This discussion has been locked.
You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

Garmin 1040 Solar drains powerBank and does not charge

Julian Young
over 1 year ago

I just completed a 1950 Km self supported ultra race.  The race is not stop and the *** continues until you have your time card in at the end of the distance. My plan was to use 28,000 mah power banks (i carried 3)  to charge, my Garmin, phone and electronic shifting.  All devices had been tested on multiple rides before.

The problem.;

Everything was fine and charging according to plan, then on day 4 i plugged my Garmin into my second battery (first one was empty by now) after a could of hour i checked, 50% charge ?  Thinking i must be the wrong battery pack i quickly changed the pack, definaly full, and carried on. an hour later later , no still no charge and an empty power bank!    Now i have a problem 3 dead power bank and only 40 % on the 1040 and  700km to go

I managed to go into a town and eventually find and purchase 2 pre loaded power bank. expensive be better than wasting more time getting one charged.   one to charge my phone and one for the Garmin. I switched the Garmin of an on again to reset it.  this time it charged to 87% before flattening that battery.   Again I have to go into a town find some where i could  charge my electronic shifting which should have happened whilst i slept - new packs have no USB-A -  more time wasted  - now 9 hours behind!  With everything on battery save mode i got to the end but lost estimated 15 places  

Any ideas what could have happened ? And how to never have it happen again?

Julian

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    Have you eliminated a cable fault as a cause? Nothing is mentioned in your post about cables.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to PeterK_55

    Yes ,  crossed my mind, but The new packs had built in cables.

    Also once home the device charged perfectly for n a regular charger 

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Julian Young

    The power has to go somewhere, if not to charge the Garmin only other (?) is a connection / cable / internal battery short circuit. I presume the “solar” didn’t contribute much. Your requirements may vary but on very long rides I minimise Garmin ( non-solar) battery usage settings and can get 70-90+ hours depending on proportions of day (0% backlight) / night (10%), also minimise phone (no Garmin connection) and can expect 3 days+ usage, bike is fully mechanical and has a dynamo hub for front & rear lighting and some device charging during the day . I find these compromises better than a few kilos of battery (I do have a medium size one for emergency use)

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Julian Young

    Was everything clean and dry? Dampness may cause issues.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to PeterK_55

    yes clean and dry an the last one new

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to L.Rouge

    i hear  but this event was in the 150 - 200 hours range

    Regardless. the point is why would this happen on three batteries,  2 cables and why why would  a reboot improve the situation for s short period 

    USB is a semi intelligent system . Apple for example can detect water and switch it off.  could it  taking tte power , not charging and effectively dumping it ? 

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Julian Young

    Not disputing what you observed but the law of conservation of energy says that energy is neither created nor destroyed nor “dumped”. When it is used it doesn't disappear it must change from one form of energy into another. If the 1040 is not charging where is the energy from the battery going? If a short circuit somewhere then something would have got very warm, if the 1040 was using it at an accelerated rate then it would also get very warm.  If the 1040 is the only common factor then your assumption it was the cause is reasonable but hard to explain.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to PeterK_55

    The only other thing I can suggest is to use an ammeter to measure what current is flowing with different power banks, wall chargers and cables to narrow down the issue.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to L.Rouge

    I agree total and i cant say it didn't, and later cooled down, i was not holding it, i was cycling with stong head winds at the time and stressing about that on top of everything else. i thought was fire hazard ? 

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    Only guessing here: Do you have an ongoing connection from you Garmin to your phone? If yes I would disable that (turning bluetooth in the phone off). Second thing to check would be, if there are some iq data fields that have difficulties with very long rides.