Charge 945 during navigation on my bicycle

Kroez_control said:

With navigating the forerunner haves a batterytime of less then 8 hours and the edge 530 15+ hours. No surprise because the edge 530 haves a much larger battery. 

The screen of the 945 is large enough and the 530 have some downfalls when navigating fit file courses. 

Navigation itself should not use any more battery. However, the map screen does, as constantly re-rendering the map as you move along is processor and battery intensive (the same applies to the 530 AND the 945). Leaving it on a data screen most of the time and just scrolling to the map when you need to do a navigation check saves a lot of battery life (the map should also automatically pop up as you approach an intersection).

Also, check your backlight settings. Backlight is potentially a huge drain - turn down the intensity, and shorten the timeout.

And streaming music (as someone else in this thread mentions) does draw considerable power.

I've done an 18 hour ride, and finished with 40something percent battery left on the watch. (I use the watch as a backup to my 530 on long rides).

(Sorry, none of the above is meant to imply you are doing it wrong - just tips to get more out of your battery life).

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I have some questions after reading your message;

1. How did you configure your navigation settings on the 945?
2. How do you prepare the courses before you sending it to the 945?
3. What kind of course file do you use? 

I never streaming music from the 945 and I got my own course workflow, maybe there are some battery consuming issue;

1. I send fit file courses with turnbyturn info to the 945 from locusmap 4 + locus map for garmin. The 945 doen't need to prepare anything.
2. Turn warnings are turned off on the 945. Otherwise I get a not usefull turn pop-up on every turn.
3. On the map screen I turned data screen on. Data screen shows the next type of turn and distance to the next turn.
4. I Installed ciq app Appbuilder 5+ and configured a special datafield who make bleeps when reaching a turn at a distance of 60m and 15m.
5. During rides the mapscreen is mostly turned on.

This workflow really works very nice, but maybe the Appbuilder 5+ datafield gives some battery drain. I will test this next bike ride.

Kroez_control said:

The Dymoece Universal Phone Adhesive Garmin Edge Mount looks promising. 

You mean putting that to puck charger? I think the problem with that is will it hold the watch in place. How good is the hold with the puck charger and watch if there's some bumps so that it won't just be thrown away.

agree, when I first mentioned it I was thinking doing it that way would work.  but you're right, not sure if it will be that strong of a hold.  a bit of electric tape on the edges or even clear plastic wrap could do the trick for temporary use- lol

Made my bicycle charge mount. I glued and shaved the following parts together;