SP III Service Difficulty Report

[PanEuropean]

Hello All:

I borrowed a SP III from a friend today - was fooling around with it when it was running on batteries, and the batteries went dead. So, I took the cover off the back to replace the batteries, and found a real mess inside - one of the batteries had leaked.

Spoke to my friend later about this - he mentioned that he found it "difficult" to put the batteries inside it, so, he forced them in. My guess is that when he forced them in, he damaged one of the batteries on the center post of the battery compartment, and that's why the battery leaked. The batteries had only been in the GPSR for a week, so he was lucky - the battery goo didn't do too much damage to the inside of the battery case.

A suggestion to all, when you replace the batteries of your SP III - don't use excessive force to fit them in, lest you break the sealing of the battery when you install it. The batteries are a tight fit - my guess is that is deliberate, so we don't get momentary power interruptions that would cause a reboot - but obviously some care needs to be used when the batteries are loaded in. The leaking battery was the middle one on the left side of the picture - at the positive terminal, which butts up against the post in the middle of the battery compartment.

Picture of the damage is below (I disassembled the GPSR, took the back cover off, and washed the battery compartment out with soap, water, and a brush before I took the picture).

PanEuropean

 

[PanEuropean]

Picture of damage to battery compartment:

 

[harlequin6]

sp111 battery leakage

Pan,

Mine did exactly the same & I'd only had it for a couple of weeks. I thought I'd made a right dog's **** of it. Cleaned up its working fine but I tend to open it up & check regularly.

Harlequin

 

[PanEuropean]

Interesting that you mention you had only owned the SP III for a few weeks - exactly the same situation as my friend. I sort of suspect that the 'newbies' might overlook possible damage to the battery if it is forced into the space for it.

When I took the GPSR apart, I was happy to see that Garmin has 'plastic-welded' the battery compartment onto the rear portion of the SP III cover - so this is good news, so far as keeping water or battery goo out of the inside of the device is concerned.

PanEuropean

 

[Fanum]

It's bloody tight in that compartment...i had to use a mallet to get the damn batteries in!!

 

[PanEuropean]

Fanum:

I'm not sure if you're serious or if you are kidding - if you are serious, then you might want to check the middle left battery to make sure the seal at the positive end of it has not been damaged.

I am pretty sure that excessive force when installing the battery was what caused the leak in my friend's GPSR.

PanEuropean