GPSrChive Discussion Forum

Hi there
I have an Oregon 650. When battery is fully charged it displays 4 bars.
However within 15 minutes drops back to 2 bars.
I have tried 2 genuine Garmin battery packs, and one set of eneloop 1900 mAh with the same result.
Cannot get more than 3.5-4 hrs usage out of fully charged batteries.
I have timed out screen, battery save etc with no result.
Is there a way to calibrate the battery.
Any help will be appreciated
Cheers

Are you still having this issue, two years later?

Yes. Almost 3 years later still having the problem with battery bars.
Cheers!

I am curious.

With the Garmin battery pack, the battery type setting is autoconfigured (you can not edit), but with any other non-Garmin battery installed, you must configure the battery type in Setup > System > Battery Type. When you are not using the Eneloops (model number, please), which battery type do you have configured?

Can you test also with a new set of Amazon Basics 2400 mAh NiMH batteries and Setup > System > Battery Type = Precharged NiMH.

Hi Curious
Thanks for your reply. The batteries I'm using now are Eneloop Pro made by Panasonic Mod BK-3HCCE 2450ma Rechargeable NiMH. I have set the battery settings on my Garmin to Rechargeable NimH.
I still get about 4 hours of usage.
Regards
Vlascot

Can you send us a copy (webmaster@gpsrchive.com) of your Oregon 6x0/Garmin/Profiles/ directory for testing?

Which profile are you using now that only gets 4 hrs run time?

After testing your profiles and inspecting settings, we find the Screen Backlight is set to 100% brightness and the Display Timeout is set to 'Always On'.

If you look at the GPSrChive > Oregon 6x0 > Operation > Power Sources > Power Consumption, you will see that the backlight is a big energy consumer.

With your profile loaded on my Oregon 650, I experienced similar behavior of only a few short hours battery life, After recharging my batteries and changing only the display backlight to a much lower level and the timeout to 15 seconds, the battery life was greatly increased.

Hi
Thanks for your reply.
I have decreased the brightness to about 50% just visible.
As well display time out to 15seconds.
Tested unit and battery life was increased to about 5hrs.
I suppose that's what it is.
Thanks

Why do you require so much screen brightness? These units are very bright in outdoor sunlight with the screen at 0% brightness.