Zumo 550 cradle failure...

[Greggers]

Hi all ...

Just reporting a cradle failure for my Zumo... Everything was fine upto the point at which moderately heavy rain started to fall, and the Zumo lost power. I wouldn't recharge from the cradle so I was GPSless which was a bit weird..

When I got back I had a closer look and heard a 'fizzing' noise coming from the lower half of the mount. I took the back off for a closer look and saw that the connector for the ribbon cable to the pcb was completely fried, but also that the pcb was dripping wet!

The fried connector meant that the mount was effectively FUBAR, so I called Garmin in the hope they could do something. The little oik I spoke to was super unenthusiastic about it, and as soon as I told him what the problem was (and that I'd had to remove the back to find it) he said that the engineer would have the call to decide whether my 'tampering' had caused the problem. His attitude p1ssed me off a little, but I sent the mount back anyway, and to my joy and surprise a new mount plopped onto my doormat two days later.... Nice one Garmin!!

The new mount is installed now, all potential points for water ingress have been given a very healthy squirt of aerosol silicon grease (99p from Lidl) - I'm tempted to take the back off and do the same again - sod the warranty!

Greg

 

[Bikerbrady]

Silicone grease!!!!!.........not sure that was a good idea as Im fairly certain its a conductor.

You should have smeared everything with dielectric grease which is designed to keep moisture out of things exactly like the zumo cradle but not conduct current across the terminals.

I covered my zumo cradle in the stuff from new and have been in torrential downpours with no problems at all.

Biker

 

[AdamA]

I had the same happen to mine. The problem is caused by the seal on the unit being so small that unless it is perfectly aligned it leaks. I split my second one and smeared the seal with silicon sealant before replacing to ensure the seal was good. It's been fine ever since.