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Battery life


Guest k2dave

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Guest gstrong1

I use Panasonic Ni-Mh rechargeable's 1600 mah. Battery saver off. Very little backlighting. :Garmin III Plus-4 batts=about 20/25 hrs.---Garmin MAP76--2 batts= about 8 hrs. with waas enabled.----Garmin eTrex Vista--2 batts.= about 6 hrs with waas enabled. icon_wink.gif

 

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Gary "Gimpy" Strong

Rochester,NY

 

[This message has been edited by gstrong1 (edited 13 July 2001).]

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Guest gstrong1

I use Panasonic Ni-Mh rechargeable's 1600 mah. Battery saver off. Very little backlighting. :Garmin III Plus-4 batts=about 20/25 hrs.---Garmin MAP76--2 batts= about 8 hrs. with waas enabled.----Garmin eTrex Vista--2 batts.= about 6 hrs with waas enabled. icon_wink.gif

 

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Gary "Gimpy" Strong

Rochester,NY

 

[This message has been edited by gstrong1 (edited 13 July 2001).]

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Guest k2dave

gstrong1 Do you use the battery timer to measure batt life? I also use 3 brands (1 is panasonic) of 1600 or 1550 mah Nimh and can get nowhere near the 20/25 h with my garmin 3+. How do you get that - do you have the contrast all the way down? Also what battery savings should I expect with the batt saver on.

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Guest gstrong1

k2dave--Yes,I do use the battery timer.I don't know what battery savings to expect with the batt. saver, never used it.Do you change batteries when unit gives you low battery warning or when battery level indicator shows you are low? If the latter, make sure you have the unit set to the proper battery type in setup.For Ni-Mh batts., mine is set on NiCad.Backlight timer is set to 15 seconds.But backlighting is hardly ever on because while on a cache hunt, I'm almost always on just the compass page to show me direction & distance.I very rarely use any of the other pages, so I'm not powering up a lot of map detail etc.And bouncing around from page to page will eat up juice, I assume.Every time you hit the page button, you'll be generating detail & the backlight will come on.When I'm on the road heading to a cache area, I've always got the unit running off the 12 volt adapter, so it's not working off the batteries storing a lot of long routes.When working on the unit at my computer, its running off the ac adapter, so again, I'm not eating up battery power bouncing around from page to page.Plus, the batteries your using,how many times have they been charged? The more they have been charged, the lower the expected life.Do you enter waypoints by hand or download to the unit from mapping software?If you enter them by hand,again,the backlight is coming on every time you hit a button.I download to the GPS right from the computer so if I load it up with ,say 20 waypoints, the unit is only on for about 2 minutes while running off battery power.I don't do all this just to save on batteries, I've got 40 of them.This is just the way I've always used my GPS.Maybe subconsciously I am just a miser causing me to operate this way. icon_biggrin.gif.I've got 7 1/2 hrs. on the battery timer now,& battery indicator is showing 3/4 full.The manual states that with power saver, you can expect up to 36 hours of time per set of batteries, so if I get 20 or so without the use of the batt. saver, I just assumed that was about right.Never really gave it any thought till I saw your post.I've also got the Garmin MAP76 & the eTrex Vista & the III Plus is my favorite of the 3 as far as dependability on a cache adventure.Hope this helps. icon_wink.gif.--Gimpy--

 

