Montana 700 charging issues using AMPS mount

Mogu 2 months ago

Hi everyone,

I have a montana 700 that was working fine until some time ago. When placed in the AMPS mount in my motorcycle, I can see the battery icon charging, but the battery doesn't charge. In fact, it will get down to 0. If I charge the Montana vía USB, It charges well.

My AMPS mount is connected to battery and every other charger works fine (like the one I use to charge my smartphone while riding).

Any suggestion?

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Mogu 1 month ago in reply to BigLew55 +1 suggested

Hi, thanks for the reply.

It's the 700 without the inreach.

Today I did a little test. I cleaned the pogo points with WD40 contact cleaner and pushed them gently to ensure the contact cleaner reaches…

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0 BigLew55 1 month ago

First, if you actually have a 700i, I would recommend updating the subject to reflect that. The team will close references to non-inreach units in short order.

Also, my 700i has ceased to reliably charge in the motorcycle mount as well. I don't know if it will make it through this year without being replaced by something android auto related. sad, because I really don't think android auto is better, it just fails less than garmin.

0 Mogu 1 month ago in reply to BigLew55

Hi, thanks for the reply.

It's the 700 without the inreach.

Today I did a little test. I cleaned the pogo points with WD40 contact cleaner and pushed them gently to ensure the contact cleaner reaches everything in the pogo pin.

Then I cleaned also the pins in the unit. Then went to do a little route to test it and in 40 min it went from 86% to 89% aprox. It's slow but at least it did charge.

I'll try again cleaning again and going to an offroad route to test it properly. I'm a bit disappointed because I had to change the rubber bands because the unit was shuting down and now this with the amps cardle just two years later.

0 BigLew55 25 days ago in reply to Mogu

I just wanted to circle back to thank you for the idea. I also cleaned my contacts in the mount and on the device. My 2500 mile trip to Florida tested the effects. The unit charged fully all week. I'm so glad to have that resolved. I didn't want to replace the 700i because Garmin doesn't really make a unit today that I think is an upgrade. Honestly, I was considering just changing out the Montana for my old z590 which seemed to be the height of Garmin's logic programming, before they started bloating the units with user simplification.

0 Mogu 22 days ago in reply to BigLew55

I'm glad it worked for you. Unfortunatelly for me It lasted two weekends more and doesn't charge anymore. It's the amps cardle and the pogo pins.

0 BigLew55 22 days ago in reply to Mogu

Thanks for the input. I'll keep an eye on it.

0 Garmin - AL 22 days ago

The AMPS mount should trickle charge the Montana 700 series device. If you are continuing to see these types of issues we recommend cleaning the charging pins/ports with a small amount of rubbing alcohol on a clean cotton swab. Please review the following articles for tips to resolve charging issues on the Montana, as well as the Mount:

Battery Charging Issues With a Montana 700 Series

Keeping the Battery in an Outdoor Handheld Charged With an AMPS Rugged Mount

Troubleshooting a Powered Mount for an Outdoor Handheld

0 Mogu 20 days ago in reply to Garmin - AL

I already cleaned the pins but it didn't solve the problem long term. The springs inside the pogo pins seems to be defective because they don't push the pins enough.

I tried my Montana without battery and connected the Garmin Amps mount directly to my Honda's battery. It powers up but then at some point the GPS shuts down. The resistance in the cord is fine and also the battery of the Honda is new and in a good health.

Bought the Garmin Amps mount not even 2 years ago.