Vista Current

[Guest hfmcan34]

To learn more about battery life, I measured current on my Vista during various modes of operation. As suspected, running in the "Use with GPS off" mode used the least power, 25 mA. While acquiring sats, current ranged from 50-55 mA.(I give a low/high range since the meter was continually changing. Wish I had a scope.) In the tracking mode some strange things happened. With the compass and WAAS off, at times the current was 46-54 mA. At other times, the current was 55-63 mA. DON'T use the light. That increased the current by about 10 mA but it never returned to the pre-light level. If anyone would like to see results for the 12XL and III+ let me know.

[Guest Geoffrey]

I was thinking of doing this same thing today. I wonder what the current draw is on the batteries with power saver on and the interface port switched to none, in the setup menu??

 

interested in how much current is drawn from the batteries in the 3plus also.

 

Does it draw even less current with the basemap turned off?? Ive done it on the 3plus.

 

I think that Garmin came up with 36 hour battery life on the 3plus by turning on battery saver, by turning off the tracklog, by changing the interface port to 'none', and not using the light.

[Guest robamy]

What is the draw on the batteries when WAAS is on compared to WAAS off (with compass and light off). I really don?t get WAAS much (or at all) here in the Chicago area when the battery saver mode is on. I do leave the WAAS on all the time. I am really trying to see what I can do to extend the life of the eTrex Vista batteries. I am beginning to wonder if I should purchase stock in a battery company.

 

[This message has been edited by robamy (edited 11 October 2001).]

[Guest robamy]

What is the draw on the batteries when WAAS is on compared to WAAS off (with compass and light off). I really don?t get WAAS much (or at all) here in the Chicago area when the battery saver mode is on. I do leave the WAAS on all the time. I am really trying to see what I can do to extend the life of the eTrex Vista batteries. I am beginning to wonder if I should purchase stock in a battery company.

 

[This message has been edited by robamy (edited 11 October 2001).]

[Guest hfmcan34]

Current with WAAS on was surprisingly close to current with WAAS off. Although we are dealing with DC, it is not steady. When taking data, my meter updates once per second. Since each reading was different, I recorded the high and low readings over a period of several minutes. With WAAS on, the high reading was 69 mA and the low reading was 65 mA. With WAAS off the high was also 69 mA but the low was 61 mA. WAAS off, therefore, averaged about 2 mA less current. This is only about a 3% savings by turning WAAS off. There is, however, a more important reason to turn WAAS off if you are not using it. You will lose accuracy if you are in the WAAS mode and there is no WAAS signal.

[Guest TeamCNJC]

quote:

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Originally posted by robamy:

I really don?t get WAAS much (or at all) here in the Chicago area when the battery saver mode is on.

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I thought that in the eTrex series, including the Vista, that WAAS won't work in the battery saver mode. My Venture won't even look for #35 unless I'm in "normal" operation. Were your WAAS on vs. off numbers in battery saver or normal operation modes? -Craig

[Guest robamy]

quote:

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Originally posted by TeamCNJC:

...WAAS won't work in the battery saver mode. ...

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If my memory is not failing me (I don?t have my GPS with me right now) and I understand how the Vista (Software version 2.21) works with the WAAS then:

 

First battery save mode is separate from WAAS option (two separate selections on the menu)

 

When in battery saver mode it updates less often and does not read the satellites close to the horizon. Because I am so far from the WAAS satellites, causing them to be close to the horizon, I don?t pick them up in battery save mode.

[Guest TeamCNJC]

quote:

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Originally posted by robamy:

First battery save mode is separate from WAAS option (two separate selections on the menu)

 

When in battery saver mode it updates less often and does not read the satellites close to the horizon.

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Unfortunately, the owner's manual is less-than-detailed about how WAAS works. I know that unless my Venture is in "normal" and "WAAS on" modes, it won't even look for #35. Even in battery saver mode, my Venture will pick up satellites closer to the horizon than #35.

 

Can any coastal Venture/Legend/Vista owners let us know if WAAS works in battery saver mode? -Craig

[Guest Point2Point]

I live in the Pittsburgh area and I tried the WAAS test for you with my Vista in normal mode and battery saver mode.

 

In normal mode I can receive #35 WAAS on a consitent basis. (The #35 satellite is right on the 45 degree horizon from here.) When I switch to battery saver mode, the #35 position that is to the far right of my reception bar chart will display a double dash, like this -- . So I am assuming that the Vista is not even looking for it, because it never finds #35 in battery saver mode. When I switch back to normal mode, #35 pops right up with good reception.

[Guest TeamCNJC]

Found it! Page 57 of the Vista manual (identical to page 49 of the Venture manual) states that in order for WAAS to work, the GPS mode must be set to "Normal" and the interface set to other than RTCM mode. It wasn't in my original manual, but it is in the downloadable manual on the Garmin web site.

 

Back to the original topic, I would be interested to see if WAAS draws a significant amount of current in the normal battery mode. Up here in MN, I can pick up WAAS as long as I'm in the open and pointing to the SE, but I haven't seen any difference in accuracy, even with 12 black bars all with differential signals. I don't even see an accuracy difference between non-WAAS normal and battery saver modes. -Craig

[Guest gstrong1]

In my opinion, waas is not all that critical a feature.I have 2 units that have waas capability,MAP76 & Vista. I also have a unit that does not have waas capability, the III Plus.Under any conditions, I get better results off the non waas unit because it has a superior antenna design. I would worry a lot more about what type of antenna design a particular unit has than whether or not it has waas capability. Even with an unobstructed view of the sky, the difference in the EPE number between the waas units & the non-waas unit, is never more than a few feet. For caching purposes, that will not make the difference between a find & a not found. And under any kind of tree cover, the better antenna will obviously win out every time.

 

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Gary "Gimpy" Strong

Rochester,NY

[Guest robamy]

quote:

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Originally posted by TeamCNJC:

Found it! Page 57 of the Vista manual states that in order for WAAS to work, the GPS mode must be set to "Normal" and the interface set to other than RTCM mode. It wasn't in my original manual, but it is in the downloadable manual on the Garmin web site.

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Thanks Craig. I finally downloaded the new manual and will read it soon. To bad the new manual does not state the changes from the old printed manual I have.