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Gary "Gimpy" Strong

Rochester,NY

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Guest gstrong1

k2dave--Yes,I do use the battery timer.I don't know what battery savings to expect with the batt. saver, never used it.Do you change batteries when unit gives you low battery warning or when battery level indicator shows you are low? If the latter, make sure you have the unit set to the proper battery type in setup.For Ni-Mh batts., mine is set on NiCad.Backlight timer is set to 15 seconds.But backlighting is hardly ever on because while on a cache hunt, I'm almost always on just the compass page to show me direction & distance.I very rarely use any of the other pages, so I'm not powering up a lot of map detail etc.And bouncing around from page to page will eat up juice, I assume.Every time you hit the page button, you'll be generating detail & the backlight will come on.When I'm on the road heading to a cache area, I've always got the unit running off the 12 volt adapter, so it's not working off the batteries storing a lot of long routes.When working on the unit at my computer, its running off the ac adapter, so again, I'm not eating up battery power bouncing around from page to page.Plus, the batteries your using,how many times have they been charged? The more they have been charged, the lower the expected life.Do you enter waypoints by hand or download to the unit from mapping software?If you enter them by hand,again,the backlight is coming on every time you hit a button.I download to the GPS right from the computer so if I load it up with ,say 20 waypoints, the unit is only on for about 2 minutes while running off battery power.I don't do all this just to save on batteries, I've got 40 of them.This is just the way I've always used my GPS.Maybe subconsciously I am just a miser causing me to operate this way. icon_biggrin.gif.I've got 7 1/2 hrs. on the battery timer now,& battery indicator is showing 3/4 full.The manual states that with power saver, you can expect up to 36 hours of time per set of batteries, so if I get 20 or so without the use of the batt. saver, I just assumed that was about right.Never really gave it any thought till I saw your post.I've also got the Garmin MAP76 & the eTrex Vista & the III Plus is my favorite of the 3 as far as dependability on a cache adventure.Hope this helps. icon_wink.gif.--Gimpy--

 

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Gary "Gimpy" Strong

Rochester,NY

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Guest Jebediah

Standard eTrex - 20-22 hours on two no-name alkalines in power save mode, little or no backlight use. The plain eTrex is currently the most battery-efficient receiver on the market. Garmin says higher res displays and optional features have more current drain.

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Guest k2dave

gstrong1 I actually use the rechargables till the display goes out. I've tried setting it for NiCd but it gives me the low batt warning way too soon so I put it on alk.

 

I always use the map screen ususlly loaded with the topo usa software - the screen redraw sometimes can't keep up with my motion. Could this be the cause, will using the compass screen really save that much batt life?

 

I really use the backlighting for nighttime use so it (the BL) doesn't go on during the day.

 

While driving I don't have the 12v adapter but if I did would that cause the battery clock to advance or does the unit know to stop the clock when running on external power?

 

Tha NiMh are relitivly new w/ less then 10 recharge cycles.

 

I mainly enter waypoints on the computer or enter them on the spot (mark new waypoint) - but the backlight doesn't come on for this since it is during the day.

 

The 36h Garmin states is for alk batts not Nimh - I would expect less from them.

 

Jebediah That is efficent on 2 batts. It makes sense that the more IU try to display the shorter the batt life will be but I didn't think that it would be that great.

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Guest Iron Chef

quote:
Originally posted by Jebediah:

Standard eTrex - 20-22 hours on two no-name alkalines in power save mode, little or no backlight use. The plain eTrex is currently the most battery-efficient receiver on the market. Garmin says higher res displays and optional features have more current drain.


 

I have to agree with the higher res UI taking more battery power. I get about 10-12 hours on 2 AA cells with bat saver off and WAAS on.

 

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-Iron Chef

_ _ _ _ _ _____ _ _ _ _ _

agefive.com/geocache/ ~ Fe-26

Lets Drive Fast and Eat Cheese!

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Guest k2dave

Ok I just did a test. I went on a 6h hike using the map and then when I got back I left it on in compass mode no backlighting at all. I got 14h on the rechargable batts that were freshly charged. These are Panasonic Nimh 1600 mha batts and a Mana c-240f charger which is considered one of the best. How is gstrong1 getting 20+ hrs? Is there that great a diffrence in the power consumption in 2 simular units? Am I getting an abnormally short run time?

