Failure to track battery status?

[epv]

I wonder if anyone has encountered this. My 700i (fw 23.10) shows the battery gauge at 49%, all the time, regardless of charge level. It just started doing this yesterday, before which it was fine.

It charges off USB at about 1 amp and stops appropriately (multimeter shows 4.21 volts), but still shows 49%; it runs for hours and hours until it starts glitching out and rebooting when the battery is down below 3.5v, but still shows 49%.

I wanna guess there's some issue communicating with the smart battery controller in the battery pack, but who knows. The contacts are spotlessly clean and the pogo pins all pogo fine.

I was just hoping someone else had seen this or knew something about it before I go throwing money at it by buying a new battery that may not help.

[epv]

ok so it now notices when it reaches full charge and goes to 100%. After a couple of minutes use it drops back to 49%. It does not notice low voltage or alert.

It is talking to the battery just fine, it can read the battery pack ESN and current draw and knows its a 3100mAH pack. I do hope this is a battery pack issue and not with the 700i.

[GPSrChive]

Sounds like a good time to upgrade to the new 4350 mAh battery.

We were able to achieve as much as 40 hours of run time from the new battery with our Montana 700!

Battery test results are available at GPSrChive > Montana 7x0 > Operation > Power Sources > Battery Test.

[epv]

Does the high capacity battery have the same physical dimensions as the older one? I haven’t found a clear description on garmin’s site.

[GPSrChive]

Yes, they are fully interchangeable and backwards compatible!

And yes, I have tested them (see GPSrChive > Montana 7x0 > Operation > Power Sources > Battery Test).

[5fl]

mine now has the same issue,49 % showing and not changing with use or charging

[GPSrChive]

Each user with this issue, please post legible photos of the battery pack label and Montana model info.

Thank you!

[epv]

I should have mentioned - the battery Garmin sent as a replacement had the same model/part number as the old one, they differed only in the serial number.

[5fl]

I should have mentioned - the battery Garmin sent as a replacement had the same model/part number as the old one, they differed only in the serial number.

hi,did garmin replace the battery for free? and did this cure the problem? thanks paul

[epv]

To 5fl - sorry, I appear to be unable to post to the forum or send PMs, nor even see your comments unless I'm logged out. But if you happen to see this, yes, Garmin did replace the battery free of charge, though sadly not with the newer high capacity battery. I'll take what I can get, though, and yes it did fully resolve the problem - my unit is working correctly now. I was pretty impressed that Garmin stood by their product to that extent, honestly - I'm not even the first owner and they could reasonably have just told me to buy a new battery.