Garmin Montana

I guess that's the confusing part to me. There is no power going to it while the key is off. It seems odd that the battery would drain while sitting in the cradle with no power going to it. I don't have the problem if I take it off.

Sounds like maybe your Lithium battery is not preforming as it should. Does the battery charge completely if you charge it via USB? If it does leave it out of the Mount in a Powered Off condition and see if it holds a charge overnight - it should most definitely.

The unit does not use much power when truly Powered Off. If the Montana is in the Mount and the Mount is hot all of the time the unit will continually charge the battery (very small amount of current) even when the Montana is Powered Off.

Just saw your post above...I'd say you have a connectivity issue with your switched power to the Mount. I would recommend removing your Montana from the Mount when you are not using it.

Cheers,

Sounds like you have a complete circuit somewhere, even with the key off.

It's the Montana or should I say the mount. Mine does the same and yes, it's a PITA. My other 4 Garmin units never did this. You could leave them in for months with no problem. With the Montana, after a day or two it's drained :huh I'm guessing there is something in the mount that is drawing power.

Glad I'm not the only one

It would be worth trying an experiment - my mount is connected via SAE plug - if I leave the Montana in its mount with the power connector unplugged, I wonder if it will die the same way?



This would tell us if it's the mount, or the connection to the bike's electrical system which is the problem.

I don't leave my Montana in the garage, though, normally.

That would do it I had thought of disconnecting my mount but it's hardwired so a little too much effort. And, if I go take the time to do that then I just may hardwire it hot. The 476c (or was it the zumo) had a power option to stay on or power down when loss of power was detected. I've asked Garmin to give us this option on the Montanan too.

I don't think the Montana is ever truly "off".

Maybe, but why can it sit on my desk for weeks without draining it's battery but only a few days on an unpowered mount?

Maybe, I'm misunderstanding, but do you not get this screen?

You have yours wired like mine. You could just pull the mount off the bike, bring it in the house, and pop the Montana into it. If it's disconnected, it doesn't matter if it's on the bike or not.

There are no active electrical components in the Cable that attaches to the AMPS Rugged Mount. In addition, I have left my Montana in my mount for the past 24hrs with no reduction in battery charge. My mount is wired to the CANBus on my 2011 GS Adv so I know that the power will be completely disconnected when the CANBus power is shout done 45sec after I turn the key off.

If I had the electrical schematics for the Montana power management system I could tell you if there was any possible way to have "leakage current" from the Montana; e.g, if there were a "drain" on the 12vdc external lines. But alas, I don't have those schematics. Disconnect your Mount power at the source (battery?) and see if you have battery drain with the unit in the mount - as Emmbeedee suggested.

Cheers,

Yes I do. And if you pick the "Turn off" or just let it turn off via the timeout it will still run the battery down. The 476c had a configuration option in the system menu that let you answer the External Power lost question with something like, Always Stay On, Always Turn Off or Ask me. Can't remember the exact wording as it's been to many years since I owned one :eek1

I would have to agree that there should not be any active electrical components in the cable. My thought was that the Montana sensed it was in the Rugged Mount and just stayed on/when into sleep mode - or something.

May take more than 24 hours to drain the battery. I know I've left mine in for a day or two and it still had power; meaning it turned on. But for sure after a week or two its dead. Come to think of it, I've not tried this with the lastest firmware - maybe something has been fixed :eek1 I'll go stick it in the mount and see what happens.

Oh, I thought Emmbeedee was going to try the disconnected mount experiment for us as I would have to get out the soldering gun or wire cutters to disconnect the power from my mount.

The only way the Montana would know if it were in the mount would be if there were an active component in the cable or even a resistor between input lines so that the Montana's power management circuitry could detect the condition. I've disassembled a Montana mount cable end-to-end and there are no such components. So, the only way the battery can drain in a short (few days) amount of time is if the battery is bad or there is a problem in the Montana itself.

The Montana does completely shut down when power is removed and the unit is "told" to power off. Just like if you remove the battery. There is no circuit board battery that keeps the "unit" alive when the external battery is removed.

Cheers,

Ok, I put a freshly charged Montana on one of my rugged mounts, and let it turn on completely, then pulled the power cable off, let it shut down, and brought it in, all in the name of science. I'll leave it off like that for a couple of days and see if the battery goes down at all.



Don't say I never do anything for you.

Ok then if it doesn't drain the battery while on my desk for weeks at a time without power but it does drain the battery when left in the unpowered mount (which it doesn't know it's in) then the unit is bad? Not sure I follow that logic.

Anyway, it's in the mount now with 97% on the battery meter - we'll see what it looks like after a few days. BTW, the 97% is from sitting on my desk being lightly used over the past 3 weeks.

And with mine sitting on the bike powered off at about the same time we should have a good test

I'm going to have to send you another ear plug so you can have a matching set

Wow, you can live without your Montana for that long?

Thanks for taking one for the team!

I'll do the same. I know that I won't be on my bike the next couple days. Actually, I'll charge it overnight via USB. Tomorrow, I'll put it in the mount, turn the bike on, let it charge for a second then turn the bike off and let it sit for 24-48hrs.