Garmin dead?

A weak battery will prevent the Nuvi from booting.
If this is the original battery I believe it's on its last leg. Although you may charge it fully it can discharge at a rapid rate not being able to hold the charge.

I would consider replacing it or use it only on 12V power.

As noted in other discussions, there's an enormous variation in USB cables, with some of them not able to effectively charge/operate some modern devices such as Nuvis or Smartphones. They may be okay at transferring data, but when it comes to delivering power to charge and/or operate a device, they can't hack it.

Try different cables -- when you find one that works, label it.

And when you find ones that don't, cut them in two and throw them away so they don't fool you or anyone else again!

This is something that has not happened before. I am using the original cables. I will try a cable that came with my other nuvi. Not sure which is which. Are batteries available or would it not be cost effective?

Here is a replacement battery site and video of how to do the deed:

http://www.newpower99.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=GAR...

A $25 fix.

Every Garmin owner should have a wall charger for their nuvi. USB connections cannot supply the current needed to charge the battery properly. Use the wall charger from time to time and before firmware or map updates.

http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-Wall-Charger-Mini-Rapid/dp/B0...

dobs108

I agree, every Garmin owner should have a wall charger, however, NOT the one posted at that link.
That one appears to be more for phones and does not list the output. I would bet it's only .500 amp (1/2 Amp). The OEM Garmin chargers are 1 Amp which will charge much faster. Phone Wall Chargers many times will not work On Nuvi's since they're missing a 5th wire that Nuvi's need and will put the Nuvi in PC mode rather than user mode.

You must look for a wall charger that states will work with Garmin have 1 Amp output, and have a mini USB connector. Those having .500amp (1/2 amp) will take far longer to charge. All that I've seen have the required 5 volt output, whether phones or Nuvi's.

I find the wall charger very useful when tinkering with my Nuvi's. I can sit at my desk and play with it (the Nuvi) as long as I like and not wear down the battery and have it charging. Beats sitting in the car connected to the 12V power.

Here are two links you may want to consider,
The Ebay one is the one I have and can even be used for international travel having adapters for different plugs.

Amazon Charger 5v 1 amp 12.99 Sold by Charger City- an Amazon Vendor
http://www.amazon.com/ChargerCity%C2%AE-Adapter-Extended-Cha...

Ebay 9.99 Genuine Garmin in sealed box
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Genuine-Garmin-AC-Adapter-Cable-Bran...

Another Ebay one for 8.99
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Garmin-AC-Adapter-Cable-with-Interna...

USB ports on computers are fully capable of charging a Nuvi. They may not have enough current to both run and charge, but they will charge a unit just fine. Because the charging current is normally lower than what a wall wart puts out, they just take a little longer.

I hope this isn't your problem, but it is possible that the USB port on your nuvi 1450 is going bad and causing your nuvi to not charge properly. The nuvi 14xx series is notorious for this problem.

I agree fully.

My nüvi 40 draws around 6 to 12 mA when running on battery and the backlight is at 100%.

Right now with nuvi connected to a USB 2.0 port, the diagnostic screen shows that the device negotiated a maximum of 150 mA from the port. That would leave at least 138 mA available for charging on my nüvi.

And of course the voltage is 5 volts, which for sure is high enough to enable charging of a 3.7 volt rated battery.

The battery is at 78% charge and the current to the battery is 88 mA.

This is a lower rate than will be seen with a cigar plug or wall wart charger, but as Boxcar said, this just means it will take longer to reach full charge when using a USB port.

Most likely the “failure” to charge when connected to USB port is simply due to not leaving it on for a long enough time.

Of course there is also the chance of a bad cable, or corroded or damaged pins in the port etc..

BTw If anyone wants to see the numbers on their nuvi do the following:

Disconnect the nuvi and turn it on.
When it has booted to the Main screen, put your finger tip on the battery icon and hold till the diagnostic screen pops up.

Write down what ever data you want to, and then plug in your USB cable or whatever charger and read the charging numbers. You can "hot switch" from one to another of the power sources at this stage.

When finished looking, press "Exit" or pull cables and turn off.

Good to know, thanks-

I had the backlight set to 100% to see lowest charge current available. You will see a lot higher charge rate if you press the “Down” button until the backlight is at 0.

