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I use a Garmin gpsmap 62st handlebar mounted year round on my sled and my dirt bike.
The winter temps obviously take their toll on any type of battery used, and I have settled on replacing the batteries for every full day of sledding, as well as carrying spare batts just in case. The occasional situation has come up where I need to use the backlight full time to navigate my way out of the backcountry as its getting dark and/or socked in... this eats up the batteries very fast and could create a problem, or inconvenience for me.
I really want to get my gps unit running on external power, just wondering if anyone has tried this already, or has electrical advice. I have two different plans:
#1- Buy the Garmin "vehicle power cable", connect the cable to 12vdc power on my sled using a more suitable interface than the cig lighter plug, and temporarily seal the usb 90deg plug into the gps unit with silicone.
The problem with this is that I will regularly need to "un-silicone" the usb plug so I can connect the gps unit to my computer. The level of water resistance is also a bit suspect. I think that using this power cable without any effort to seal the usb plug into the gps unit is going to result in problems.
#2-hard wire the battery contacts in the gps unit to a cable that can be connected to 12vdc on my sled.
This way I should be able to completely restore the water resistance of the gps unit, and not have to mess with the regularly needed usb port.
Problems I can see going this way:
-I will need to regulate the voltage, but being as the gps unit uses a pair of aa batteries, can anyone tell me if they are wired in series or parallel? I tend to think they are in series, resulting in a 3vdc supply from the batts.
-At the assumption that the above is correct, regulating and supplying 3vdc to the battery contacts in the gps unit should be my goal?
I'm open to any thoughts, ideas, or advice!
The winter temps obviously take their toll on any type of battery used, and I have settled on replacing the batteries for every full day of sledding, as well as carrying spare batts just in case. The occasional situation has come up where I need to use the backlight full time to navigate my way out of the backcountry as its getting dark and/or socked in... this eats up the batteries very fast and could create a problem, or inconvenience for me.
I really want to get my gps unit running on external power, just wondering if anyone has tried this already, or has electrical advice. I have two different plans:
#1- Buy the Garmin "vehicle power cable", connect the cable to 12vdc power on my sled using a more suitable interface than the cig lighter plug, and temporarily seal the usb 90deg plug into the gps unit with silicone.
The problem with this is that I will regularly need to "un-silicone" the usb plug so I can connect the gps unit to my computer. The level of water resistance is also a bit suspect. I think that using this power cable without any effort to seal the usb plug into the gps unit is going to result in problems.
#2-hard wire the battery contacts in the gps unit to a cable that can be connected to 12vdc on my sled.
This way I should be able to completely restore the water resistance of the gps unit, and not have to mess with the regularly needed usb port.
Problems I can see going this way:
-I will need to regulate the voltage, but being as the gps unit uses a pair of aa batteries, can anyone tell me if they are wired in series or parallel? I tend to think they are in series, resulting in a 3vdc supply from the batts.
-At the assumption that the above is correct, regulating and supplying 3vdc to the battery contacts in the gps unit should be my goal?
I'm open to any thoughts, ideas, or advice!
