1 to 1.5 hours on a Colorado with Duracell batt.?

[frozenflyboy]

Is it normal for a Colorado 300 to get one to one and one half hours on a Duracell battery?

 

The manual, website etc. says 18 hours for the average user. I could see a small discrepancy, but this isn't even ballpark.

 

They suggest using Lithium batteries.... At about 4 times the price. According to the ones I saw in the store this gives you an additional 40% power. That would bring it up to 1.4 hours to 2 hours. Roughly 10% of what is advertised as being what the average user gets.

 

When I spoke to Garmin I was told that I should buy rechargeable batteries. My experience with rechargeables and particularly NiMH is even less capacity. The issue of false advertising was completely sidestepped. Then I was told that I have to pay to ship the unit to Garmin for repairs, to see if they can find anything wrong with the unit...

 

So what I got from that, is they check it out, deem it normal for type and return it to me with the same issue and I am out of luck, I paid for shipping and I have no GPS in the meantime.

 

Am I alone with this issue? I noticed on this site a brief mention of this problem, but nothing more.

 

Hmmmm is Garmin slipping... or have they slipped.

Edited July 30, 2010 by onaroll

[+dfx]

our oregon 450 is advertised with 16 hours battery life. with lowly 2100 mAh NiMH batteries i get about 8 hours out of it. good enough i'd say. so, i don't think it's a general problem, maybe you have the backlight turned up too much or something like that.

[+Prime Suspect]

When I spoke to Garmin I was told that I should buy rechargeable batteries. My experience with rechargeables and particularly NiMH is even less capacity.

NiMHs generally have a greater capacity than alkalines. 2800mAh AAs are readily available, and will last all day, unless you're constantly running the backlight at full strength. That's the biggest power drain on current-day GPSs. It used to be electronic compasses, but they're barely a blip on the power meter any more.

[+Madproforg]

Tried cheap alkaline batteries in an oregon 550, got about the same length of time, and unit complaining about the backlight. With NiMh I get a lot longer, riding to work and back (approx 2.5hours total) I get about three days. These days I only use alkaline batteries in remote controls and the led lights on the bike.

 

Pulled this sentence from Wikipedia

Nickel metal hydride batteries provide a relatively constant voltage for most of the discharge cycle, unlike a standard alkaline where the voltage falls steadily during discharge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel-metal_hydride_battery

 

If you can borrow a set of charged of NiMh from a friend just to test with, you should hopefully find they last longer.

[GOF's Sock Puppet]

As has been said check the backlight setting. I had to adjust mine as it was on all the time and 1-2 hours was about it. Also, invest in the NiMH batteries and a charger. Way cheaper in the long run.

[Motorcycle_Mama]

Moving to the GPS and Technology forum.

[frozenflyboy]

I looked at my manual again and sure enough it is 15 hours. I goofed.

 

However its says (Page 34 Of the Colorado 300 manual)

Source : 2 AA batteries (alkaline, NiMH, or lithium)

Battery Life: Up to 15 hours

and on page 37 it says;

"Garmin recommends the use of premium batteries in the Colorado for optimal performance and maximum battery life. Premium alkaline cells, NiMH rechargeable cells less than one-year old with a capacity greater than or equal to 2500 mAh, and Lithium cells provide the best performance.... (etc) "

 

So now the best anyone here has posted is 8 hours and that was from a 2100 mAh cell. (in a CO 450, mine is a 300) I do not think there is such a battery as a 4200 mAh cell.

I always consider fresh Duracells to be as good as it gets for alkalines. If it's good enough for the bunny it's good enough for me.

 

I run my backlight on just barely viewable all the time and I generally turn the unit on for a minute or two to get the general direction of the cache then turn it off. Then head off for what I dead reckon to be the general location and then turn it back on. I actually don't even turn it on till I am in the area of the cache in the first place.

 

So nobody has explained why the manual says 15 hours... Has anyone gotten this long on a brace of batts?

[AngusOg]

The bunny likes Energizers; don't know but Duracells might kill it

[+fegan]

I'm using Powerex 2700mAh NiMH batteries in my Colorado 400t. I have no issues getting a full day (10+ hours) out of my unit.

 

Must be the batteries you're using, or you have the backlight on Full strength with no time-out (check your settings).

[+geodarts]

I use rechargeables and have no problem getting a full day of caching out of my Colorado. I generally like to keep the backlight on. By coincidence, I just noticed that I need to change the batteries, but that was after a day with 51 finds and a hike to a more isolated cache a few days later.

[yogazoo]

There were some early issues with poorly written firmware that caused shutdowns after about 1.5 to 3 hours of use. The unit set the low voltage limit too high and even though the batteries were fine the unit saw them as dead. Which firmware are you running and if it's an old one try updating it.

[+Chrysalides]

So nobody has explained why the manual says 15 hours... Has anyone gotten this long on a brace of batts?

The manual says "up to 15 hours" which gives Garmin some wriggle room. I've never actually timed how long my batteries last - definitely not that long, but I'm using 2000 mAH Eneloops.

 

You did change your battery type to "Alkaline" in the setup, right? I don't get great battery life from my alkaline cells (when I do use them) in my Oregon 300, but definitely longer than 1.5 hours.

[frozenflyboy]

The bunny likes Energizers; don't know but Duracells might kill it

Hmmmmmmm would you believe the little drummer boy...?

