| Author | Message | ||
     Zane |
I have a question for all you guys. I have a Buell branded GPS on my 09' XT. Last week the battery with south in a very spectacular way. Went to put the charger on the battery and the neighbor kid (13) who lives and breaths motorcycles wanted to hook it up so I let him. He crossed the positive and negative leads and smoked both the charger and the battery. Every thing on the bike seems fine. I've put about 100 miles on it since installing a new battery. The only issue is the GPS. Running on it's internal battery it seems to work fine but it will not power up when the engine is started nor will it power down when the ignition is shut off. I thought that it must be a fuse and checked but they all look good to me. Then I opened the front up and traced the lead from the GPS mount as best I could. Didn't see any in line fuses. So what else could it be? Is there an inline fuse hidden somewhere or is there another cause I'm not thinking of? | ||
| Reepicheep |
Is it the rebranded Quest? If so, that's a bummer, as the factory mount is pretty hard to come by (and pretty nice). It's salvagable, with some work, but the quest is getting REALLY long in the tooth, it's maps are pretty out of date, and it is getting really hard hard to use it with the Garmin desktop software. Shoot a picture of the GPS and the mount and I can tell you if it's the quest stuff. If it is, you probably fried the internals of the mount at a minimum. And maybe part of the quest. That sounds bad. Even if you did though, I have a couple of parts quests laying around, and I'll give you parts if you need them. And we can gut the mount and put in $5 worth of voltage regulator parts to replace it. Its the contacts / mechanical mounting stuff that is hard to reproduce, and you probably didn't hurt that. You will loose the fancy voice to headset stuff, but not many people used that anyway. So anyway, lets start with the picture and make sure it's the Garmin Quest. | ||
| Froggy |
Is this the Buell Zumo? If I recall right it ties into the accessory line with the front 12v outlet and the heated grips, try sticking something in the outlet (phone charger to see if it still works, also you can put the grips on high and after a minute they should be nice and toasty. If not, I'd double check the fuse again, or even swap it as sometimes it can be hard to tell. There is a relay that the ECM controls to switch the outlets on, I'd try swapping that out too. | ||
| Zane |
Here is the photos I should have posted already. Sorry, but life sorta got into the way.   | ||
| Reepicheep |
Yup, that's the quest 1. You probably baked the voltage regulator build into the cradle But don't pitch it, they are very hard to come by. That is an ANCIENT gps. That being said, it was way ahead of it's time when it was built, and it can still do things only the best GPS's (the $300+ ones) can do. But it does other things staggeringly badly. I won't go into too much detail, but here are the things it can do well... 1) Route you home from wherever you are at. So long as you aren't very far from home. 2) Work in the rain. 3) Be a little dashboard (odometer, speedometer, compass) Here are the things it can do if you are willing to spend about 2-10 hours setting up software (Garmin is, no other way to put it, a dick about supporting these, and their software is a train wreck of non intuitive but non documented features to try and use) 1) Create basically a "magic pink line" to follow that goes anywhere you planned it to go (figure at least an hour to plan a trip). It actually does this really well, and you have complete and total control over where the route goes. You wouldn't think this is a big deal, but it continues to be the difference between $75 and $300 GPS units. You need to plan the trip on a desktop or laptop, and you download it to the Quest. So long as you stay within a one or two state radius. Its a ton of work, even for somebody handy with technology. But it can make some really complicated route down every last nowhere goat trail all linked up and make for some absolutely epic rides. It can lead to some epic failures as well, to get all this to work you need a pretty tippy technology stack. I'm damn stubborn and pretty smart, and I'll have about a 70% success rate doing this. The other 30% of the time something stupid goes wrong and I scrap the GPS routing and just ride. It will never do a good job of "find random thing and route to random thing" like the nearest campground. I can literally usually ride to where it is trying to go before it can find it. So, decide if it's worth it to salvage it. If it is, try and take it apart and see if you can get to the circuit board. If so, we can probably bypass all the stuff on there with another 5v regulator circuit and make it a good source of power again (the headphone jack probably won't work, but it was a mickey mouse thing from the start anyway). Personally, even as probably the last Quest defender here, I don't think I would bother to fix mine yet again. I really like Waze on a smartphone, I'd work on a way to have a powered vibration resistant weatherproof smartphone mount, and a bluetooth helmet setup. | ||
