Weird Battery and Gps behavior

I need some uderstanding about whats going on with my handheld gps garmin oregon 600 and duracell duralock rechargeables.

the gps refuses to boot with the batteries with a charge of 1.31v tested with a multimeter.
But the funny part is that i put another pair of batteries also duracell duralock with one readind 1.25v and the other 1.31v and it boots with no issues.

So why doesnt the gps doesnt like two 1.31v batteries?
i have several pairs of duracell duralocks and yesterday i got stranded on the field because none of them would work on the GPs.
come home and they all read about 1.31-1.33v. imo it should be enough to work.

So is this a gPS problem or there could be some issues with the batteries besides voltage?

Hello Hammerjoe,

Open circuit voltage many times doesn't tell the whole story. If possible check the batteries again under load. The ideal set up would be to have a load that is close to what your Garmin runs at, but that is not critical. Measure the voltage under load and see if that helps figure out what is going on.

Tom

Could be you have a bad battery. If it is possible try and take the voltage of the batteries while turning it on (under load) and see if the voltage drops down or not.

My old Garmin had a setting where you had to choose whether you were using Alkaline or NiMH. I wonder if that could be the issue?

markr6 said:

My old Garmin had a setting where you had to choose whether you were using Alkaline or NiMH. I wonder if that could be the issue?

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Not likely. What the selection did was to alter the behavior of the 'fuel' gauge. Alkalines at 1.25 volts are close to dead, while NiMh or NiCd's are fully charged. If you use NiMh or NiCd cells and it is set to Alkaline, it will always report the battery is low.

I will have to check it under load. It just annoyed me that all of the 6 pairs I had did not work on the field, preventing me from using the GPS and get home and test them and they are all showing over 1.3V.

I was trying to look up 'Duracell Duralock rechargeable ' AA batteries to see if they were supposed to be able to hold their charge for extended periods of time like Enoops can. I can only find Duracell Duraloc alkaline batteries and Duracell rechargeable batteries.
Anyway I found my Duracell rechargeable AA Nickel metal batteries worked great only if they were fresh off the charger in my GPS. If I charged them and they sat for a few days they would not power my GPS for very long.

Lou Minescence said:

I was trying to look up 'Duracell Duralock rechargeable ' AA batteries to see if they were supposed to be able to hold their charge for extended periods of time like Enoops can. I can only find Duracell Duraloc alkaline batteries and Duracell rechargeable batteries.
Anyway I found my Duracell rechargeable AA Nickel metal batteries worked great only if they were fresh off the charger in my GPS. If I charged them and they sat for a few days they would not power my GPS for very long.

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I didnt mention that I also have the black Amazon basic batteries and the behaviour is the same.
As for the Duracell I still have the pack and it clearly says precharged and that its 50% longer lasting with ion core technology, whatever that means.

Heres a link to those batteries: https://www.walgreens.com/store/c/duracell-rechargeable-nimh-batteries-aaa/ID=prod6179715-product

Dumb question, but have you tried to stretch the battery springs so that it makes better contact? I've had a similar problem with a cordless phone. The positive spring was bent in too much and wasn't making contact causing the phone to not work.

john1230 said:

Dumb question, but have you tried to stretch the battery springs so that it makes better contact? I've had a similar problem with a cordless phone. The positive spring was bent in too much and wasn't making contact causing the phone to not work.

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Good point and I will check it out but I have to say its pretty snug.