After a brief search it looks to me that the recommend charge rates for Lithium Ion and Lithium Polymer batteries are:

For fully discharged battery, initial rate = .1 C and when charged to a certain level, rate = .2 C
Some show a constant charge rate after that but others show the rate tapering off during the charge cycle.

“C” is the capacity of the battery and for my 255W Lithium polymer battery it is 1250 mAh; for my 40 is 1100 mAh
(mAh is milli amp hours)

So for my 255W the highest charge rate I should see no matter what it is being charged with would be .2 times 1250 = 250 mA (note the “h” is dropped because it is a rate and not a capacity)

I let my nuvi 40 discharge to 20% and plugged it into a USB 2.0 port. backlight set at 0

The negotiated current rate ("I limit USB")was 225 mA

The charge rate fluctuated between 216 and 222 mA

That fits pretty close to the expected maximum of .2x1100= 220 mA

However, when I plugged in a Garmin lighter socket charger rated at 1 A Dc (1000 mA) I saw these numbers:

backlight: 0
I limit:450mA
charging current: fluctuating 438- 440 mA

That shows that the charging rate is not limited to .2C and the rate for the cigar socket charger is about twice as fast as the USB connection.

I have been thinking (oh-oh) about the numbers seen in diagnostic mode and these ideas come to mind:

The current draw to run the device in diagnostic mode is a lot less than it would be seen in regular operating mode or in PC mode. I say this because I saw that my nüvi is supposed to run 4 hours on charged battery. It would have to be drawing a lot more current than ~12 mA to discharge that quickly.

It is hard to determine what the current draw is when in operating mode. For my nüvi 40, a rough estimate would be 1100mAh / 4h= 275mA. However the 1100mAh capacity probably is based on a 20 hour discharge time and would be less when discharged in 4 hours, which would make the operating current less.

So if the nüvi 40 negotiated the same 225mA that it did in diagnostic mode, it is possible that the battery may charge very slowly or even discharge when connected to a USB port and running in Operation or PC mode.

That would indicate that if you wanted to charge your nüvi on a USB port, you should either have it in diagnostic mode, or better still, turned off.

Which is pretty much the same as Boxcar said:

If I was smart I would have left it at that.

My experience is that I never "operate" the unit attached to the USB port such as doing a simulation. It usually just sits there turned off or with the "connected" screen displayed. I usually leave it connected after updating POI to throw a charge into the unit to insure it will be ready when I leave.

I'm rather taken back by this advice, particularly from another ham. Fine, label a cable that you like. But advocating the destruction of others that don't seem to work in this one case strikes me as extreme. Particularly since you acknowledge that there are differences in cables and so not working in this one case isn't an indication that the cable is broken. Anyone following that advice will likely soon find themselves regretting it when they can't find the cable that they needed for something else, or when another family member starts looking for the destroyed cable.

I've never seen a USB cable that couldn't charge my nuvi, at least not one with the proper style connector on it. My nuvi 250 didn't even come with a USB cable (only with a car charger but no data/charging cable for computer use, even though they expected you to connect it to a PC to register it). If I ever did find one that didn't work I wouldn't destroy it, it would likely be needed for something else.

There's nothing special about one USB cable over the other, provided they were all manufactured to the USB 1 or 2 standards. There's certainly no reason to destroy a working cable, and they have many uses outside of charging navigation units.

I would prefer if everything was the microUSB connector. It would avoid having to have two different cables available (phone equipment and headsets on on micro, GPS, cameras, many accessories on mini). The micro connector is designed to last longer (more connects/disconnects than mini.

I have at least two other different styles that should have used the micro but didn't. And at one point the good folks at Samsung used an odd-ball connector and then made to different cables for it, one that would only supply power to recharge the phone and a separate cable that included the data wires, just so that they could charge their customers twice. And it was definitely not a smart idea to destroy the charging cable in frustration after you finally figured out that it wouldn't transfer data and let you sync to your phone.

I kept all of my miniUSB cables and bought a handful of miniUSB to microUSB adapters. The adapters even came with a loop attached that ties it to the cable end so it doesn't get lost. Works great, and every cable will run everything not made by Apple.

http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-RAZR2-Micro-Adapter-SKN6252/d...