 

Thanks for the info everyone, I find it interesting but however you wanna call it, Garmin is still guilty as charged. (pun intended) False advertising, as no one has gotten 15 hours out of a unit. The highest bid so far is 66% of the way.

 

I remember years ago a friend of mine outfitted his aircraft with Garmin radios after he visited their plant. He was a perfectionist and an aircraft radio tech and he basically bought their quality. That's why I bought a Garmin. But now it seems they are losing it.

 

BTW Garmin was founded by two ex-workers of another aircraft radio manufacturer Bendix/King/Honeywell, but GPSs were/are their core business.

 

(I have Alkaline selected in the setup.)

Edited July 30, 2010 by onaroll

[+ngrrfan]

I looked at my manual again and sure enough it is 15 hours. I goofed.

 

However its says (Page 34 Of the Colorado 300 manual)

Source : 2 AA batteries (alkaline, NiMH, or lithium)

Battery Life: Up to 15 hours

and on page 37 it says;

"Garmin recommends the use of premium batteries in the Colorado for optimal performance and maximum battery life. Premium alkaline cells, NiMH rechargeable cells less than one-year old with a capacity greater than or equal to 2500 mAh, and Lithium cells provide the best performance.... (etc) "

 

{SNIP}

 

So nobody has explained why the manual says 15 hours... Has anyone gotten this long on a brace of batts?

You explained it yourself.

 

IF what you have said on page 34 is EXACTLY what the manual says, then it is correct. "UP TO" that means under ideal conditions with the best batteries.... if you aren't using the best option batteries then your battery life will be shorter.

 

Do you're own testing. Buy the lithium batteries and keep track of how many hours you get, then buy the alkalines and do the same.

[+Maddy-OCM]

Is it normal for a Colorado 300 to get one to one and one half hours on a Duracell battery?

 

The manual, website etc. says 18 hours for the average user. I could see a small discrepancy, but this isn't even ballpark.

 

They suggest using Lithium batteries.... At about 4 times the price. According to the ones I saw in the store this gives you an additional 40% power. That would bring it up to 1.4 hours to 2 hours. Roughly 10% of what is advertised as being what the average user gets.

 

When I spoke to Garmin I was told that I should buy rechargeable batteries. My experience with rechargeables and particularly NiMH is even less capacity. The issue of false advertising was completely sidestepped. Then I was told that I have to pay to ship the unit to Garmin for repairs, to see if they can find anything wrong with the unit...

 

So what I got from that, is they check it out, deem it normal for type and return it to me with the same issue and I am out of luck, I paid for shipping and I have no GPS in the meantime.

 

Am I alone with this issue? I noticed on this site a brief mention of this problem, but nothing more.

 

Hmmmm is Garmin slipping... or have they slipped.

 

I use a Colorado 300 and manage to get a day or more of caching from a set of NiMH batteries. I'd say that the NiMH batteries are well worth the money. I use the Duracell ones. They go on sale every so often at Shoppers or Pharma Plus (noticed you are from Nepean). When you say that your experience with rechargeables is that they have less capacity, could you be confusing NiMH with the NiCad batteries of the past?

Tried alkaline batteries a few times and they drained really fast.

Another thing, not sure if it makes a difference for battery but it might, I normally turn off the electronic compass since it is a feature that I don't really like. However, even with the compass enabled battery life seemed acceptable.

[frozenflyboy]

Do you're own testing. Buy the lithium batteries and keep track of how many hours you get, then buy the alkalines and do the same.

From the start I explained that I got very little life out of the alkaline batteries. This implies that I tested them. The batteries were fresh from a box from a retailer that sells tons of them which implies they were as good as it gets.

 

Purchasing proper test equipment to evaluate batteries is not in the cards for me presently. Others on the web have done so and it is an interesting Google search to check it out.

http://www.powerstream.com/AA-tests.htm

 

The NiMh batteries that I bought in the past were 1200 mah Energizer Accu Rechargeable and were what was available at the time. At the time an electrical engineer friend of mine waxed poetic about the wonderful NiMh battery technology and I believed him. What a let down those were.

I understand that current versions have much more capacity and indeed I just ordered some from ebay. (2500 mah)

http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewIt...ME:L:OU:CA:1123

USB charger http://cgi.ebay.ca/USB-Charger-Ni-MH-AA-AA...=item2a0763248f

 

When you buy a cellphone handheld radio etc., the manufacturer writes in the specs that you will expect to get so many hours of standby time and it reduces to so many hours if you are talking continuously. From that we can make an informed purchase decision. Best case/worst case

Garmin makes a vague statement of up to 15 hours. In reality that statement sounds lawyer inspired, ( it may not be) because that means anything from 1 nanosecond to 15 hours.

 

To take this to an extreme, if you look in some aircraft manuals there are descriptions of the power usage of individual aircraft electrical systems so that in the event of loss of electrical generating system(s) you can load shed or know how long you have till the lights fade.

 

As it happened this was purchased around Christmas when GC is at a standstill (in my life) so it wasn't found out till after the initial purchase period. When I started using it I was disappointed but it was too late to do anything about it.

 

So I get that 8 to 10 hours is what to expect. That beats the heck out of what I am getting now.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to reply.

Also anyone reading this thread will be forewarned which is partly why I posted it.

Edited July 31, 2010 by onaroll