Garmin 296
 

Oh not that old chestnut again. The 296 is a great bit of kit but when it comes to battery use its totally unreliable. Six batteries later and its failed again. Ive downloaded the latest software upgrade, but still it will not turn on. "Batterys Missing" is what the screen says. I used the gps eight weeks ago and the battery showed fully charged. Can anyone throw any light on the problem or are these batteries just an expensive pile of junk. Incidentally in the set up menu the default setting for "external power" is not for "charge battery".

These batteries can indeed be an expensive pile of junk. I have never seen a laptop battery which lasted more than a few years before losing most of its capacity.

But it should be no worse than that.

What helps is to let the battery discharge pretty well, before charging it again. This is obviously not exactly what one wants to do when flying with the unit (one will probably top off the charge before the trip) but it makes them last a lot longer.

OTOH you might have a defective charging circuit in the GPS.

Thanks for your thoughts Peter. I thought my thread might have brought a few more replies considering it was a sought after model when first marketed along with the 396 and 496. When I first returned it to Transair a few years ago, their comment was "O not another one". So its also been back to Garmin direct as well. Works fine on a new battery and charges. 2 months later-Zilch, Nada. Pity a lead acid jelly battery couldn`t be made that small.