moonpup Posted March 10, 2008 Share Posted March 10, 2008 Just got my 400t on Friday and like it a lot but have a concern with the battery meter. I found my battery meter to be very flaky even with the 2.40 update. I have yet to get more than 5-6 hours out of a fresh set of alkalines and when the battery meter goes into the red I can shut off the unit and then turn it back on again to find the battery meter at 2 or 3 bars and then it continues to run although the battery meter will soon begin to drop. What is everyone getting on their Colorado's in terms of battery life? Should I return this one? My unit serial # is from the 18Z005xxx lot Quote Link to comment
+Red90 Posted March 10, 2008 Share Posted March 10, 2008 13 hours, 2650 Ni-MH, normal caching use. 300 Quote Link to comment
+twolpert Posted March 10, 2008 Share Posted March 10, 2008 Just got my 400t on Friday and like it a lot but have a concern with the battery meter. I found my battery meter to be very flaky even with the 2.40 update. I have yet to get more than 5-6 hours out of a fresh set of alkalines and when the battery meter goes into the red I can shut off the unit and then turn it back on again to find the battery meter at 2 or 3 bars and then it continues to run although the battery meter will soon begin to drop. What is everyone getting on their Colorado's in terms of battery life? Should I return this one? My unit serial # is from the 18Z005xxx lot I have similar results with alkaline batteries with 2.40 firmware. I've had an open support call with Garmin for almost two weeks. Made the mistake of doing it via e-mail. So far, I have received reassurances that "I am doing everything right", temporary intervention from a support tech who actually understood the problem but who passed it back to the original tech, a totally non-repsonsive answer regarding the improvements they made in 2.40 for NiMH rechargeables, and an assurance that the support tech will pass my call on to his/her/its supervisor as I requested. In other words, I got squat. My experience so far is that the battery meter works much worse with expensive alkalines like the Energizer e2 Titanium. It works better with plain, vanilla Duracell coppertops. Have not yet tried lithium non-rechargeables. Forum posts seem to indicate some improvement with 2.40 with NiMH rechargeables. The answer I got from Garmin indicates that they believe the problem is solved for NiMH, although they did suggest three specific brands of rechargeable which they have "found to be of higher quality." So maybe we just haven't picked the right brand of alkaline yet 5-6 hours of active navigation (backlight off, WAAS off, compass on) seems typical on a pair of plain alkalines. Battery meter seems to work worse under heavy load (navigating in tree cover, lots of map panning and scrolling, etc.). Like yours, my experience has been that the same pair of batteries shows some additional life if you let them sit briefly. However, it seems minimal and it does not seem worth the annoyance to try to nurse them along after the first time the unit shuts down. I have not actually tried a "dead" pair in other equipment -- but a "dead" pair is certainly useless in the 400t. Tom Quote Link to comment
+RRLover Posted March 10, 2008 Share Posted March 10, 2008 <snip> Like yours, my experience has been that the same pair of batteries shows some additional life if you let them sit briefly. However, it seems minimal and it does not seem worth the annoyance to try to nurse them along after the first time the unit shuts down. <snip> Tom If the batteries seem to self repair while the unit is shut down for a brief period, that could be a sign of a mis-matched pair of rechargeables, or stale (or cheap) alkalines their output isn't balanced, and only as good as the worst one in the bunch. Try to stay w/batteries from the same packaging if contributing regularly to the landfill. Or invest in a better than the minimum battery recharger. http://www.thomasdistributing.com/la_cross...ery_charger.php http://thomasdistributing.com/shop/charger...h7n8hcj9bnupmt5 Norm Quote Link to comment
moonpup Posted March 10, 2008 Author Share Posted March 10, 2008 13 hours, 2650 Ni-MH, normal caching use. 300 I'd be stoked if I could get 10 hours, never mind 13. I'm beginning to think this unit is bunk and needs to be exchanged. My old 60CSx was good for at least 20 hours and the 5-6 hours on the Colorado just plain @#$%^! Quote Link to comment
moonpup Posted March 10, 2008 Author Share Posted March 10, 2008 Here's an update on my so called 'dead batteries' by my Colorado. The set of alkalines I have in the Colorado will no longer power up the gps, the Garmin logo comes up and then promptly turns off. So I took the batteries out and put them in another gps and they are reading 75% full and the unit is functioning perfectly with no noticeable battery drain still showing 3/4 capacity. This tells me the battery meter in the Colorado is still broken! Quote Link to comment
+Snake & Rooster Posted March 10, 2008 Share Posted March 10, 2008 Here's an update on my so called 'dead batteries' by my Colorado. The set of alkalines I have in the Colorado will no longer power up the gps, the Garmin logo comes up and then promptly turns off. So I took the batteries out and put them in another gps and they are reading 75% full and the unit is functioning perfectly with no noticeable battery drain still showing 3/4 capacity. This tells me the battery meter in the Colorado is still broken! Yes it is, but it does now seem to do a much better job with NiMH rechargeables--especially using batteries with > 2500 maH capacity. You might as well invest in them, as others have suggested. I'm sure Garmin will address the battery meter issue in time, but why wait? Quote Link to comment
+Snake & Rooster Posted March 10, 2008 Share Posted March 10, 2008 (edited) Here's an update on my so called 'dead batteries' by my Colorado. The set of alkalines I have in the Colorado will no longer power up the gps, the Garmin logo comes up and then promptly turns off. So I took the batteries out and put them in another gps and they are reading 75% full and the unit is functioning perfectly with no noticeable battery drain still showing 3/4 capacity. This tells me the battery meter in the Colorado is still broken! Double post. Sigh. Edited March 10, 2008 by Snake & Rooster Quote Link to comment
+StarBrand Posted March 10, 2008 Share Posted March 10, 2008 I have the colo 300. I am getting 12 - 15 hours out of Energizer standard Alkaline batteries. Just occasional backlight use. Quote Link to comment
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