GPS Question
 

I have a Garmin GPSIII+and want to wire it up to my snowmobile uuummm I mean boat. I bought a power cable on line and it doesnt seem to have a regulator on it (I havent opened the plastic in case I have to return) Who knows the voltage these things run on. Can I wire straight to the battery?

My Garmin 162 is wired direct. Don't know why the III would be any different. I had a cig. lighter adaptor for my Gamrin 12 hand held. Took the adapter apart after the GPS unit was lost off the snowmobile. There was no regulator of any kind. Just a small voltage fuse.

Garmin's website says the unit runs on 4 batteries. If they are connected in series, I would have to assume the unit needs 6v. They say the optional power adapter allows you to run it fom a vehicle's 12v source. Again, I would have to assume there is a regulator somewhere on the adapter cable. To be on the safe side, connect the adapter cable to a 12v source, then use a DVM (Volt meter) to measure the output voltage at the connector that plugs into the GPS unit. Also, check your users manual. Sometimes the regulator is wired inside the cig lighter plug housing, so be careful about cutting it off.

Paul

Here is the link to the web page. http://www.garmin.com/products/gpsIIIp/spec.html

It says they run on 10-32VDC. It uses the same power cable as my 12XL and map76 which have straight through cables with no regulators.

I also hardwired the dash mount for my GPS 12 directly to the battery. So I KNOW they will run on 12 volts.

Thank You
Now I got something to tinker with in the garage this weekend.

Chris,
Make sure you don't need the adapter, the plug in part usually steps down the voltage. Im not sure if they need 12 volts.

Tantrum, do you have a battery in the sled or just a stater? If it is just a stater does anyone know (i'm no electrical genius) if the stater's cause a slight voltage ripple that may effect the electronics of a gps?

Tantrum,

Two things. Chris Hyde (the guy that fixed your trailer) has one wired to his sled. Well, he had one wired to his SRX, not sure about the RX1 Warrior. Call him, he can tell you exactly.

Secondly, SNOWCROSS this weekend in Ballston Spa (just north of Albany). I am going Sunday if you want to take a quick ride up.

Shane

GPS on a snowmobile???
Did you loose your bottle of 151?
I think I put it all over Ottis's house!:eek:

there is a very small ripplle from stator type/non battery sleds. Not enough to damage anything unless you happen to blow out your headlight then it may send a spike. I had one of the original GPSIII's wired to my Ski-doo Mach-Z never had any problems with it. I even had a headlight/tail light cutout switch wired in and it still worked great. :cool: It only once shut off on its own when i rolled the sled after hitting a jump the wrong way.....but that was probably due to the bouncing! :D

Ofshore
I do have a battery and the reason I want to go to that is so that I have power when stopped, thats when your usually trying to figure were you are, otherwise its full throttle ahead. Most guy's are going to the accessory wires or even the hand warmers for power (not sure what they do with the Hi/Low switch)

Shane
Im not going to be able to make it but Ill give you a call.

GLH
I would wire up an Epirb in the case of a missing bottle and its Tequila for me, Ive seen bad things happen to guy's on that 151 :crazy:

Wally
How does your display hold up? Ive seen guys hooking up thumb warmers and even a heated silica film over the display.

Tantrum.....i actually had some problems with the cold and the GPS's reaction times on the display.....the colder it got the slower it reacted. What i usually did was take it inside with me everytime we stopped or kept it warm inside my jacket. My Mach had the tall windshield so that helped quite a bit in keeping it working right for a longer period of time. At the end before i sold the sled i was thinking about cutting a hole in the hood behind the windshiled to let some of the warm engine air flow behind the unit.....may even install a small computer fan to help it flow....never got that far though. :)

My e-map does need a tiny transformer. Call Garmin up. They are very helpful. When they couldn't get me the correct cable, they were even able to recommend a aftermarket supplier.

I went to the website to check out that voltage rating.
A range of 10 - 32 volts is real wide. I'm sure that's with using their power cable which probably has the regulator built in. If you hook it up to your sled, as long as you have a battery, and there's a regulator in the power cable, you should have no problems. The regulator circut has it's own filtering built in. If it didn't excessive power line noise would cause the regulator to go nuts. Plus, solid state regulators by design usually have excellent ripple rejection on their output. (I build lots of power supplies). :)

Paul

Does anybody know if there is some small heater pad that could be used to keep the GPS warm?

12v is fine I have had garmin products for years there is only a few models that will not support 12v
the online manuals will tell you if yours is or not
But being a previous owner of that model it will work fine
you might need a noise filter same as car stereo power filter if your really putting this on a SNOWMOBILE :D