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Garmin help

Hi, not a new member but don't post much. I have a garmin alpha 100 that has worked perfectly until night before last. When I turned the handheld on the battery was at 70%....20 mins into hunt "low battery" message appears and handheld dies. this unit is a couple of years old so I assumed the battery has just went bad. purchased a new battery from a garmin dealer, charge the handheld for 3+ hours but when I turn it on it still has no charge. I know my charger is fine because my collars will still charge with it. am I missing something? any help would be appreciated.

I found new garmin batteries in collars or new collars takes at least 8 hrs. to fully charge. Might try leaving it charging for a longer period of time.

gona try that, if still nothing I guess I will be sending the new battery back as faulty as well.. cant come up with anything else it could be really

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One thing about batteries that we should note. There are always changing regulation on shipping batteries. Especially in planes. As these regulations change, what is changing is the amount of charge a battery may shipped with shipped in bulk with other batteries. Companies trying to go by regulations try to discharge batteries for shipping and over a period of time trying to get everything figured out. Some batteries may have been discharged to a ver low point. Those batteries are the ones that take an initial charging time that seems extreme. Sometimes 24 hours or on the first few charging cycles never reach 100% charged. I know many people expect to see the battery charge quickly and completely. But be patient as in most cases there is a reason they don't in new equipment right out of the box.

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Update

Oddly enough the Original battery ended up not being bad after all... I updated the alpha to the latest version of software available via the Garmin website and the handheld instantly began taking charge and is now indicating 100%... seems odd that a software update would fix a charging issue but evidently it is possible. I haven’t attempted to charge the new battery again but I’m betting it will take charge as well now. Thank u all for the responses, hopefully this thread will save someone else the headache i have had for several days now!

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Mr. Howard you have experienced one of the many good reasons to keep your equipment updated. Through updates Garmin can control and change many minor settings such as the charging rate. These changes are never really advertised but they compensate for changes of electronic circuits in the devices to allow physical changes they have to make to work and be compatible with our equipment.
The regulation that brought about the deep discharging of batteries before they are transported caused several minor changes to take place. It was a year or so ago and as someone that sells thee products it was frustrating but understandable. Imagine selling a new product that has been working fine then to find out all of a sudden it was taking 24 hours for the battery to charge in a brand new product and several cycles for it to fully charge. After answering several customer complaints and discussion with Garmin. The reason was discovered and a need to change a minor output in the charging circuit was needed. That was done with an update and the problem went away. Just like future electronic changes to the equipment, might make what we have today in the handheld not function as we normally have seen it done. The engineers go to work and a minor update solves the problem. When you updated your product you can read the list of updates that have taken place over time. You can see and identify the one that affected the charging circuit. Glad you have everything working. Have some happy hunting and Happy Thanksgiving that is just around the corner.

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www.ConkeysOutdoors.com
"Boss Lights"