Garmin Nuvi 1450 / 1460

[quaky]

My unit is still charging after more than 12 hours???? Nobody has this prob

Found this faq in garmin website for 1450:
Question: How can I tell if my nuvi is fully charged?
Answer:

When charging your nuvi, you will not be provided with any visual indication once it is fully charged. To find charging options for your device click here.


You are provided a rough guide to the battery life with the battery symbol on the main screen of your device when it is turned on. Please note this can only be properly seen while the device is not connected to power.

To check your units expected battery life, visit the product page on the Garmin Website and select the Specs tab. If the device isn't meeting the expected battery life click here for information on extending the battery life.

Can't believe it, garmin cannot even write a proper program to manage the battery.
I removed the charger after more than 12 hrs, indicator shows full bar, now to see how long it last.
The last time charging more than 6hrs, indicator only 3/4 full and lasted only 1 hr.

[JasonLee]

Next time, charge your battery in the diagnostic mode. You can see what the starting capacity is and the word 'Done' will be displayed when the charging is complete. While charging, you can see the charging current and voltage being monitored.

To get into the diagnostic mode, let the GPS boot up completely using its battery until the main menu page is displayed. This is the page you see the Where To? and View Map icons and the battery strength indicator on the top right-hand corner and the satellite signal strength indicator on top left-hand corner.

Touch battery strength indicator for about 10 or more seconds then the display will change to the diagnostic mode. The page has a white background and black lettering will display a lot of info about your GPS including information on the battery. The title will read: SW Ver 2.xx nuvi 1460 i P2 V5 LC 2GB. Then plug in your USB cable from your charger or PC to charge the battery.

BTW, the 1460 battery can last at most 2 hours from a full charge. You may even need to dim the display to reach or exceed 2 hours.

[quaky]

Everytime I start up it ask me if I want to copy data from the SD card to the device. Anyone knows what data it is refering to?

Since your POI data is located inside the SD card, the device will ask you to tranfer the date to internal memory so that when you take out the SD card, you can use the POIs as they are now reside in the internal memory.

Ya, thks...It's the POI alert files.

[quaky]

Next time, charge your battery in the diagnostic mode. You can see what the starting capacity is and the word 'Done' will be displayed when the charging is complete. While charging, you can see the charging current and voltage being monitored.

To get into the diagnostic mode, let the GPS boot up completely using its battery until the main menu page is displayed. This is the page you see the Where To? and View Map icons and the battery strength indicator on the top right-hand corner and the satellite signal strength indicator on top left-hand corner.

Touch battery strength indicator for about 10 or more seconds then the display will change to the diagnostic mode. The page has a white background and black lettering will display a lot of info about your GPS including information on the battery. The title will read: SW Ver 2.xx nuvi 1460 i P2 V5 LC 2GB. Then plug in your USB cable from your charger or PC to charge the battery.

BTW, the 1460 battery can last at most 2 hours from a full charge. You may even need to dim the display to reach or exceed 2 hours.

Thks for the info. Will try that next time I charge.

[quaky]

I've tried charging in diag mode already...
The device limit the current to 500ma when my charger is rated at 1A.

I let the device auto switch off due to low battery.
Goto diag mode, batt cap is 0%. Plug in charger.
After 2.5hrs it charged from 0% to 70%.
I unplug the charger because the screen back light suddently went to 0%.

Then seeing it wa snot fully charged, replugin the charger.
After another 3 hrs, batt cap is still 70%, no Done status.
Unplug the charger and the batt cap shows 100%.

So i think it'll take about 4hrs to fully charge the batt and Diag mode does not show that it is fully charged also?

[JasonLee]

I've tried charging in diag mode already...
The device limit the current to 500ma when my charger is rated at 1A.

I let the device auto switch off due to low battery.
Goto diag mode, batt cap is 0%. Plug in charger.
After 2.5hrs it charged from 0% to 70%.
I unplug the charger because the screen back light suddently went to 0%.

Then seeing it wa snot fully charged, replugin the charger.
After another 3 hrs, batt cap is still 70%, no Done status.
Unplug the charger and the batt cap shows 100%.

So i think it'll take about 4hrs to fully charge the batt and Diag mode does not show that it is fully charged also?

If you cannot get the Done status after 4 or more hours of charging, I would suspect that your battery is not in the best condition thus it cannot reach the final voltage to flag a fully-charged status or the circuitry in the battery is faulty and giving faulty data preventing it from being fully charged. No harm to continue using this battery but you have to remember that the battery will not power your 1460 for more than 2 hours and you may need a new battery to give you more than 2 hours (though not much more).

[quaky]

If you cannot get the Done status after 4 or more hours of charging, I would suspect that your battery is not in the best condition thus it cannot reach the final voltage to flag a fully-charged status or the circuitry in the battery is faulty and giving faulty data preventing it from being fully charged. No harm to continue using this battery but you have to remember that the battery will not power your 1460 for more than 2 hours and you may need a new battery to give you more than 2 hours (though not much more).

Hmm...I just got this set in the June IT show.. Battery faulty already
I'm charging again tonight to test.

Anyway I just found out that the device won't charge if using a normal USB cable. I think that is why my 1st charge didn't happen. Are you able to use a normal USB cable?
In diag mode I plug in a normal usb cable. It states power source as EXT but there is no batt current figure. I unplug n plug back also the same. Then I changed to the garmin cable and the batt current shows some figure.
I'm wondering why such a well known brand can come out with something like this

------edit
O.k finally saw the 'Done' after charging for 3.5 hrs from 70%.
From screen:
Battery: Done
Batt volt: 4095
Limit usb: 500ma
Usb Device: usb typw-b
Vmax: 4.79v
Power Src: Ext
Batt current: 0
USBIDVOLTS:2.25v

[JasonLee]

Good for you. Sometimes it takes quite a while on the first charge to see the Done status. Your second charge shouldn't take so long.

FYI, you can charge and get a Done status with a normal USB cable with power rating 5V 500mA but this cable will not be able to let you boot and navigate as the car adapter does. The difference is in the cable pins configuration although there is a work around but that is another topic for another thread.

It is not a question of a well-known brand or not. How else can they sell their proprietary A/C adapter if any old USB cable will do the job?

[quaky]

Good for you. Sometimes it takes quite a while on the first charge to see the Done status. Your second charge shouldn't take so long.

FYI, you can charge and get a Done status with a normal USB cable with power rating 5V 500mA but this cable will not be able to let you boot and navigate as the car adapter does. The difference is in the cable pins configuration although there is a work around but that is another topic for another thread.

It is not a question of a well-known brand or not. How else can they sell their proprietary A/C adapter if any old USB cable will do the job?

So you can charge using a normal cable? I will try again tomorrow with a normal cable.
I'm o.k with the proprietary cable, but I was told that any USB charger can charge it. Also at least get the interface right. And the documentation.....
If it shows charging the it should be charging. The 1st time I charged the thing over night it shows charging. But end up not charged at all.
And if it's fully charged it should indicate so.

[JasonLee]

So you can charge using a normal cable? I will try again tomorrow with a normal cable.
I'm o.k with the proprietary cable, but I was told that any USB charger can charge it.

I was talking about the cable that comes with the proprietary A/C Adapter. The Garmin supplied USB cable is no different from the standard but perhaps arguably of slightly better quality.

Be careful about ANY USB charger. Many of them are not strictly 5V but higher and you would not want your batteries to be fried.