Dead motorcycle and Garmin battery

My R1100RT suffered from an electrical problem that confounded me and the members of our BMW Club. The bike would be working fine and with no warning; the battery would be dead. I installed a new battery and still the problem would crop up without warning. A jump and the bike would be fine. I searched the harness for breaks. I wore out a ohm meter searching. Nothing showed up.

One day I took the Garmin off my bike and used the auto accessory so my wife could take it with her and a friend whose car had no GPS. The friend's car had an accessory plug that only had power when the key was turned on. I attempted to turn on the Garmin with its power key and it flashed and was dead. Turning the key on brought it to life.

My bike stays plugged into a battery tender in the garage so my dead battery woes had only shown up on club rides.

Believe it or not, my Garmin was draining my motorcycle battery while parked because the battery was totally shot in the Garmin and the motorcycle battery was exhausting itself trying to keep it charged.

A new Garmin battery from China [$19.95} cured the problem.

BTW, my Garmin was straight wired to the battery on the BMW.

FWIW, on our bikes any GPS that has a rechargeable battery built in is either disconnected or turned off with a tpggle switch in the circuit if the bike will be parked overnight. We leave them on during gas stops or restaurant stops but never overnight.

I have both of mine wired to an ignition switched power source to prevent draining the bikes batteries.

I have had a 660 on my (02 K) bike for 5 years now. Hard wired to the battery (as per Garmin instructions) and I use a trickle charger about 50% of the time. Never had the little GPS battery have any negative impact on my much larger bike battery. How long did your bike sit between rides? (And I have replaced the battery on the GPS once during that time)

r184 said:

I have had a 660 on my (02 K) bike for 5 years now. Hard wired to the battery (as per Garmin instructions) and I use a trickle charger about 50% of the time. Never had the little GPS battery have any negative impact on my much larger bike battery. How long did your bike sit between rides? (And I have replaced the battery on the GPS once during that time)

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There is more then one way that a battery can fail. The original posters battery apparently shorted and would not take a charge. This would be like putting a high amperage load on the bike battery. On the other hand, a simply discharged battery that will charge will not put the same amount of load on the battery and would probably be ok to leave hooked up all the time. My Garmin 276C will run on its internal battery for about 8 hours. I believe that it therefore could run on the bike battery for days without discharging it. If however, the 276C battery were shorted internally, it would probably discharge the bike battery.

Exactly

kioolt said:

There is more then one way that a battery can fail. The original posters battery apparently shorted and would not take a charge. This would be like putting a high amperage load on the bike battery. On the other hand, a simply discharged battery that will charge will not put the same amount of load on the battery and would probably be ok to leave hooked up all the time. My Garmin 276C will run on its internal battery for about 8 hours. I believe that it therefore could run on the bike battery for days without discharging it. If however, the 276C battery were shorted internally, it would probably discharge the bike battery.

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That is exactly what happened. I have had no problmes since i bought a new battery for the Garmin.

Glad your all set. On multiple cell Ni-Cad packs, it's possible for 1 cell to actually reverse polarity and cause something like you experienced. I find that if I'm having trouble with a battery pack, I may still use it but I keep a close eye on it.
OM

JDOCKERY132445 said:

A new Garmin battery from China [$19.95} cured the problem.

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I received my Chinese Garmin battery today. Ordered it from E-Bay on 7/21 for $13.99 delivered. 8 days from China is pretty good.

I had a similar situation with a dead battery after buying the powered tankbag from SW Motech. The thing used a relay as a "safety" to make sure that mount was deenergized if the bag was not present. That little relay would drain a battery in no time. I clipped that sucker off & fused it instead...