GPS- battery in fixed unit

[saltyknot]

Hi Folks!
This is probably going to seem like a really stupid question to a lot of you, but a mate of mine has been bugging me with this one for over a year. Thoughts of preparing the boat for this year's cruising have caused it to be raised yet again. Hence the decision to ask for help rather than speculating round in circles any longer. PLEASE could someone give me some answers.
Here's the situation:
Magellan 1200 GPS unit fixed on board; approx 8 years old. According to the destructions, this has a silizium battery (German instructions). Is this silicon in English?
We can't find anything re. how long this battery will function; how to exchange it or even what exactly it is there for. What happens when the battery is dead?

My speculation re function is that as long as the GPS unit is being powered by the boat's batteries, there is no function for the battery in it. However, if the on board electrics fail, it should kick in, so as to at least enable the unit to show the current position. Would it also give accesss to waypoints stored on chip in the unit?

My mate is someone with no knowledge of computers and doesn't go along with my speculative ideas (good indication of his assessment of my owm computer abilities!).

An easy to understand explanation of how this thing works would be greatly appreciated. Please don't give me a reply which requires an electrical engineering degree in order to understand it. I'll have to translate it into German before I can pass it on.

I'm relying on all you electronically-knowledgeable nautical types out there.
Look forward to hearing from some helpful person soon.
Thanks.


<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[tome]

Early GPS sets had a battery to keep the memory alive so that waypoints etc weren't lost if power was removed. They also stored the last position to allow a faster start sequence. They will not provide emergency power. Nowadays, flash memory is used which is non-volatile and doesn't require power to keep alive.

Batteries were usually lithium which has a better discharge characteristic than alkaline. They need to be replaced every few years.

Alternative was to use a rechargeable battery which was topped up by the ships supply. This shouldn't normally need replacing.

Silizium is indeed silicon in English, but I've never heard of a silicon battery. Maybe the instructions read that the battery powers the (silicon) memory??

<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[Twister_Ken]

Not a definitve answer but a distinct possibilty...

Almost all 'computing' equipment has small battery in it which provides a micro-current to keep alive information stored in ROM (read only memory). In a GPS this will be stuff like the almanac of satellite positions, waypoints, last computed position, etc.

The battery is recharged next time the unit is connected to power, so has an almost infinite life, except that they do very slowly deteriorate, and at some point need replacement. I ran an old Apple Mac as a file server for over 8 years from new and the battery on that never needed replacement.

My guess is that your pal's Magellan has a battery which performs that function and that it will keep going for just about ever. My handheld Garmin gave me a battery warning message (not the 4xAAs) when it was about 3 yrs old. I called Garmin and they said plug it into a 12v source and it will recharge itself in about 24 hours. I did and it did.

<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.writeforweb.com/twister1>Let's Twist Again</A>

 

[Aeolus_IV]

The battery is there to keep memory live in older GPS units produced before more modern silicon technologies made it redundant. The memory is used for storing waypoints, details about its position in the world, the time and date and satelite details. None of this information is essential to the correct working of the GPS unit, but, if this battery is dead all waypoints will be lost everytime the unit is turned off, and the startup time for the GPS could be meansured in minutes or even hours.

This happened to my old fixed GPS - evenutally plucked up courage to take it apart cut out old battery and solder in a new one. Now the unit works as it should, and starts up in less than a minute.

Regards, Jeff.

<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://users.swing.be/FDB/centurion/index2.html>Centurion 32 Web site</A>

 

[toad]

As allready said,to keep its memory of waypoints etc.Open it up and it will have a small battery inside a bit like a watch battery stamped with voltage and type ie 3v lithium.Places like Maplins do a range of batterys,the exact size will not matter as long as it fits in the case and the voltage is correct.

<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[colvic987]

the nav1200xl has a lithium battery, in the manual 'it has a lifetime of 4 years' but presume that is without any charge during 4 years, i have a nav1200 it has been working ok for 7 years, six months in box during winter months, and no problem with it , no lose of information, so i dont think you have to worry to much about the internal battery as long as it is not off the ships supply for to long, (1 year or 2). The only prob i have is not being able to run a clipper gps repeater off it, it just shows initial reading but does not refresh, i think this is down to being an old protocol and not fully conversant with the newer gps protocols, i have checked the repeater with the garmin gps 76 and all works ok, but i would prefer the fixed set to be running the repeater, so maybe will upgrade to a garmin fixed gps..

<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[colvic987]

you can download copy of manual in english, from www.magellangps.com
should be easier than deciphering from german, unless you are german that is...

<hr width=100% size=1>