60CSx Turns Off By Itself

[AlexUSA]

Anyone else have this problem? My Garmin 60CSx sometimes turns off by itself while it's in the Ram Mount on my bike (I'm on battery power because my bike has no battery to hardwire). The screen quickly fades out like it is losing power.

It doesn't seem to matter if I'm off-road or on-road but sometimes wrapping the batteries in electrical tape for a tighter fit seems to help and the problem won't return for a while. But then it will come back - sometimes - even with wrapped batteries.

But I'm not totally sure if this vibration is the problem. Sometimes I can really smack the unit around in my hand and it's fine but then I'll ride for a little while and it shuts down. And today I was bouncing around off-road for a few hours with no problems and then after 30 minutes back on smooth road the unit shut down. I turned it back on several more times as I continued on-road and it kept doing the same thing.

 

[KTMphil]

This is a very common problem, the battery connections at each end of the battery are not tight enough.

You need to jam something in, to keep constant pressure between the battery connections and battery.

 

[alexuk]

Yes, I never had a problem until I mounted mine on the bike, then it kept switching off.
However, the problem got a lot worse, it wouldnt work anywhere some times,so I sent it back to garmin for repair and they sent me a new one.

 

[Lone Rider]

Yes, this seems to be a common problem for the 60 series. This is from the Groundspeak Forum:

Several GPS units, and especially the 60CSx, will shut off intermittently from high vibration. This is because the battery looses contact very briefly when it's bounced. Even a momentary loss of power will cause the GPS to turn off. The problem is called "battery bounce". It can be improved or fixed by:
1. Use of name brand batterries that fit better in the compartment (do not use discount or store batteries)
2. Put extra paper behind the cover so it fits very tight.
3. Place flexible foam behind the electrical contacts so they have more pressure on the battery.

It's also possible that the internal connection is bad, something which happened with my own 60 CX. As it was out of warranty, I opened mine and found that internally there is no hard-wired connection but a spring-loaded pin touching a gold colored piece of metal. The metal was quite dusty and looked like having some pit corrosion (burn marks). Cleaned the contacts properly, put the unit together again and after that I had no problems for about a year or so.

If the unit is still under warranty, contact Garmin but otherwise, as the "flat fee" repair costs of Garmin is 150 USD plus shipping, you might try to clean the internal contacts yourself.

 

[Beddhist]

This happened to me when riding in Thailand when my unit was still fairly new. It was wired into the bike, so definitely not a battery problem, but it only happened when using the auto-routing function and mostly if I strayed off the calculated route and it had to re-calculate the route.

It got even worse for a while when it did factory resets, wiping all user data except the maps from its memory. The problem eventually went away by itself and I never found out how or why. I did do a factory reset myself and re-loaded the latest firmware.

Not sure whether this will help you in any way...

 

[Midnitemapper]

A couple observations,
1) The loose battery is the most common cause of this problem, the newer unit the batteries are so tight you need a tool to get them out.I prefer wired power, never a problem.
2) Perform "hard reset"
Diagnosis: ENTER + POWER
Hard Reset: PAGE + ENTER + POWER
Master Reset: QUIT + MENU + ZOOM OUT + POWER
3)Then of course make sure you have loaded the latest firmware.
4)I have had 2 occasion were a faulty memory card cause the unit to go crazy, lockups and shutdowns. Took forever to figure that one out.
5)Bad map compile, mostly concerning zoom levels, caused problems and shutdowns.

Troublefree ever since.

 

[AlexUSA]

After playing with little bits of foam, I'm still not really very happy with this setup. Any suggestions for hard wiring options since my bike has no battery?

 

[KTMphil]

Alex - your bike has a 12V front headlight yes?

After playing with little bits of foam, I'm still not really very happy with this setup. Any suggestions for hard wiring options since my bike has no battery?

 

[johnnysneds]

This will more than likely be an a/c supplied headlight. You will need to upgrade or modify your stator, fit a Regulator/Rectifier.
I dont know your bike and the above may have already be done. If it has been done then as Phil has stated take the feed from the headlight (12V dc). There will be a step down txfmr inside your GPS to convert to 5V dc.

 

[AlexUSA]

Pretty sure it's a 12v but I'll check the shop manual when I'm back at my mechanic's. My mechanic is also saying that the better idea is to mount a rechargeable BB-gun battery somewhere.

Can I buy a hardwire kit locally?

 

[KTMphil]

Gadget trend in Bangkok is your best bet, locally they have the best mount and power options for Garmin units.

Pretty sure it's a 12v but I'll check the shop manual when I'm back at my mechanic's. My mechanic is also saying that the better idea is to mount a rechargeable BB-gun battery somewhere.

Can I buy a hardwire kit locally?

 

[MastaMax]

My mechanic is also saying that the better idea is to mount a rechargeable BB-gun battery somewhere.

Sounds like a Ton solution haha Anyways, hope you can solve your problem!

 

[dellboy218]

You can always buy a car cigarette lighter plug / USB adaptor and then fit a suitable socket. Amorn in Chiang Mai sell them for 120 odd Baht. That will make it a cheap fix. My bike uses BMW DIN type sockets that are a much smaller version of the car type power socket. I dont know whether they are available here, mine came from Nippy Normans in the UK along with a car/DIN adaptor. It makes it a cheap set up for my 60Csx. The mount is the cheap handlebar (12 quid from Amazon) mount. When not in use very little is left on the bike.

 

[dellboy218]

Dreaded inflation, just seen car type power socket to USB adaptor in Amorn for 139B.

 

[dellboy218]

Dreaded inflation, just seen car type power socket to USB adaptor in Amorn for 139B.

 

[johnnysneds]

Pretty sure it's a 12v but I'll check the shop manual when I'm back at my mechanic's. My mechanic is also saying that the better idea is to mount a rechargeable BB-gun battery somewhere.

Can I buy a hardwire kit locally?

Your headlight may very well be 12V, but it might also be a/c which is no good to you without fitting something like bridge rectifier to convert your headlight to d/c. If it is already d/c it would be a simple case of splicing a supply to your unit/holder.

 

[dellboy218]

If your bike is indeed a.c. then you can either fit indiviual components to achieve your goal, simple enough, or, consider the possibility of fitting a rectifier/regulator module from something like a Honda Dream, they should be cheap enough. For individual components from somewhere like Amorn I would think 500B would cover it.
1. Bridge rectifier 5A 50 or 100 piv
2. 12v (or 5V) 7812 or 7805 regulator ( 2A capacity should be enough)
3. 2 off smoothing capacitors 470uF 50Vw.
4. In line fuse holder.
5. 1.5A fuse to fit above.

The regulation circuit maybe considered a tad over the top but remember, when you rectify and smooth a.c., the resultant d.c. is x 1.414. So if your meter says 12 v a.c. what you are actually going to get on the d.c. side is close to 17v - off load or light load.