Ville rider Posted January 17, 2011 Posted January 17, 2011 HiI was wondering if anyone had some good ideas or products that you can use to charge your Garmin (Edge 500 or 305) while on events such as Epic where power may be an issue?
Guest Big H Posted January 17, 2011 Posted January 17, 2011 HiI was wondering if anyone had some good ideas or products that you can use to charge your Garmin (Edge 500 or 305) while on events such as Epic where power may be an issue? Does it have removeable batteries? You get a mageftertjie with removeable inserts where you use one charger with many inserts. I have one with plates for every camera i have. I am sue you will find something like that for the Garmin. I will post the name when i get home.
Minion Posted January 17, 2011 Posted January 17, 2011 Any portable USB charger should work. On some of them (such as this one, I believe http://www.amazon.com/Energizer-Energi-Instant-Phone-Charger/dp/B000JD09P4) it is even possible to charge while the Garmin is still running (i.e. it works like an extra battery pack).
mtbDobby Posted January 17, 2011 Posted January 17, 2011 HiI was wondering if anyone had some good ideas or products that you can use to charge your Garmin (Edge 500 or 305) while on events such as Epic where power may be an issue? you might want to consider getting a different speed/distance/hr display if you doing the epic and not just because of the recharge issue - I had the same questions and found out that you are not allowed to "map" the route of the epic (which the edge does), you can turn off the garmin gps ability, but then loose speed and distance display, so I am in the same boat....
Tankman Posted January 17, 2011 Posted January 17, 2011 ..., but then loose speed and distance display, so I am in the same boat.... if you have a speed/cadence sensor, speed and distance is still available even when the gps is turned off!
Guest agteros Posted January 17, 2011 Posted January 17, 2011 HiI was wondering if anyone had some good ideas or products that you can use to charge your Garmin (Edge 500 or 305) while on events such as Epic where power may be an issue? Something like https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=86599 just for the 500? or something more like http://www.gomadic.com/garmin-edge-500-lithium-portable-battery-charger.html and for the 705: http://www.gomadic.com/garmin-edge-705-portable-aa-battery-extender.html
Ville rider Posted January 17, 2011 Author Posted January 17, 2011 you might want to consider getting a different speed/distance/hr display if you doing the epic and not just because of the recharge issue - I had the same questions and found out that you are not allowed to "map" the route of the epic (which the edge does), you can turn off the garmin gps ability, but then loose speed and distance display, so I am in the same boat....Yes this is going to be an issue for quite a few of us. Not sure how they will check who has GPS turned on and who has it off. Looks like we may need to buy a few extra parts to get round this....still good to have the heart rate monitor working.
jmaccelari Posted January 18, 2011 Posted January 18, 2011 (edited) HiI was wondering if anyone had some good ideas or products that you can use to charge your Garmin (Edge 500 or 305) while on events such as Epic where power may be an issue?All the big races have charging stations. I have a solar powered USB charger which works well... I got it from these guys:http://www.thegreenshop.co.za/c2/Mobile-Chargers.aspx My model is a roll up one - great for packing in a bag,but I see they don't seem to have them on their web site any more. Edited January 18, 2011 by jmaccelari
Brighter-Lights Posted January 18, 2011 Posted January 18, 2011 I have modified Madelein du Toit's (Solo lady winner of Bicycling Omni-Motion 24hr) with an external battery pack to give her a total of 60-70hrs on her Edge 500. Unfortunately, Garmin (stupid) use TIME in the original and latest firmware to track battery usage, instead of voltage. Something I hope they fix in the next firmware. So, after about 17 hours it will show 0%, even though the battery voltage is still at over 70% of a single cell Li-ion. When charging the setup it also show's 100% after about 2 hours, even though it now takes a lot longer to fully charge the bigger capacity power supply. I still can't figure why on earth they would use time as the trigger to indicate battery usage, as voltage is the correct way to do so. The original Edge 500 battery is a 660mAh Li-ion, I kept that and added a 2400mAh external battery. The reason for all of this was that unlike the older Edge, the Edge 500 can't be run while the charger is plugged in. The previous Edge would run with an external battery plugged into the charging port. I hope they change the way the software calculates battery level (supposedly improved in the latest firmware but still using time) but for now she's using it with the external battery and almost never have to charge it.
Tankman Posted January 18, 2011 Posted January 18, 2011 Brigher lights, did the battery indication change with the upgrade from 2.4 to 2.6? I still havent done the upgrade I can use my Edge 500 will full functionality while charging! I discovered this by accident.While on holiday, I could not find my usb cable to download data to my laptop. (remembered I had an old usb cable in the car from a phone charger). When connection to my laptop, my unit is normally turned off but on this day for some reason I left it on. Stuck the usb cable in and WHAM! It was charging while I could still use all the other functions! I tested all my other usb cables and it does not work with any accept that specific one!It does not actually show that the unit is charging but when you look at the battery %, every minute or so it increases! I can now use this cable with some sort of power supply to charge the unit while in use
Rodney M Posted January 18, 2011 Posted January 18, 2011 Many chargers are available, but one has to experiment with them. I have used the Zartek re-chargeable charger (available in SA - most hiking shops, Due South, etc) and also some chargers I have got overseas such as the Energizer - energy to go (2 AA batteries or the rechargeable version). The Energizer Energy-to-go is a good option - but bring along a pack of lithium batteries. Also, I find it very important to charge through a USB to mini-USB cable with a capacitor (such as the Garmin charging cable) - otherwise it can switch the Garmin off or on when you are not expecting it. I think this has something to do with the output voltage of the chargers.
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