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When does the 1040 Solar actually solar charge? Only when moving?

Hey all,

Today post ride I aimed my 1040 Solar right into the sun while at coffee. The temperature field showed a temp between 85-95f, solar intensity field nearly max, but no charging took place.

When does the 1040 Solar actually accept a charge? Only when moving? I'd like to understand this a lot better. I assumed if I put the 1040 Solar into the path of the sunlight, it would gain some charge. But so far, that isn't the case.

So how does one get it to charge when just hanging out after a ride or before a ride? Under what conditions will it charge or not charge?

  • Mine charges anytime the unit is on and in sunlight at least whatever lux the manual states.  Trust me the 'charging' is NOT the same as if you were to plug it into a wall, but last weekend on a mostly shade covered gravel ride late in the day so sun was about 4 hours from setting...I gained 48 seconds of time.  I have not tried just setting it in the sun to measure the delta.  The manual and DCRainmaker both have good info on it. To the best of my knowledge, it will not charge when powered off no matter how much sun there is.

  • I STAND CORRECTED page 79 of the manual

    Tips for Using the Edge 1040 Solar Device Solar charging is designed to optimize and extend the battery life of the device. Solar charging occurs even when the device is in sleep mode or turned off

  • Maybe mine was too warm. The solar intensity graph was at the max, that was not the issue. 

  • I gained 1hr 20 mins of charge on a 6 hour ride, partly in sun and partly in shade.  Whenever we stopped for coffee I left the device in the sun and it continued to charge in sleep mode.  Impressed with solar so far, seems to be the real deal

  • Well mine says it gains many hours most days yet the battery percentage never seems to increase.

    9 hrs yesterday apparently yet no increase.

  • Is that during use?  If so the question you should be asking is how much did it decrease.  In use I don’t think the solar charging is intended to increase the battery, it just reduces the load so that the resulting decrease is less than if it wasn’t solar charging. That is how you get the extended time. 

    if it could then effectively in use as long as the sun was shining you could never have to charge it. Garmin never claim this (for any of their solar products). So from this you know the solar only slows down the discharge when being used, doesn’t increase battery %.  That’s why they tell you how much extra time you get, not how much was put back into the battery.  

  • No just sat on my window cill.

    Garmin claim it in Garmin Connect, plus logically I expect a solar powered unit to charge in the sun Slight smile

    "non-activity charging

    Ride time gained +1h 54m

    Non-activity charging occurs when the device is on and being used outside of an activity or in sleep mode."

    Looking at the battery % it doesn't appear to charge when not in use. Can't comment if it does during use as impossible to prove.

    edit - I think you're probably right and if so, thats poor because the information in Garmin Connect is very misleading. So much so that reviewers that know much more about these things than me (for example DC rainmaker) suggest that you could leave the unit on a window cill and the unit would charge up.  It also says in the manual that the unit charges while in sleep mode. Now thankfully (and im not boasting) I got a very cheap deal on the unit. I wouldn't be best pleased now if id paid full retail.

  • I do find all these put it in the window test. You can plug it in and in 10 minutes it will charge far more than in a day sat in the sun. The whole point was it was to help people on multi day rides with limited access to power. The amount of people that actually need this is a very small percentage of users. Given how long the standard version last people are paying a big premium for a feature they don’t really need.  What it does have though is the silicon case and double the memory. 

  • I agree, which is why it’s wrong they mislead consumers. Even when you turn it off it says leave  facing the sun to charge.I think there must be an error or bug with the battery percentage, as That’s just wrong otherwise.

  • Dug a bit deeper in Garmin connect says it charges when device in sleep mode and you gain a greater return than when it’s operational.