XT coming next week

[Peobody]

Only if you use a charging-only cable. I found that out the hard way when I put my XT in the car for a road trip only to discover that it wasn't charging. I was using the miniUSB cable that I used in the house with an AC charger. I had to replace it with a charging-only cable for use in the car.

FWIW, I have had a couple of occasions where my XT appeared dead (would not boot). Leaving in connected to an AC charger overnight resurrected it. That I what I did when I first received it too, although I don't recall whether it had residual power. Under normal circumstances, when you plug it into AC power, the screen will turn on and display a message that it is charging. So my recommendation is to plug it into the AC charger that you have and let it sit overnight. If no joy in the morning, move on to plan B. I don't have any suggestions on what that should be.

[twowheelstom]

Only if you use a charging-only cable. I found that out the hard way when I put my XT in the car for a road trip only to discover that it wasn't charging. I was using the miniUSB cable that I used in the house with an AC charger. I had to replace it with a charging-only cable for use in the car.

that's what I have, a miniUSB cable that is from the box items when I had a zumo 550, I use this miniUSB cable now for my old nuvi when connecting the nuvi to computer for file transfer. Will I need a charging-only miniUSB cable for the XT on AC 2.1A charger?

[twowheelstom]

I checked my miniUSB to USB-A cable and it says 28AWG/1P+ 24AWG/2C, google says it's rated for 0.577 Amps ? maybe that's too small a wire for charging the XT, will need 1.5amps for charging which is minimum 20AWG wire?

[Rofor]

so buying a car mount and plugging miniUSB into XT and cigarette converter into 12v battery would be same as XT on bike cradle charge? looks like it would be the same thing for XT battery charging

Not really - it seems, that the Zumo XT, is doing something a little different, when it's loading from the bike cradle than from the usb port!

Many people stated, that their Zumo XT was 'dead-on-arrival' with an empty battery, when they get him and they were mostly not able to charge him with any other source than the bike cradle!

If you will get such a 'dead' Zumo XT, the best is to take a car- or motorcycle-battery, wire the bike mount to it and let the Zumo XT in the cradle until it starts up (and a few hours longer) - as i stated before, the Zumo XT only charges, when it is 'on' or when it is in 'standby'. There is no(!) charging when it is in complete 'off' mode...

One important thing - the Zumo XT has two off-stages:

When it lost power from the cradle or you press shortly the Power button, it enters only a stand-by mode and did not(!) turn off - in this standby-mode the battery only lasts for a few days.

The only way to really shut down the Zumo XT is with a long(!) press of the power button - after a few seconds a choice box will be displayed if you really want to shut down the Zumo XT. You have to press 'Yes' and than it will be really turned off completely. In this shut-down-mode the battery will also lost a minimum off charge, but you should be good for a few months.

For the other things regarding the Zumo XT: I also would agree to what @FrankB mentioned - only activate Garmin Explore, when you really need it! Best is, to skip it completely when setting up the Zumo XT and(!) the Garmin Drive app!

All other things regarding the Zumo XT, the Garmin Drive app and Basecamp are perfectly explained in the really great 'User Manual' from the user @jfheath, which is readable here in the forum under this link: viewtopic.php?t=1464

[Peobody]

The cable I use in the car is 18AWG. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B096Z ... UTF8&psc=1

The problem with other cables is not that they won't charge, it's that they don't provide enough power to run the device, at least not at 100% brightness, causing the device to draw on its battery. When charging at home with an AC charger, the device should be in standby mode so all power goes to charging.

[twowheelstom]

Not really - it seems, that the Zumo XT, is doing something a little different, when it's loading from the bike cradle than from the usb port!

If you will get such a 'dead' Zumo XT, the best is to take a car- or motorcycle-battery, wire the bike mount to it and let the Zumo XT in the cradle until it starts up (and a few hours longer) - as i stated before, the Zumo XT only charges, when it is 'on' or when it is in 'standby'.

I suspect that the XT new in a box for months will arrive with a dead battery. I would be surprised if it's not dead.

When charging at home with an AC charger, the device should be in standby mode so all power goes to charging.

I checked my new AC wall charger, it's dual USB-A, 5V 2.1 amps output.

I am assuming that doing either bike cradle charging -or- AC wall charging are both valid options?. Thanks for comments.

[Oop North John]

I've not used my XT for a while so just put it on charge, with a wall mounted charger that shows the amps being supplied, and it was taking over two, but the screen was still flickering a bit.

So I went to the navigating screen, selected the speed tb to open up the trip info status, and pressed on the speed area for about 10 seconds to bring up the developer etc screens. I found under the PRSC (Power Source?) it gave loads of info, which has been mentioned in previous posts, but see that it includes whether the external power source is adequate which is mighty helpful, especially if the XT2 includes it.

On a side note, the same screen is available with the 595, but couldn't find it on my 590.

[twowheelstom]

So I went to the navigating screen, selected the speed tb to open up the trip info status, and pressed on the speed area for about 10 seconds to bring up the developer etc screens. I found under the PRSC (Power Source?) it gave loads of info, which has been mentioned in previous posts, but see that it includes whether the external power source is adequate which is mighty helpful,

I don't think I need to do the developer screen and Power Source view thing, it sounds complicated, because some google page I was viewing said that any battery will charge up even if the amps draw is near zero, the only factor there it said is the time it takes. all this is make me think that faster is better, but that google page says not really, a battery will charge up even is the amps is at 0.5, messing with developers section sounds risky to an XT newbie lol,

[Oop North John]

So I went to the navigating screen, selected the speed tb to open up the trip info status, and pressed on the speed area for about 10 seconds to bring up the developer etc screens. I found under the PRSC (Power Source?) it gave loads of info, which has been mentioned in previous posts, but see that it includes whether the external power source is adequate which is mighty helpful,

I don't think I need to do the developer screen and Power Source view thing, it sounds complicated, because some google page I was viewing said that any battery will charge up even if the amps draw is near zero, the only factor there it said is the time it takes. all this is make me think that faster is better, but that google page says not really, a battery will charge up even is the amps is at 0.5, messing with developers section sounds risky to an XT newbie lol,

It's an information page. The XT2 owners had a barrel of fun when Garmin did an "update" that would only let powerful enough chargers say they were charging the unit.

[twowheelstom]

sounds like a few days ago when I frightened by a message on my car nuvi screen when I was charging it up to a car battery using my former 550 USB-A to miniUSB cable on the 7 year old nuvi and the message said the cable didn't have enough power to charge up the nuvi battery, I was like huh? I didn't continue with that charging method and instead used a 2.1amp wall charger instead, sometimes I don't know what I'm doing lol