GPSrChive Discussion Forum

My battery life bar shows 1 or 2 bars used up rather quickly - like within 1-2 hours.

I have tried alkaline, eneloop and now I am trying Lithium batteries and it is still occurring.

I have turned off all of the necessary GPS functions to conserve battery power and I also have changed the battery setting to the correct setting each time I changed batteries (ex, added Lithium batteries and changed to the 'Lithium' battery setting.)

Anyone else having an issue similar?

I did notice that the batteries fit rather tightly in the GPS.

What brightness level is the LCD display back light set to?

What is the total run time you are getting from each specific battery type?

Brightness level is set at 60%. I have the backlight set at 15 secs.

I haven't let the unit completely drain any specific battery type yet - but just noticed that 1 or 2 levels on the battery bar gets used rather quickly and it doesn't matter what battery type I use.

Next time you see that behavior, reduce back light to lower percent, even 0 percent, and turn off wi-fi and bluetooth (if enabled) and you will likely see the battery reserve display increase.

I run almost all my Garmin GPSr with the screen set to 00% (biggest power consumer), as they all have excellent visibility in just about any outdoor sunlight exposure scenario. I only bump up the back light when indoors or the sun is hiding.

Have you seen the GPSMAP 66 > Operation > Power Sources page yet?

*note: we have not yet performed any official battery runtime tests for the GPSMAP 66.

Bluetooth and Wifi are disabled.

Will try to set the backlight to 0.

I will also look into GPSMAP 66 > Operation > Power Sources.



I'm just wondering if the battery level indicator is accurate as sometimes the level fluctuates between 2 bars down, back to fully charged., then back down to 2.

Which firmware version is currently installed?

I just installed the latest update yesterday, but have not had a chance to use the GPS yet.

I exclusively use NiMh AAs in my GSP receivers. I've learned not to worry too much about the battery gauge, which is voltage based (I think) and not really representative of the batteries state of charge. I just always start with freshly charged batteries, and always carry extra sets - and a charger if I'll be potentially exceeding what I have in spares.

I've found the battery gauge drops to about 1/2 pretty quickly, but then hangs out there for a really long time. (Note, this is based on other Garmin handhelds, I didn't keep the 66st long enough to know if it exhibits the same pattern).

You can always do a battery test and see what sort of runtime you get on a set regardless of what the gauge shows. Certainly turning off unnecessary features - especially wifi and bluetooth should help.