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Nuvi 760 Battery Life / WAAS Settings?


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What is your experience with the battery life of your Nuvi 760?

 

I received a Nuvi 760 as a gift in January. I’ve only used it in my car until about a month ago when my wife and I started Geocaching. First time out, I discovered that the battery ran out after about 1 ½ hrs. I allowed the unit to recharge overnight connected to my computer, than did a test by just turning it on and letting it sit in the window. It ran out again in a little over an hour.

 

I called Garmin, and they confirmed that it should last 4-5hrs. They had me (suggested) that I disable the Bluetooth, and set the screen brightness down below 50% (which is about impossible to see in the sunlight). I did these and had the same results. They allowed me to send it back in on a RMA for repair. They actually sent me a different unit back – refurbished I assume. I charged it overnight again, went out yesterday to geocache and the battery ran out this time in 2 ½ hours.

 

Also, I was reading on another post a discussion about enabling/disabling WAAS on another 7xx series unit – a 750 I think. Can this be done on the 760? I’ve not seen this setting. In this discussion, they recommended turning it off until you got close to the cache because WAAS causes more battery drain. I’ve even looked into the “secret system settings” and don’t see this. What I’m talking about is if you press and hold on the Battery Meter icon for abut 10 seconds, you get into some kind of other system settings/diagnostics/status screens.

 

Thanks,

Mike

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Come on - someone out there besides me has to have a Nuvi 760! Am I the only one running it on battery? Please let me know how long your battery last.

 

Either I'm doing something wrong, or I've just gotten two bad units in a row. Took it out today again after a full charge on the PC. Battery ran out after 2 hrs again - brightness on 50%, no bluetooth. I'll be calling Garmin again I guess.

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760 do for sure have WAAS (I have several email from Garmin confirming this), but you can not disable it. It is always on.

 

My battery do run for around 3-4 hours.

 

I do sugest that you get a Colorado or another handheld GPS that will work much better for your geocaching.

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I allowed the unit to recharge overnight connected to my computer, than did a test by just turning it on and letting it sit in the window. It ran out again in a little over an hour.
I assume by this you mean connected to USB? If so, it is my understanding that a USB charge is inadaquate. A Nuvi is meant to be charged via the cars 12V outlet.

 

Give it a try and holler back.

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Like MtnHermit mentioned, charging via USB is not a reliable way to charge your unit. Power can get cutoff to the USB ports depending on your PC's power saving configuration and/or the amperage may not be adequate to do the job depending on how the port is powered. I'd leave the unit powered off overnight while connected to the car's 12-volt power source for a good charge.

 

One good purchase to make would be the AC adapter, Garmin part #010-10723-00 which will allow you to charge the nuvi via AC. Be sure and get the actual Garmin part since the connector end wiring is proprietary. Other 3rd party adapters/chargers will simply put the nuvi into USB mass storage mode (like when you plug it into a PC). You can find this adapter at your local Best Buy for about $26.

 

Also note that there is a long-standing bug in the nuvi 2xx/7xx series (and possibly others higher up in the nuvi line) that Garmin refuses (or is unwilling) to fix; the unit will -never- display the "battery charging complete" message regardless of how long you leave the unit charging. The nuvi 3xx/6xx series does not have this bug.

Edited by SergZak
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Ok I have seen tons of posts about the nuvi and paperless caching. Bottom line is the nuvi IS NOT a geocaching unit plain and simple. You don't have the battery, weather proofing, some no bearing needle to follow.

 

Yeh its great for the people who figured out that you can do paperless caching with it. However its not good when you run out of power in 2-3 hours. Seems like a big process to stop the car, take the nuvi off the window mount, select off road, go to sattelite screen, walk aimlessly until you figure out which direction is right, hope you don't get any tree cover and maybe find the cache and walk back to the car and put the nuvi back on the mount and head out to the next.

 

People with handheld. Stop the car, get out, find the cache, get back into car, go to next cache.

