Battery Drain Using GPS in Car Cradle

[#1]

I noticed recently that I am having the same problem.  I recently made a 7 hour trip and the battery was drained after about 4 hours using the GPS and Pandora for the entire time.

[M3lton]

Haha! Oh boy.

I enjoy your humor Jim.

[#3]

No humor intended.  I drove for 4 hours using the GPS and listening to Pandora with the Droid plugged into the charger.  Instead of maintaining or charging, it discharged the battery.

[logicman]

Jim - did you happen to notice if the battery stopped charging? Not sure if you read my other post referenced above, but in my case the battery got hot enough for a safety mechanism to kick in which shut down charging.

[#5]

I think that's probably what happened.  It got really hot in the sun.  I need to make a sun shield and see if that helps.

[adiron2hike]

In my case, it may well be getting too hot.  However, I moved the unit around so it would not be in the sun and it was still getting hot.  Could the heat may be coming from the battery as it discharging?  I have also noticed it getting hot if the camera is left on.  So this brings us back to the question of whether the GPS is causing the battery to discharge faster than it can be charged in the car.  And, if so, can there be a fix?

[PJNC284]

yeah, I don't think mine was overheating.  It was maybe 95-100F based on Temp Monitor and still had the charging icon.  I'm thinking that navigation and gps may just draw too much juice.  Note to self, have it fully charged and don't expect the car charger to charge it.

[adiron2hike]

Great idea! I did not know about TempMonitor. will down load and see what I get.  I'm thinking mine might be warmer than that. Will check back Sunday after I have a 5 hour drive.

[PJNC284]

Another good app is BatteryLife which is free and has a widget that displays the battery temp, charge, etc.

[#10]

As expected, keeping the screen lit uses more power than anything else.  I guess the continuous screen uses more power than the charger supplies.