Garmin Surgery

My Garmin PDA was starting to show signs of battery fatigue—it wouldn't hold its charge for very long. Eventually I'd only be able to use it with it sitting in its cradle. I knew that to revitalize I'd need to change its battery, but unlike more modern devices, its battery is not readily accessible (unlike my camera, where you can swap out the batteries quite easily). Fortunately, a google search turned up a Laptops for Less (l-f-l) web page with the correct Li-Ion 3.7 V, 900 mAh battery, complete with T-6 screwdriver (4-piece multi-tool in fact) and online instructions (ain't the web great?). I usually use the PDA for keeping my checkbook balanced as well as flight and hotel info when I'm out trekking. Since we're leaving tomorrow, I splurged a bit and got the battery via 2nd day air. Then it was time to operate.

I sat down in the study with camera handy, with the intent on taking step-by-step pictures just like the online instructions. However, while disassembly was easy, reassembly was much more problematic. Step 4 is the main problem since as you take the motherboard out, little bits and pieces starts falling off. The instructions do say to be careful and they specifically warn about that damn navigation wheel. First I thought they meant the large black rubber gasket at the bottom of the Garmin. It's kind of a navigation wheel as its topsides lets you go up, down, left, right. But what the web page was really referring to was the scroll wheel at the side of the Garmin. This thing popped out on me and fell apart. It has a little shiny metal housing that came off. Then the wheel with its little loop-de-loop spring flew out. Next, the spring bounced off and I'm sure would have flown across the room if it didn't happen to hit the palm of my hand. The spring is tiny so if it had flown off I bet I'd never have found it. Anyway, it took me a good long while to figure out how the spring sat in the wheel, how the wheel was meant to set in its housing to allow up/down rotation along with pushbutton action, and finally how the shiny metal piece fit over the entire thing. I had a small epiphany with the shiny thing: every time I'd get the wheel mounted, placement of the shiny cap would dislodge the wheel, which then promptly caused the spring to unhook itself in an attempt to escape. So finally I realized that I needed to pin the wheel down with the handy tool as I placed the cap on the wheel assembly. That finally did it. Once I got that taken care of, I then reassembled the little IR transmitter cover, the little rubber gasket, the power button cover, and another little rubber grommet, all the little tiny things that managed to free themselves while I was distracted by the wheel. By that time I was already slightly ticked at the whole thing and too busy to bother with step-by-step photography. I knew that the thing still had to be reset and resynched with the laptop before regaining full functionality (if the operation was successful that is). Then a minimum of 3 hrs charging.

This morning I'm happy to report that the operation was a success and that the Garmin is now removed from its ICU in the cradle, and appears to have regained full functionality. Not only that, it appears that after this open-heart surgery, it even seems to have gained a little spring in its step as it were, after having received its brand new ticker.