WARNING - Garmin Zumo XT hot-shoe connector weakness

[toni]

well, i also tought i was the only one
my first problem was that the xt directed me to a completely different route and at the same time i lost contact time after time.
this happened wihlst it was raining so i tought this was the problem.
went to my dealer, they sent it to garmin, received a new XT so good customer service!
now the problem resurfaced, back to the dealer, his tought was that the XT could'nt be the problem again so for now we switched (free of charge)the old holder/cable for a new one.
Future will tell if the problem is now solved?

[jfheath]

Welcome Toni.

How do you enter your route into the XT.

And....

What do you do to start the route ?

I can think of a couple of situations where this sort of thing might happen

[mrjamin]

Hi All,

Found this thread as a result of searching for fixes for the Zumo XT losing connection to the bike power for no reason while in the mount. It lead me to think that my problem might also be cable-related. In the process of messing around trying to diagnose the problem, I also noticed that the two connection pins on the cable were protruding at difference heights. This lead me to suspect one might have been damaged per the discussion earlier in this threat about the shortcomings of the OEM-supplied 'protector'.

However, on further investigation, I discovered the pins are spring-loaded. The differing heights were a result of one of the pins not springing back to the correct position, and obviously resulted in a poor connection to the Zumo itself. Pushing the pins in and out with my finger to work them a little fixed the height differences. This seems to have resolved the poor connection between the mount and Zumo - no power losses so far.

I'd been riding recently in quite dusty conditions, so my suspicion is that some very fine dust got into the pins and blocked the spring rebound. I'm happy it seems to be resolved (for now at least), but do agree with other sentiments in this thread that overall the mount is poorly designed.

Just wanted to post this in case it helps anyone else.

[GaaGi]

I'm new here from Ontario Canada. I suggest you pop a cold brown pop as you read this! We drink our beer cold here!


I have a zumo 390 with all the same pogo pins power problems described in so many posts.

Here is what I've tried so far

1) electrical contact aerosol cleaner in generous amounts on pogo pins. Seems to work in short term but eventually after a few rides disconnects power. Yes I ride on bumpy Canada roads with pot holes.

2) dielectric grease on contacts both sides. That is pogo sticks as well as the gps side. Seems to work better.but!!!

3) painted 390 contacts with silver conductive paint available on Amazon. My rational is to build up slightly how far the gps pushes in on the pogo pins.


I see others have tried to prop up the pins by placing thin paper behind the rubber connector in the mount. Not sure this works as it simply place pressure on the water proof seal... That stands off the connector around the pogo pins

Since the mount is still tight... I wanted something that would push deeper on the pogo pins without compromising the holder mechanism.

So far after a couple rides it's working. Stay tuned, I will update

Any comments on the sanity of this approach would be greatly welcomed eh!!!?

[Bikerich]

Hot shoe power problem. If you are planning to connect the harness to the typical charger cable port so you can move the assembly from bike to bike, I ran into a problem doing so.
I used a connector from a spare charger cable. I cut the connector off of the cable and wired red to red and black to black going from my charger connector to the garmin hot shoe cable. And I got 5.6 milliVolts out the other end when it should have been about 5 volts. It took me quite awhile to realize the polarity needed to be reversed. When I did so it worked fine.
Initially I thought Garmin instructions were wrong cause they said red was hot but maybe it was my connector. Anyway if you get a very low voltage out when trying to rig it up so you can have a convenient way to move the assembly from bike to bike (for those of us that have more than one bike!) just reverse the polarity.

[Wilson02]

I'm new here from Ontario Canada. I suggest you pop a cold brown pop as you read this! We drink our beer cold here!


I have a zumo 390 with all the same pogo pins power problems described in so many posts.

Here is what I've tried so far

1) electrical contact aerosol cleaner in generous amounts on pogo pins. Seems to work in short term but eventually after a few rides disconnects power. Yes I ride on bumpy Canada roads with pot holes.

2) dielectric grease on contacts both sides. That is pogo sticks as well as the gps side. Seems to work better.but!!!

3) painted 390 contacts with silver conductive paint available on Amazon. My rational is to build up slightly how far the gps pushes in on the pogo pins.


I see others have tried to prop up the pins by placing thin paper behind the rubber connector in the mount. Not sure this works as it simply place pressure on the water proof seal... That stands off the connector around the pogo pins

Since the mount is still tight... I wanted something that would push deeper on the pogo pins without compromising the holder mechanism.

So far after a couple rides it's working. Stay tuned, I will update

Any comments on the sanity of this approach would be greatly welcomed eh!!!?

Eh! Your approach of using silver conductive paint to build up the pogo pin contacts on your Zumo 390 sounds creative. Keep an eye on its long-term effectiveness, and ride on!