push any buttons or anything. I put in new batteries. Same message. Tried different batteries. Same message. Plugged it into the car power adapter. Same message. Removed batteries. Same message.

 

Whinged for a bit, then just went and used the iQue to do that and a subsequent nine caches. But when we got home to the flatlands last night, my wife said "I wonder if the Magellan is working now," put in batteries, and sure enough, it now works fine.

 

I'm probably going to be phasing out the Magellan, but we're wondering if this is a known problem? I did a bit of a search online but didn't find anything relevant. Altitudes ranged from 7,500ft (the first one I noticed the problem at) to 11,000ft. It's about 840ft here.

 

Thanks!

[+IV_Warrior]

I've used mine on commercial airline flights, and haven't experienced it, so I'd say it's likely not an altitude thing. Not sure what it may be, though.

[+CheshireFrog]

I've used mine on commercial airline flights, and haven't experienced it, so I'd say it's likely not an altitude thing. Not sure what it may be, though.

 

Well, since commercial airliners are pressurized that wouldn't prove anything.

 

However, I have used my MeriGold above 14,000 feet with no problem, so I don't have any idea what the problem could be, either.

[+JohnnyVegas]

How freash were the batteries?

Did you try them in a battery tester? Batteries will die while in storage.

How cold was it, in cold temps Alkaline batteries will not function properly, The best choice for cold temps would be a Lithuim battery such as those made by Eveready.

[+adjensen]

How freash were the batteries?

Did you try them in a battery tester? Batteries will die while in storage.

How cold was it, in cold temps Alkaline batteries will not function properly, The best choice for cold temps would be a Lithuim battery such as those made by Eveready.

 

Batteries that were in the GPS originally, who knows. But they were replaced with new ones that I'd bought at Target a couple of days before. And the problem existed when it was running off of the car adapter anyway.

 

Temps were in the 70s - 50s, if memory serves.

[+embra]

How freash were the batteries?

Did you try them in a battery tester? Batteries will die while in storage.

How cold was it, in cold temps Alkaline batteries will not function properly, The best choice for cold temps would be a Lithuim battery such as those made by Eveready.

 

Batteries that were in the GPS originally, who knows. But they were replaced with new ones that I'd bought at Target a couple of days before. And the problem existed when it was running off of the car adapter anyway.

 

Temps were in the 70s - 50s, if memory serves.

That's helpful information, although it sorta puts things into Bizarro world. A plausible explanation for what happened *would* have been a marginal set of batteries that pooped out when chilled too much but revived at a warmer temperature. That the GPS gave a low power signal on external power makes no sense to me. Either the power plug wasn't making a good contact, and the GPS was still trying to run off the batteries, or the GPS is getting unpredicatbly flakey. (Of course, there's always the third possibility that something reasonable is going on that is beyond my experience).

 

The only thing tangentially related to this is a design problem in Meridians where the battery contact springs lose their pressure contact with the motherboard; this could be fixed by taking the case off and re-seating or soldering them to the board. It would seem that this phenomenon results in a failure to power on at all rather than power on enough to give a low power warning, though, while external power results in normal operation.

 

I suppose you'd have to keep using it under some varying conditions to see if the same symptom returns or not...a luxory you can afford if you've got GPS backup. And with a unit out of warranty, the spring re-seating is a step that those who have had to do it report as being an easy operation to undertake.

[+adjensen]

Either the power plug wasn't making a good contact, and the GPS was still trying to run off the batteries, or the GPS is getting unpredicatbly flakey.

 

It's possible that the power plug wasn't connected well (I didn't connect it :-) but I did take the batteries out of the GPS just to make sure that it wasn't still trying to use them, and it still powered up to the "low power" message.

 

I had pretty much chalked it up to flakiness as well, but one of the guys that I was with said that his iPod wasn't working when we were in the mountains later in the week.

 

Maybe it's some sort of magnetic disturbance and we just didn't see the hatch nearby :-)

[+adjensen]

** One last bump, in case someone else recognizes this problem. **

[+adjensen]

Just to follow up and further mystify this issue, we took the Magellan on a road trip to Minneapolis two weeks ago, and I ran over to Wisconsin to do a couple of caches. Elevation about what it is here (maybe a little lower,) and the "Extreme low power, shutting down" problem happened 100% of the time. Back in Grand Forks after said trip, and it works fine.

 

Maybe it gets homesick

 

I'm a little peeved that my email to Magellan support on this thing (which I sent on August 18th) has been ignored. Not even a "sorry, that sounds really stupid" reply.