296 keeps shutting off

[Robert M. Gary]

Today, I was IFR over the fog near LIN VOR and thought I'd use the 296
to give me the AWOS freq at Jackson airport. So I moved my pointer over
to Jackson and hit enter and the 296 shut off! So I hit the power
button and acknowledged the first screen as usual, move the pointer
over to Jackson, selected enter and it did it again! So I again powered
it up (hit the power button, looked at the Cessna picture, hit enter to
ack. its a VFR unit). This time, I simply hit "page" to give me a good
map view and it shut off again!!
So I powered it up again and it seemed to work fine. Just to test the
battery, I unpluged the unit power from the cig lighter and it popped
up the normal 30 second window, "do you want to run on battery". So,
the battery seems fine, and the unit didn't act like it lost power.

Has anyone else seen this? Is there some sort of firmware upgrade I may
need?

-Robert

[Steve Foley]

I think this is caused by the second to most recent firmware upgrade.

V 3.0 had problems that were fixed in 3.1


"Robert M. Gary" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> Today, I was IFR over the fog near LIN VOR and thought I'd use the 296
> to give me the AWOS freq at Jackson airport. So I moved my pointer over
> to Jackson and hit enter and the 296 shut off! So I hit the power
> button and acknowledged the first screen as usual, move the pointer
> over to Jackson, selected enter and it did it again! So I again powered
> it up (hit the power button, looked at the Cessna picture, hit enter to
> ack. its a VFR unit). This time, I simply hit "page" to give me a good
> map view and it shut off again!!
> So I powered it up again and it seemed to work fine. Just to test the
> battery, I unpluged the unit power from the cig lighter and it popped
> up the normal 30 second window, "do you want to run on battery". So,
> the battery seems fine, and the unit didn't act like it lost power.
>
> Has anyone else seen this? Is there some sort of firmware upgrade I may
> need?
>
> -Robert
>

[Larry Dighera]

On 18 Jan 2005 16:31:18 -0800, "Robert M. Gary" >
wrote in . com>::

>... thought I'd use the 296
>to give me the AWOS freq at Jackson airport. So I moved my pointer over
>to Jackson and hit enter and the 296 shut off! ... and it shut off again!!
>So I powered it up again and it seemed to work fine. Just to test the
>battery, I unpluged the unit power from the cig lighter and it popped
>up the normal 30 second window, "do you want to run on battery". So,
>the battery seems fine, and the unit didn't act like it lost power.
>
>Has anyone else seen this?

I have experienced occasional uncommanded power down with the Garmin
195. This seems to be exacerbated by vibration and the length of time
the batteries have been installed in the GPS.

I diagnosed the cause to be poor connection among the 6 batteries.
Cleaning the connections (by rubbing the ends of the batteries against
cotton cloth) often improved power stability, but didn't eliminate the
problem. The installation of a 0.05 Mfd. Tantalum capacitor across
the GPS power terminals has now caused this nuisance to be a non
issue.

It worked for me. YMMV.

[[email protected]]

Steve Foley wrote:
> I think this is caused by the second to most recent firmware upgrade.
>
> V 3.0 had problems that were fixed in 3.1
>
>

Yep, that's likely what the problem is. V3.0 was released in Nov or
Dec of last year and I know of several people who had that exact
problem after installing it (power off when moving cursor). V3.1 was
released 12 days ago and is supposed to fix the problem. I haven't
yet heard from anyone who has upgraded to V3.1, so I guess you'll have
to take Garmin's word for it.

John Galban=====>N4BQ (PA28-180)

[aluckyguess]

I upgraded my 296 seems to work fine. I never had a problem anyhow. I did
lose all saved information in the unit. Its makes it like new.
"Larry Dighera" > wrote in message
...
> On 18 Jan 2005 16:31:18 -0800, "Robert M. Gary" >
> wrote in . com>::
>
>>... thought I'd use the 296
>>to give me the AWOS freq at Jackson airport. So I moved my pointer over
>>to Jackson and hit enter and the 296 shut off! ... and it shut off again!!
>>So I powered it up again and it seemed to work fine. Just to test the
>>battery, I unpluged the unit power from the cig lighter and it popped
>>up the normal 30 second window, "do you want to run on battery". So,
>>the battery seems fine, and the unit didn't act like it lost power.
>>
>>Has anyone else seen this?
>
> I have experienced occasional uncommanded power down with the Garmin
> 195. This seems to be exacerbated by vibration and the length of time
> the batteries have been installed in the GPS.
>
> I diagnosed the cause to be poor connection among the 6 batteries.
> Cleaning the connections (by rubbing the ends of the batteries against
> cotton cloth) often improved power stability, but didn't eliminate the
> problem. The installation of a 0.05 Mfd. Tantalum capacitor across
> the GPS power terminals has now caused this nuisance to be a non
> issue.
>
> It worked for me. YMMV.
>
>
>
>

[Cockpit Colin]

> I upgraded my 296 seems to work fine. I never had a problem anyhow. I did
> lose all saved information in the unit. Its makes it like new.

I was going to mention this - you beat me to it.

The last 2 updates have reset all of my customised fields etc - so might pay
to take a note of them before upgrading.