 

Just buy a cheap handheld people, use your nuvis to get close along with your paperless cache info. Then use the handheld to find the cache.

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The topic is regarding the nuvi 760 & it's battery life. Not a topic to dog someone on how the unit is to be used "correctly".

 

I've provided some tips and links that I thought would be helpful.

 

Some people do need to chill out.

Edited by SergZak
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The topic is regarding the nuvi 760 & it's battery life. Not a topic to dog someone on how the unit is to be used "correctly".

 

I've provided some tips and links that I thought would be helpful.

 

Some people do need to chill out.

 

I wasn't trying to dog anyone on how to use the unit, but how many posts are we going to have to read about people having issues using their nuvis as geocaching units. They are ALWAYS the same problems time and time again. If you skim through some of the nuvi threads, I am not the only one who feels that this way.

 

As I said in the other thread to each their own on what they want to do but if people keep on reposting the same issues constantly then I have every right to say my opinion.

Edited by storm180
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Hopefully of some help:

 

1) The USB cable can be used in charging mode. After plugging the cable into the computer and nuvi entering connection mode (Garmin logo with picture of computer below it), unplug the mini-USB connector from the nuvi, and during the reboot sequence (sirf message, loading map message, etc), plug the cable back in. The screen now changes to charging, and you can use the gps as if it was on the car charger.

 

2) USB supports up to 500mA current. I have not measured either the USB or auto charger charge rates (yet), but would be very surprised if its anywhere near 500mA for that small a lithium battery. I have had full charges off USB in a matter of hours.

 

3) Most motherboards support leaving the USB ports enabled even if the system goes into an ACPI sleep state. Look for a BIOS or jumper setting that says something like "enable +5vsb USB standby".

 

I don't know if the off-topic post of using a nuvi was fiction or comedy. Walking around aimlessly...too funny. Lest others get the wrong idea, with a 760 you just switch to off road mode, select your cache waypoint, follow the map and compass pointer and distance to waypoint DIRECTLY to the cache within 20-30ft, and then read your paperless cache clues if needed. If you really need to home in, sat screen and proceed directly to the exact spot. Easy.

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I don't know if the off-topic post of using a nuvi was fiction or comedy. Walking around aimlessly...too funny. Lest others get the wrong idea, with a 760 you just switch to off road mode, select your cache waypoint, follow the map and compass pointer and distance to waypoint DIRECTLY to the cache within 20-30ft, and then read your paperless cache clues if needed. If you really need to home in, sat screen and proceed directly to the exact spot. Easy.

 

Some of the models of Nuviss do not have it that easy though. You didn't mention what you do after your battery fails on the way to cache. If you do stop and go caches or urban caches then the nuvi is fine I suppose but any serious hikes I think it lacks the features, capabilities, weather proofing and power.

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I wasn't trying to dog anyone on how to use the unit, but how many posts are we going to have to read about people having issues using their nuvis as geocaching units. They are ALWAYS the same problems time and time again. If you skim through some of the nuvi threads, I am not the only one who feels that this way.

 

As I said in the other thread to each their own on what they want to do but if people keep on reposting the same issues constantly then I have every right to say my opinion.

Just as you have the right to post your opinion, others have the same right to post theirs, along with the "never-ending, using a nuvi for geocaching" threads. If you don't like seeing them, simply pass on to the next topic. They are not hurting anyone. The forum exists to help -all- users, nuvi or not.

 

In fact, at first read of the original post, I totally missed the geocaching tie-in with the nuvi. I was more focused on why the battery was dying so quickly, thus the suggestions. After all, this forum *is* entitled GPS and Technology which can cover quite a wide range of units and their uses.

 

Peace... :D

Edited by SergZak
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I allowed the unit to recharge overnight connected to my computer, than did a test by just turning it on and letting it sit in the window. It ran out again in a little over an hour.
I assume by this you mean connected to USB? If so, it is my understanding that a USB charge is inadaquate. A Nuvi is meant to be charged via the cars 12V outlet.

