+bigethespe Posted January 17, 2005 Share Posted January 17, 2005 I'm in the market for the Auto Navigation kit for my 60cs, and have come across an interesting option: Best Buy is selling the Auto Nav kit for the Legend/Vista C for $129 in their stores, and the cheapest I can find the 60cs Auto Nav kit is $150+. I've personally looked at the contents of these kits and can find only two differences: The 60cs kit comes with the plastic thingy to hook the device up to the friction mount, whereas the legend/vista kit comes with that adapter, and the 12v car power adapter is the USB adapter. It all seems like a pretty good deal IF the USB power adapter will work on a 60c/cs. Has anyone tried this out? Thanks! bigethespe Quote Link to comment
peter Posted January 17, 2005 Share Posted January 17, 2005 Unfortunately the 60 & 76c/cs models do not get external power through the USB cables. Not clear why Garmin didn't design them to do so since it would simplify things considerably. Quote Link to comment
+bigethespe Posted January 17, 2005 Author Share Posted January 17, 2005 so it simply will not power the device, or might it actually harm the device? Quote Link to comment
+tirediron Posted January 17, 2005 Share Posted January 17, 2005 so it simply will not power the device, or might it actually harm the device? I haven't found the wiring diagram for the 60/76 USB connector, but if the pins that are connected to power are meant for data only in the Garmin config, it will do bad things. Depending on how it's wired, it will do either much badness or nothing at all... Quote Link to comment
+bigethespe Posted January 18, 2005 Author Share Posted January 18, 2005 (edited) I got an email back from garmin today, see below: Thank you for contacting Garmin, The USB port will not power the 60 series units. Because they require more power, they would need to be connected via the 4 pin plug. Best Regards, Andrew Haaven Senior Avionics Support Specialist Garmin International 800-800-1020 It seems strange that they would 'require more power' since both units claim the exact same battery life from 2 AA batteries, but I suppose this IS official word from Garmin. Edited January 18, 2005 by bigethespe Quote Link to comment
peter Posted January 18, 2005 Share Posted January 18, 2005 It seems strange that they would 'require more power' since both units claim the exact same battery life from 2 AA batteries, but I suppose this IS official word from Garmin. Yes, it does seem odd. Perhaps when the 60 and 76c/cs series were being designed it wasn't known exactly how much power would be required by the circuitry so they decided to play it safe with the separate power connector. Then when the final chip specifications were available it was found to be feasible to power from USB so the later LegendC/VistaC used that approach. The USB standard specifies which pins in the connector are to be used for power, so I can't see that any harm could come from plugging the USB type power connector into a 60 or 76c/cs. Otherwise they could also be damaged by plugging into a USB connector on a PC which supplies power. But there's no point in doing it since those units are not designed to get any power from the USB port. Quote Link to comment
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