Those thumbdrive cases are indeed handy for all sorts of things.

For batteries I'm using and liking this case:

Tamrac MXS536801 Memory & Battery Management Wallet 4 (Black)

I'm fairly new to NiMH batteries but from what I understand they do require some routine maintenance (run a "break-in" every 20-30 use cycles) and benefit from a good charger with proper termination, charging rates, etc. Here's a great thread about the Maha C9000 charger with information that applies to all NiMH batteries. I'm re-reading that thread now to try and get the best performance out of my Eneloops. Good luck.


http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=145727

Although I haven't heard of them causing any device failures, high capacity energizer batteries are know to be very bad batteries and tend to die quite often, I assume it doesn't work with any decent batteries in it? I'm thinking the what if they leaked into it or whent overvolatge when they died or something.

They don't really require it but its helpful to get the best life out of them. Its also helpful to track and see what the capacity is.
I bought my first eneloops in january of 2006 and have ran an analyze cycle on them each year to check their capacity.

NiMH and Alkaline batteries should be just fine for your GPS. Its the lithiums that they're starting to say we shouldn't use due to voltage issues.

Man, that would really bum me out. They can be expensive. What kind of GPS was it?

So far I've never had a GPS unit failure. I've been surprized by dead batteries (thus the criticality of bringing spares), but even my old old Garmin GPS + is still working just fine.

Ken

I noticed that the Amazon price of the Garmin Colorado and Oregon have fallen quite a bit. I also had an opportunity to play with an Oregon 400t for a few weeks. The Oregon at least still has a MicroSD slot but at $460, I wouldn't call it budget friendly. If I ever get it finished, I'll post my thoughts on the Oregon.

IIRC even the lithium issue was fixed by firmware for Garmin so it seems it wasn;t anything permanently damaging.

Izzy,

Two eTrex failures taught me one thing. They do not like vibration. A 3 foot bounce off the pavement they can survive. Riding in my truck with constant but small road vibration does them in every time. If you think this might be part of the issue, see if it is possible to isolate it somewhat from the constant vibes.

the garmin lithium issue was the voltage was too high so the unit would shut down, so they checked and decided it wasn't too high and sent out firmware that made it do the safety shutdown at a higher voltage.

I remember reading about the screen issues too, IIRC was a connetor coming loose to the screen.

If anyone has a dead one they want to part with, I'd like one to disassemble and play with.

Just out of curiosity Izzy, how heavily do you rely on your GPS for maps and backtracking?

I still carry maps and tend to just use the GPS for occasional position fixes, but I know a lot of people who run theirs constantly to track their trail. A lot of the boaters I know use it for constantly keeping their course set.