Running Garmin i3 on batteries

BigAl94 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 10, 2006 Posts: 10

My wife was going to a function in a hotel about 2 hours from us today and I lent her my i3 as she hadn't a clue how to get there. I put in a pair of freshly charged 2000mah batteries and told her she should be fine not wanting to extricate the carefully concealed lead in my own car. She phoned about an hour into her journey saying the batteries had run out and she wasn't happy!! I would have thought that as it should run for up to 5 hours on 2300 batteries, she should have been OK. What has been other's experiences?

Nickwolf · Regular Visitor Joined: Apr 01, 2005 Posts: 219

I think the length of time it will run on batteries is highly variable dependant on settings i.e. brightness, volume, GPS mode (WAAS/EGNOS or Normal) and so on.

There will also be great variation depending on the number of turns in a journey since it may be using the speaker every minute or so around town but on a motorway journey it may say "continue for 85 miles" and not have to say anything else for over an hour (if your are law abiding Wink

).

Basically what I am saying is there are too many variables to be sure and if I were relying on batteries alone I would have at least one spare set with me.

Nick.

Scoobydooby · Regular Visitor Joined: Feb 19, 2006 Posts: 104

What seting do you have for the battery option?.

If you have it set to 'alkaline' and then use rechargeables, I think the i3 will misinterpret the lower voltage of the rechargeables as being flat alkaline's, and give a false reading.

I get about 4 hours use from my set of 2000Mah's

Scoobs
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I'd be lost without it !!

BigAl94 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 10, 2006 Posts: 10

Right about a spare set! the i3 was set to nimh batteries

Pootle · Posted: Sat May 20, 2006 10:57 pm Post subject:

Nickwolf's comments are spot on. The type of journey greatly affects the battery life.

Recently my Passat had to have new engine under warrenty, under three years old so I had a hire car for some time. My i3 power cable is hard wired into my passat using spliced power off handsfree kit behind glovebox. Therefore I had to use my i3 with batteries for a while. I use 2500mah cells. I'm based in Nottingham and managed Nottingham to Carlisle and back on one charged pair of cells!! My tip for extending battery life is go into settings and turn the brightness down as low as possible.
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