External battery & Garmin 500

[argus]

I am going to attach an external battery to the Garmin 500 for this weekends ride.
Does it matter if I use a straight cable that came with the external battery to connect to the 500 or should I use the cable with the bump in it for downloading the 500 to the computer?
Also once connected, do I just turn on the 500 and leave everything alone?
Thanks!

[Leigh Dancy]

It shouldn't matter which cable. I assume the 'bump' you refer to is the molded-on common mode choke often found on USB cables.

[Steve Smith]

Say, I'm a bit interested in this topic myself, for some of the upcoming longer brevets.  Does anyone care to recommend a specific external battery unit that can charge (and/or power) a Garmin (in my case the 800).    My fully charged 800 lasted for my ride the 200k, during it, but then died on the way home a couple weeks back.   That was no problem (I may have been tired but I still could find my way back to the house :) ), but it wouldn't be fun to lose navigation in the middle of the longer brevets.

I had been planning to get a AA battery-powered unit, per advice of David (last name unknown), a friendly randonneur from one of these rides.     I took a quick look on Amazon and Newegg, there are many many choices, and it's hard to figure out which are quality and which are junk.     I'll poke around some more, but if anyone has done the research and is happy with a specific device I'd love to hear about it.

Thanks,
Steve

[Andy Goodell]

I previously was using a Garmin eTrex Legend C, which lasted 40 hours on a set of lithium AAs. It was time for an upgrade after 7 years, and I got the newer Garmin eTrex 20 model, which still runs on AAs. It works very well for cycling routing purposes, and seems to last a long time on the AA batteries as well, though I haven't done a test of how long that is. I've been using very old NiMH rechargeables typically, which last at least the whole day - so fresh rechargeables or lithiums probably last at least 30 hours in my estimation. Since it has a standard USB jack, you could plug in a battery source to extend that, and some have the power to last nearly forever. I friend even made his own battery pack by taping 4 AAs together, and splicing a cut USB cord to it (for a non-AA GPS).

I also prefer these style units because they can route on roads for driving, and I can upload topographic hiking routes as well. Maps are free these days from http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl and http://www.gpsfiledepot.com. You can make custom image maps too, with a slightly complicated process for uploading an image to overlay over the map.

I'll stop here, but if you have specific questions, I'm happy to share my ~10 years experience with Garmin units. I have no affiliation, just a happy customer.

Andy

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