+bobkeenan Posted January 20, 2007 Share Posted January 20, 2007 I was in Germany this Christmas. Between driving around the country and geocaching I fell in love with my Garmin 60csx. I had a German map microsdcard that I bought for the trip. About a 2 weeks into the 3 week trip.... and now I am totally dependent on this thing.... the screen fades away and the unit is off I turn it back on and shortly after starting it fades away again... This just continues. The only thing differently that I did was I left the unit on overnight. But new batteries made no difference. I then put in my own microSDcard with City Navigator NA and it worked great I then tried putting som pressure on the German card and got it to work. temporarily Finally.. after more fiddling... it seemed to stay on. Anyone else have a problem like that? I am guessing that there is something about the German card that was not making full contact in the 60? I am further guessing that if full contact is not made.... it shuts down??? Quote Link to comment
+Rosterman Posted January 21, 2007 Share Posted January 21, 2007 It's not the card, the problem is the connection between the battery contacts to the main circuit board. I had a 60Cx replaced under warranty, and the new one had the same problem within a week. To fix it, remove the screws holding the back on, carefully pry the back loose (it has an rtv like sealant). You'll see the battery compartment has chrome tabs that touch gold pads on the circuit board when the back is on. What happens is the contact becomes intermittent due to oxidation I think. Clean the gold pads with an eraser, then apply "bulb" or "contact" grease to the chrome tabs, or to the gold pads, your choice. Bulb grease was found at an AutoZone store, in a small packet on a small display near the register. The salesman didn't even know they had any. The repair appears to have fixed the problem completely, and it has never resurfaced. Quote Link to comment
Hertzog Posted January 21, 2007 Share Posted January 21, 2007 I was in Germany this Christmas. Between driving around the country and geocaching I fell in love with my Garmin 60csx. I had a German map microsdcard that I bought for the trip. About a 2 weeks into the 3 week trip.... and now I am totally dependent on this thing.... the screen fades away and the unit is off I turn it back on and shortly after starting it fades away again... This just continues. The only thing differently that I did was I left the unit on overnight. But new batteries made no difference. I then put in my own microSDcard with City Navigator NA and it worked great I then tried putting som pressure on the German card and got it to work. temporarily Finally.. after more fiddling... it seemed to stay on. Anyone else have a problem like that? I am guessing that there is something about the German card that was not making full contact in the 60? I am further guessing that if full contact is not made.... it shuts down??? It is possible that this is caused by poor contacts on the German card, or, as the other poster said, poor battery contacts. However, this type of shutdown is also common when the the GPSr encounters software conflicts. In a recent thread a poster reported shutdowns when flying near his home, and I had just happened to have experienced similar shutdowns myself, at a separate location. It turned out that both of these locations were on segement boundaries in CN V8 (I have hopes that the 3.10 firmware upgrade has solved this problem, but I won't have a chance to get back to my problem location for a couple of days to check it). So it is possible that the problem you are having is with the data on the German card, and not a mechanical problem. Quote Link to comment
+DocDiTTo Posted January 21, 2007 Share Posted January 21, 2007 Brand new lithium batteries also cause this problem, although it sounds like that may not be the case here. Same symptoms though. To fix, burn the lithium batteries in an incandescent flashlight for a couple minutes before popping them in the 60CSx. Quote Link to comment
+Rosterman Posted January 21, 2007 Share Posted January 21, 2007 I didn't read the first post well enough and missed the part about the other card working. Hope the info was useful anyway. Quote Link to comment
+oldnavy59 Posted February 4, 2007 Share Posted February 4, 2007 Mine just started this strange behavoir, Ive had it since July use regular batteries and it doesnt do it all the time. It just will start to fade and then go off sometimes it will do it 2 or 3 times in a row. it has been fairly cold the few times it has happened and right after I had come in from the cold??? Quote Link to comment
n5lfh Posted February 5, 2007 Share Posted February 5, 2007 I had a 76csx with the same problem, but didn't R&D....The seller let me trade it out for another. Greg Quote Link to comment
+SparkyInCali Posted February 6, 2007 Share Posted February 6, 2007 I had been having the same problem with my 60csx for a while and it can be rather annoying especially if you are trying to record a tracklog.I talked to garmin and actually got an RMA # but kept putting it off since I didnt want to be without the gps for a week or two.I ended up opening the case and adding slight bit more bend to the tabs for the battery tray to give them more contact pressure although I didn't use any bulb paste as stated above.I also added a small piece of electrical tape on the back of the sd card so it would have more pressure and stay more firmly in place as well.In the pat few days I have had zero fade outs and this is even using it mounted to my motorcycle which has a lot of vibration.I also noticed that the battery level indicator is more consistent now as sometimes before it would show only one bar and then would creep up to three bars.I am hoping this has fixed the problem for good.I will post a follow up later to let everyone know the results Quote Link to comment
Jonathan S. Posted February 8, 2007 Share Posted February 8, 2007 Mine just started this strange behavoir, Ive had it since July use regular batteries and it doesnt do it all the time. It just will start to fade and then go off sometimes it will do it 2 or 3 times in a row. it has been fairly cold the few times it has happened and right after I had come in from the cold??? I recently started experiencing this same problem with very cold weather. After reading this thread and remembering an issue with a certain avalanche beacon/transceiver model (which was the subject of a CPSC recall), I immediately began to suspect the relatively large length tolerance for AA batteries. So I removed the batteries from my Garmin, measured them with my calipers, and such enough, they were slightly (yet definitely) shorter than all the other AA battery brands I had in my workshop. I then put the Garmin outside in ~12F temps (where I just happened to be testing a new backpacking stove) and after an hour or so, the same fading out problem occurred. I swapped batteries, exposed the unit to the same freezing whether, and then it performed flawlessly. Quote Link to comment
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