 

Give it a try and holler back.

 

Yes, by USB - but, when I talked to Garmin the first time, they asked me if I was charging it in car or the PC. They, or at least the person I was talking to, recommended charging in on the PC (USB) saying "it's a better charge."

 

Thanks,

Mike

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Some of the models of Nuviss do not have it that easy though.
And what of the other models? The topic of the thread is nuvi 760. My comments are therefore about the nuvi 760. Anything nuvi 760 battery life and or WAAS related you can share?

 

I already shared things about the 760 battery, I do believe I already told you it doesn't last long and its not weatherproof. Not good for hiking etc. this is stuff I already explain though, in my previous posts.

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I don't know if the off-topic post of using a nuvi was fiction or comedy. Walking around aimlessly...too funny. Lest others get the wrong idea, with a 760 you just switch to off road mode, select your cache waypoint, follow the map and compass pointer and distance to waypoint DIRECTLY to the cache within 20-30ft, and then read your paperless cache clues if needed. If you really need to home in, sat screen and proceed directly to the exact spot. Easy.

 

Some of the models of Nuviss do not have it that easy though. You didn't mention what you do after your battery fails on the way to cache. If you do stop and go caches or urban caches then the nuvi is fine I suppose but any serious hikes I think it lacks the features, capabilities, weather proofing and power.

 

That's what happened to us our first time out - set of through the woods - no trials, got to the cache, battery ran out, had to stumble our way back out.

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Went out to the flying field and then did some geocaching this morning, 760 battery life report:

 

1) Freshly USB port charged nuvi 760 (very reliable charging method, after all USB flash drives don't consistently suffer data loss from +5V failures and volatile RAM is the acid test for that)

2) Brightness 60%

3) Bluetooth OFF

4) FM Transmitter OFF

5) Estimated usage evenly divided between driving mode (map w/text to speech) and geocaching mode (off road setting)

6) Time to low battery message 3:28

7) Time to lights out 3:50

8) Based on this, I don't think I would have any issue taking one on a 1:30 hike in somewhere

 

As a side note, the nuvi did awesome geocaching. It was the first time I had used the unit in heavily tree'd areas, and never had less than 6-7 sats being recieved. Also using only map mode and the direction pointer got me directly to and within 5-15ft of each cache (I only used the sat screen the first find, and found I was already right at the cache coordinates listed in the nuvi's paperless cache info screen). If one selects a nuvi to go on long hikes with weather involved, the problem is certainly not with the nuvi :ph34r: . In the real world, the nuvi is a very good driving and urban/light hiking fair weather caching machine.

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Went out to the flying field and then did some geocaching this morning, 760 battery life report:

 

1) Freshly USB port charged nuvi 760 (very reliable charging method, after all USB flash drives don't consistently suffer data loss from +5V failures and volatile RAM is the acid test for that)

2) Brightness 60%

3) Bluetooth OFF

4) FM Transmitter OFF

5) Estimated usage evenly divided between driving mode (map w/text to speech) and geocaching mode (off road setting)

6) Time to low battery message 3:28

7) Time to lights out 3:50

8) Based on this, I don't think I would have any issue taking one on a 1:30 hike in somewhere

 

As a side note, the nuvi did awesome geocaching. It was the first time I had used the unit in heavily tree'd areas, and never had less than 6-7 sats being recieved. Also using only map mode and the direction pointer got me directly to and within 5-15ft of each cache (I only used the sat screen the first find, and found I was already right at the cache coordinates listed in the nuvi's paperless cache info screen). If one selects a nuvi to go on long hikes with weather involved, the problem is certainly not with the nuvi :blink: . In the real world, the nuvi is a very good driving and urban/light hiking fair weather caching machine.

 

These are the things I do/have done per the recommendation of Garmin - but still am only getting about 2hrs battery. I'm going to check into that external batter pack a previous poster talked about.

 

Mike

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