Wayfinder/Emtac Chargers Faulty!

Dave · Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2003 11:11 pm Post subject: Wayfinder/Emtac Chargers Faulty!

An anonymous reader has forwarded an email to us from Wayfinder where Wayfinder have announced that some of the Wayfinder kits including the EMTAC Bluetooth GPS receiver that have been sold have a faulty mains AC power supply charger. This picture is also found at Wayfinder.com. "When the faulty charger is used to charge the battery of the GPS receiver, the GPS receiver can be damaged" a Customer Support Representative at Wayfinder Systems AB says.

Wayfinder go on to say "We are very sorry for this and we will take full responsibility for replacing the faulty chargers free of charge." If you believe you have a faulty charger, send your Name, Shipping address, Phone number, Serial number of the charger (found on the label on the charger) to customer.support@wayfinder.com. Could this be the cause of why some Emtac's are failing ???

neilsum · Occasional Visitor Joined: Oct 08, 2003 Posts: 13

If that is true then FULL MARKS go to wayfinder for owning up to a problem and offering a solution. I think a few PDA companies could learn a thing or two from costumer care like that.
Makes me feel that I would be very confident to buy from theese guys in the future.
-Neil

neilsum · Occasional Visitor Joined: Oct 08, 2003 Posts: 13

Oops, just read my typo of customer, why can I not edit my own posts on these forums?

-Neil

Dave · Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2003 6:27 am Post subject:

Because you can't.

Davidb67 · Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2003 9:54 am Post subject:

Hmmm,
could this also have been the cause of my "iPaq-meltdown" whilst on holiday in the US recently? my iPaq was on charge in the mains in our hotel; when i went to remove it after around 2 hrs, the iPaq was EXTREMELY hot - i burnt my hand picking it up. The battery was fired, and the motherboard. HP repaired it upon my return to the UK, within a week.

I bought a mains "iPaq travel adapter" about 12 months ago from expansys. 2 months ago, i bought my Emtac GPS, and the mains adapter was identical to the one i'd bought from Expansys. I'd used the expansys one regularly at home - the mains unit that came with my iPaq resides at my work - without probems. I THINK it was the "emtac" charger i took on hols with me. Sounds suspiciously like that's the culprit.

Any views?

Dave · Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2003 2:25 pm Post subject:

Sounds like you could be onto something there!

tedkay · Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2003 11:03 pm Post subject:

Hi

I rarely charge mine indoors with the AC charger, but come to think of it the unit did fail after just such a charge, not in the car on the DC charger ..........? But if the units are getting 'fried' by the AC charger in some way how can they sometimes suddenly come back to life again like mine did? (I drained it for 24 hours, after which I still had no green light - switched it off and on a few times - no good, so I gave up and put it down. A couple of hours later I gave it another go prior to shipping it back to Expansys and the damn thing worked) Trouble is after this you could never rely on it again so it still went back.

I agree with Neil about Wayfarer getting full marks for their honesty, maybe Socket would like to take a leaf out of their book.

Ted

Harold · Occasional Visitor Joined: Oct 14, 2003 Posts: 1

Totally agree with Neil, as well. Thumbs Up

I am using the Wayfinder kit with my 7650(hope will have a new 6600 shortly) in UK, generally it guides me correctly, smoothly and well. Indeed, it is a honorable doings Wayfinder/EMTAC acts, though there is no problem with my AC charger. I purchased one Socket Bluetooth before using Wayfinder solution. Two same Bluetooth GPS in my hands now!

After contacting with the representative in UK, they told me that Wayfinder/EMATC did officially announce to the distributor about the faulty charger and replaced all the faulty chargers at manufacturer cost, should be the EMTAC I think.

Uetz · Occasional Visitor Joined: Oct 14, 2003 Posts: 1

I have problem with the AC charger came with the Euronavigator which I purchased from France distributor five months ago.

The Representative replace a brand new AC charger for me quickly within ten days, I really appreciate their support.

:D

sjs · Occasional Visitor Joined: Aug 19, 2004 Posts: 10

can someone explain this AC charger issue to me?
is it a global AC charger problem affecting all emtec trine units? affects those purchased in the USA too? who is wayfarer? thank you much

Dave · Posted: Sat Aug 21, 2004 7:34 pm Post subject:

Wayfarer ? You mean WAYFINDER, it's a company that is also selling re-badged Emtac's.

Personally I've never used the Emtac charger, just use a regular 5vdc Pocket PC generic charger and you will be fine.

sjs · Occasional Visitor Joined: Aug 19, 2004 Posts: 10

thanks..yes i meant wayfinder. ok, so i presume the std charger included with the non rebranded emtacs are all ok and have no recall?

so u have had good luck with a standard ipaq 5v charger then?
i was thinking to do that too, with a Y splitter....ever done that?

i got nervous because in the manual here:
http://www.emtac.com/download/CRUX_II_BTGPS_GPS_Receiver_User_Guide_English_20021219.pdf

they said *no less than 6 different times on 6 different pages, and often in red* "DO NOT USE ANY OTHER CHARGER OTHER THAN THE BTGPS" and then they mention explosion...

now, i realize they are probably trying to protect themselves, but 6 times was a little excessive. i began to wonder if, perhaps, the charger circuit was not in the emtac itself as usual, but instead in the charger. that would be pretty wierd, but possible, and if true, thats the only case where i wouldnt want to use some other power source.....but that seems like a big design flaw for dangerous Li-ion batteries...

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