Zumo XT not recognizing it's on the cradle

[Thrasherg]

is there a technique or something that I can modify? I have 2 Zumo XT's and it seems like 50% of the time, when I connect it to one of the cradles on my motorcycles, it doesn't recognize that it's connected (ie it shows that the GPS is using the internal battery rather than the 5volts supplied at the cradle). If I take it oiff half a dozen times and reconnect it, it will eventually recognize the cradle, but it's very hit and miss, all the contacts on the GPS look good and so do the pins on the cradle, I have sprayed Electrical contact cleaner on them, but it didn't seem to change anything, different GPS's fail to operate with different cradle's, so it doesn't seem that one particular cradle is bad. I had a Zumo 660 prior to the XT and never had an issue connecting to the cradle, I was annoyed that Garmin changed the cradle and I had to replace all the cradles on all my motorcycles (6), but to find it's inferior to the old cradle is a real kick in the nether region!! Any suggestions? I generally move the GPS from one cradle to another about two times a week, so this is getting to be a real inconvenience, love the actual GPS (Far better than the 660) but the cradle is awful.

Gary

[Oop North John]

I had one of the early XT power leads & cradles and quite often when riding the bike it would lose power to the XT. Fitted one of the new power leads, and the problem seems to have gone away. So, do you have an old or new style power lead?

[Thrasherg]

How do I identify if my power leads are the old or new version? I have 6 leads (one on each motorcycle).
Regards Gary

[jfheath]

Presumably you know which cradle is faulty ? Check the connection to the power and check the fuse connection.

Does it recognise the power when the engine is running ?

[Thrasherg]

As stated, different GPS’s give issue on different cradles.I have put a multimeter on all the cradles and they all show about 5 volts on the 2 pins, all the fuses are okay. As stated if i remove the gps, then click it back on, remove it again, click it back on, eventually after a few cycles the gps recognizes the cradle has power and behaves correctly. The misbehaving cradle changes with time, they all look fine, no obvious cracks, corrosion or anything, it just seems the pins are not making good contact with the back of the GPS until a few mount/dismounts have occurred. I was wondering if using a spacer to lift the contact block might help and if anyone else was having a similar issue. As stated I have 2 XT units and they both have this issue, but on different cradles.. any known solutions or maybe I am the only one with this issue?

[Fallguy67]

Are the cradles wired to switched power or constant power?

I had the same issue when my cradle was wired to switched power. Changed it to constant/battery power and no problems since.

[Thrasherg]

They are all wired to switched 12V supplies.. I don’t want to put them on unswitched supplies, but I can certainly try it for a short while to see if it helps..

Gary

[Fallguy67]

They are all wired to switched 12V supplies.. I don’t want to put them on unswitched supplies, but I can certainly try it for a short while to see if it helps..

Gary

I understand. I didn’t want to either, but seemed to be the only fix, for me at least.

[Rofor]

How do I identify if my power leads are the old or new version? I have 6 leads (one on each motorcycle).
Regards Gary

The 'new' cradles have a blank stripe on the lower side and the 'new' power leads have a rubber 'line' left and right of the connectors...

This is the 'new' power cable:


and here you can see the 'new' cradle on the left side:


No problem here with my Zumo XT connected to switched power after changing the cradle and the power cable to the new versions last year...

[Thrasherg]

Many thanks for the pictures, unfortunately all 6 cradles are the newer type and all 6 power connectors have the 2 rubber strips (either side of the power pins) so it seems I have the latest version of both the cradle and power leads..

will try removing the power lead from the cradle on each unit and giving everything a good clean!!

Regards Gary