Power supply
Sat, 02/16/2008 - 12:04pm
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16 years
|
I had the power supply for my Nuvi 360 "hard wired" into my car so I wouldn't have the cord draping over the dash when we are on vacation.
Soon, I am going to fly to Las Vegas for a trip into Utah and Death Valley, in addition to seeing the Vegas sites. I am going to rent a car, and I'm taking my Nuvi.
My question is, can I use the charging cord from my Motorola RAZR v3 phone to power my GPS? The connectors are the same.
Your help will be much appreciated.
YES
I use the Motorola RAZR v3 phone charger to power all the time, I also have ours hard wired to the car and the unit is mounted in the box where the factory GPS is supposed to be installed, that is the perfect place since it serves multiple purposes, cuts down on glare, once you lower the lid to the box the unit is hidden from view and as soon as you turn the ignition key the unit turns itself on.
Garmin 38 - Magellan Gold - Garmin Yellow eTrex - Nuvi 260 - Nuvi 2460LMT - Google Nexus 7 - Toyota Entune NAV
You can theoritically use any USB power source
I use charger for my bluetooth headset from moto for all - GPS, phone, moto headset, Jabra headset.
Yes and no.
My question is, can I use the charging cord from my Motorola RAZR v3 phone to power my GPS?
If you use the USB connector on the Nüvi and do the "connect-disconnect-connect" trick, it will work OK. [ie wait for it to boot into mass-storage mode, then disconnect and wait for it to start rebooting, before reconnecting).
If you use the rear connector on the cradle, something interesting happens when powered from a source that can only supply up to the 500mA usb standard (I believe the Razr psu fits this category).
In this case, the Nüvi will probably power up and run, but if you let it get completely flat, it will not charge. Worse than that, it will say "Battery charging complete" - even if it never attempted it!.
Analysis as to why, reveals that the required current in this completely flat state, is close to 800mA, which the psu probably can't supply. If it's not completely flat, it may be able to 'trickle' charge it.
You'd probably be as wise to do your own tests, before relying on the Razr charger. It may be clever than I think and limit the current to 500mA, still at 5V. A real USB port's o/p voltage starts to drop as you exceed the current rating.
(I've recently spent a happy hour with a multimeter and my Nüvi 310 (very close relative of the 360), discovering this. My Nüvi lives on a spare cradle at the side of my PC, when not in use. I had a spare USB connected to the cradle and was getting some very strange results.)
I use the Motorola RAZR v3 phone charger to power all the time
Am I correct in saying that your Nüvi 260 only has a 'real' usb connection, rather than any additional usb 'style' connector on a cradle. It might explain why the Razr charger works ok for you? (ie it never tries to draw more than 500mA)
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Yeah the 260 only has one
Yeah the 260 only has one usb port and it is directly on the unit, not the so called cradle. It works like the c530. it is sorta nice to have coworkers who have different GPSr units. So far, we have
2 nuvi 350
1 c550
1 nuvi 260
1 c330
Charley - Nuvi 350 - Bel STI Driver - Cobra 29 w/ wilson 1000 - AIM: asianfire -