Can I Cut This Wire?

[+Mitragorz]

The power button on my Montana 680 fell apart... common issue.

 

I picked up a cheap Montana 610t on Facebook as a replacement but it loads up dreadfully slow.  Every time I power it on, it takes a very long time for the map to load, there's a big delay between pressing the screen to zoom/pan and something actually happening, until it "warms up".  My 680 didn't have this issue, so I want to cannibalize the 680 innards and use them in the 610t case.

 

I got mostly everything apart, but the one thing jamming me up is the wire for the remote antenna connection.  It's routed under other wires.  I never attach a remote antenna, this is just a hiking/geocaching device for me.  Can I safely cut this gray wire without impacting the normal use of the device?

 

 

Edited March 3 by Mitragorz

[+kunarion]

16 hours ago, Mitragorz said:

The power button on my Montana 680 fell apart... common issue.

 

I picked up a cheap Montana 610t on Facebook as a replacement but it loads up dreadfully slow.  Every time I power it on, it takes a very long time for the map to load, there's a big delay between pressing the screen to zoom/pan and something actually happening, until it "warms up".  My 680 didn't have this issue, so I want to cannibalize the 680 innards and use them in the 610t case.

 

I got mostly everything apart, but the one thing jamming me up is the wire for the remote antenna connection.  It's routed under other wires.  I never attach a remote antenna, this is just a hiking/geocaching device for me.  Can I safely cut this gray wire without impacting the normal use of the device?

 

 

 

That looks like a connector for a specialized reception antenna.  If that's what it is, and you don't need it, you could cut that wire, no problem.

 

But it would be good to do it in a way that makes it easy to re-connect, just in case.  If you have a soldering iron for electronics, heat that little bead of solder on the circuit board just enough to pull the wire away.  Or cut the wire as close as possible to that bead of solder.  Then coil and tuck the wire out of the way.

 

 

Edited March 3 by kunarion

[robertlipe]

Seconded on all points. I'd opt for the non-destructive route. If you know anyone with a soldering iron, this task would take less time than the soldering iron would to heat up. Even including that, it's under a minute, so it's not a big favor to ask.

But if you have to cut it, cut it near the red circle in case someone DOES ever have to reattach it.

It's also possible that's not actually a connector, but an antenna of its own. Does it go through the case? If not, maybe that's the antenna for something like ANT? I don't know much about ANT; I'm just trying to think of things that device has that are uncommon.

[JaVaWa]

It is the connector for an external antenna, it has nothing to do with ANT+.

There is another problem though. The 680 has a camera attached to the main board, but the casing of the 610 has no hole for it... Will it still fit?

 

Regarding the 610, did you do a master reset on it? Apart from the camera (and probably the amount of memory) the 610 and 680 are identical and should work at the same speed.