rechargeable batteries???

[russ996duke]

Hi Even tho' it spends a lot of time running off the bike power, I am sick of the way my sp111 eats batteries!!!
why not use rechargeable type, I thought, has anyone else done this and if so what type is optimum??
I thought of using L-ion AA's as i have a nifty little charger thingy for the ones in my camera!
ta v much

 

[Greg Masters]

I suspect that you'd become even sicker of having to charge them every 5 minutes.

Rechargeable batteries don't normally have the capacity of alkaline batteries, so you'd be flattening thm even sooner.

Do you have your SPIII bike powered?

Greg

 

[chasr]

Rechargeables work fine. You can get up to 2700mah ones, which will last much longer than standard alkaline batteries. You'll find there is a setting in the SPIII's menu which will give a more accurate indication of battery like.

 

[russ996duke]

Hi chasr, although it is bike powered most of the time,battery life still sucks!

I am thinking of using lithium-ion batteries, which seem to have a bit more "juice" storage capacity, and are re chargeable, thus avoiding repeat visits to ikea, who do the best value batteries around! ( IKEA:the first time I went there I swore I would never go back again....unfortuanetly my wife did'nt agree!)

 

[Garry H]

I wonder why the sp111 eats them my garmin 276c runs for over 15 hours on its lithium-ion battery !

 

[PanEuropean]

Hi Even tho' it spends a lot of time running off the bike power, I am sick of the way my sp111 eats batteries...

Russ:

I don't remember having to change the batteries in my SP III more frequently than about once every 5,000 to 10,000 miles.

Perhaps double-check to make sure that you have the most recent release of the operating software for the SP III. I recall that one of the last changes that was made to this software (back about 2002 or so) was to give the user the ability to configure the GPSR to turn off automatically when external power was lost, and to turn on automatically when external power was applied.

If you have the power lead to the SP III from your motorcycle hooked up to a 'switched' power supply (something that goes on and off with the ignition circuit), and you configure the GPSR to turn on and off automatically when external power is present, I think that you will then find that the internal batteries last a really long time - because the only time you will run the GPSR from the internal batteries is when you deliberately do so, for the purpose of reviewing routes.

Also, be aware that there are two things you can do to significantly reduce battery drain when you are operating from batteries: 1) Turn the screen illumination down - this accounts for 75% of the power consumed on a SP III, and; 2) Turn the GPS receiver off (put it into simulation mode) - this will also reduce power consumption, but not as much as turning the screen backlighting down will.

Michael

 

[PanEuropean]

I wonder why the sp111 eats them my garmin 276c runs for over 15 hours on its lithium-ion battery !

Two reasons:

1) The 'pure automotive' GPSRs - such as the SP III - have a much more powerful screen backlight than the marine, aviation or multi-purpose GPSRs do. This increases power consumption for the purpose of screen backlighting by at least a full order of magnitude. The pure automotive GPSRs are designed this way because the engineers assume that they will be used in a car or moto, where external power is always available. In fact - with effect from the SP 25xx series (the successor to the SP III), Garmin doesn't even bother to put batteries in the pure automotive GPSRs, because of the assumption that external power will always be available.

2) The internal lithium-ion battery in the 2x6 and 3x6 GPSRs has about 25 times more amp-hour capacity than the off the shelf AA batteries that are used in the SP III. This makes sense, because it is about 20 times more expensive to manufacture than half a dozen double-A batteries.

Michael

 

[russ996duke]

Wow, whenever Pan pops up you know you will get the top comprehensive answer!
It seesm to me that the battery life issue is due to cheapo batteries, so going to lithium ion rechargeables should do the job!
thansk for all the input
russ

 

[HMR]

I used my SP3 for three years and 40000 km with alkaline batteries. I put in new batteries once every year and not even once I run out of battery power.

My guess is that something is wrong with the power cable on your bike. Do as Pan suggest and put it in Auto Switch Off mode because then you will get a direct indication when power is lost. (A count down pop-up window will show up saying "Power lost, automatic switch off in 30 seconds").

 

[PanEuropean]

...so going to lithium ion rechargeables should do the job!

Russ:

I think you can save some money - just buy decent quality alkaline batteries (the use once and throw away kind) and ensure that your GPSR is configured as described above.

I'm pretty sure that most users don't change their batteries more than once a year, so it's really doubtful if the expense (and hassle) of using rechargeable batteries is worth it.

Michael