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Guest gstrong1

Just got back in town,hence the delay in my response,k2dave.Don't know what to tell you.Maybe some others with the III Plus can chime in here with there numbers.I have never had mine on for 20 hrs. of straight up time,just going on accumulative time on the timer.I know that as I travel in the car, running off the 12v adapter, the battery timer stops.And when on ac adapter it stops also.I'll put a freshly charged set in tomorrow & leave on all day & check it out.Now you've got me wondering.I'll let you know.

 

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Gary "Gimpy" Strong

Rochester,NY

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Guest k2dave

Also what software version are you running. I have 2.05 - you can find out by holding the enter button while powering on (then just power off and back on to get back to the main screen). I have heard that the software ver might be the culpret. But it's just a wag.

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Guest gstrong1

k2dave-I found the disparity.I just put in fresh batteries so I could see what I get.When I went to the Satellite Status page to check out the battery timer, I noticed that it just picked up where it left off with the previous set.I guess it doesn't reset the timer when batteries are removed.Must just go back to 0 when you reset all data fields.I don't do this when I change batteries, probably because until reading your post,it never crossed my mind.The amount of time I get off a set off batteries was,and is not now, a major concern of mine.When the batteries die,I change em.I imagine thats the case with most folks.If I change batteries in the middle of a cache hunt, and reset the fields to keep track of the batteries, I'd lose all the other info,stuff that I want to keep track of.The only time I reset all the fields is when I want to keep a good record of a road trip,a cache hunt etc.Apparently,I only do this at 20-25 hrs. of use or thereabouts.I guess if I was always checking on the time I got off the batteries,there would probably have been times it showed I had 40 or 50 hrs. on them.All depends on when I did a reset last. I'm surprised that the battery timer doesn't reset when batteries are removed.Not something I'll call Garmin about though.Doesn't bother me.But now that we have figures from you, we know about what the III Plus gets.

 

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Gary "Gimpy" Strong

Rochester,NY

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Guest k2dave

The batt timer can be manually reset by going to the [on] field and pressing enter>reset doesn't effect anything else.

 

Also I have noticed that the batt timmer sometimes doesn't reset right away it takes some time for the unit to realize they are new (maybe after a lock it then turns it's attention to the batt timmer). With Nimh batts it has a tough time determining they are new since there is ni Nimh setting (and if you use the alk. setting it will never auto reset - NiCd it may)

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I agree with Scoutleader. NMH batteries are very fine. My GPS Eagle Explorer takes a wack of AA's and I would be broke if I had to fuel up with Alkalines.I decided to purchase a Radio Shack pulse charger (Cat. # 23-422) and it takes up to 4 sets of pairs of AA's or AAA's, etc. Very useful of NMH batteries or NiCads. The beauty of the pulse technology is that it prevents the batteries from thinking about getting a charge memory. This particular one also charges reasonably rapidly. It has a humungous wall wart on the cord.

 

Ciao

 

Bushman from BC, living in the urban jungle.

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quote:
Originally posted by RoscoP:

I ran across this a while back when looking into digital cameras. Found it quite interesting. It gives a breakdown and ranking about the power contained in various rechargable battery brands. http://www.imaging-resource.com/ACCS/BATTS/BATTS.HTM

 

A nice comparison, but don't take it too seriously for evaluating performance in GPS rcvrs. He was testing the cells for digital camera use where the power drains are much higher, so he used a current drain of 1.0 Amps.

OTOH, a GPS V only draws about 0.1 Amps and the relative performance of different cells may change as a result. For example, his results show that alkalines last much less time than any of the NiMH cells, but in the GPS V typical alkalines will last longer than a single charge of NiMH cells.

 

For one more datapoint: eMap with battery-saver mode and little use of Backlight - 11-12 hours per charge of 1600 mA-hr Ray-O-Vac NiMH cells.

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The Panasonic 1600MAH batts have greatly disappointed me. They are inferior to the Maha 1550's I have had for years and the standard Nex cells that don't even boast a MAH rating.Try some other brand and always keep a spare set when out in the "boons".

 

WDP

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