| Froggy |
Ok good, now that Reepi commented I can comment. Ah that is a Quest, and what a surprise it doesn't have signal  Looks like the cradle did you a favor  In all seriousness, like the reasons Reepi said, I'd be looking into a newer GPS unit. The Quest is a decade old now, and while it was a decent unit back in the day, new units can blow it away with functionality. (I really like my Garmin Zumo 590LM) | ||
| Zane |
I don't really use it as a GPS but as a dashboard. The speed reading is more accurate than the bikes speedometer. I also like the compass and elevation. I was in the garage when I took the photos so it couldn't see the satellites but it works fine when I'm not under a roof. It just doesn't turn itself on and off. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Ok, it will work fine for that. Let me look out in the garage and see what Quest mount pieces I have laying around. Did you get a wall plug charging cradle with it? | ||
| Zane |
Yes, I have the charging cradle and power pack. | ||
| Ratbuell |
Does the unit charge off the mount, from USB or the other cradle? I don't think there's much "in" the mount/cradle as far as circuitry. IIRC it's just...the wires soldered to the five contact strips for power +/- and the audio connections for the headphone jack. I've spliced a couple of the cradles into other bikes' electrical systems; there's not much to 'em. I love my Quests. I have an original Buell unit (quest I; regional maps) that makes a good dashboard because it's loaded with a west coast map and I can't find a way to hack it and put east coast on it; I also have a quest II - garmin retail version, same connections/mounts/etc, but stronger processor (still Atari-based) that has the whole USA loaded. North America, actually...I think. If a mount looks like it'll fit...it will, regardless of I or II. They're on eBay from time to time and they detach/attach to the Buell handlebar bracket, so if you find one...grab it, lop the end off, splice on the Buell accessory plug, and bolt it to the bracket. | ||
| Zane |
Yes, The GPS does charge off the charging cradle. Actually, I think once I manually turn it on, it will accept power from the bike's cradle so it's still usable after a fashion. Once I get my move over with I'll start checking for units on eBay. | ||
| Reepicheep |
If the problem is the unit, I probably have a Quest I I'll give you Zane. The Quest II has detailed US maps preloaded, but they are now getting really out of date (2006 or earlier), and the quest II is a lot slower than the Quest I (less data). I managed to get open street maps up to date data as a routable map on the Garmin desktop apps and on a Quest I. It isn't (or wasn't) impossible. But it takes up a lot more space, so you are down to about a state and a half worth of data to be loaded at once. Is the "auto on with power" a configuration setting? I can't remember. See if it behaves differently on the cradle vs the wall wart. | ||
| Ratbuell |
Does anyone know how to unlock a quest I? I have one I got cheap but it's rocky mountain region and I'm east coast. Garmin is zero help. It'll track where I am, so it makes a decent dashboard, but I can't route anywhere. | ||
| Reepicheep |
You can't unlock the unit, you have to unlock the maps. And the locking is strong, I don't know of any way to take the factor maps and unlock them. They are all getting pretty old anyway (particularly the Q1 maps, the data sets for Q1 vs Q2 are incompatible). But you can get and use open street maps, and download those to the quest. I have done it, and they are as good or better than the Garmin maps, and are kept up to date. Like the new Garmin maps, they take up more space though. I'll have to dig up all the steps, but you start here. http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/ No part of it was rocket science. Parts were annoying. But trying to use the old Garmin programs and systems with their idiot digital rights management was a nightmare anyway. Basecamp is annoying also, no matter what data it is using. It's different and non obvious in ways that aren't helpful, useful, or better. Just different and non obvious, so it feels like a passive aggressive significant other. | ||
| Zane |
I think the unit I have is fine and working OK so save your spare for someone whose unit is down. I think the problem is in the cradle and not the GPS itself. | ||
| Reepicheep |
That's the one part of your description that has me confused. The cradles are more or less just +5v and gnd. So it would make sense that it's broken completely. And it would make sense that it works completely. But not charging until you turn it on doesn't make sense. (I am guessing it means I am misreading something...) | ||
| Zane |
Or I'm misunderstanding what is going on with the unit. That's a much more likely scenario...lol. How does the GPS unit know when to turn on and off? Is it just the presence or absence of a +5V? That was the assumption I made and assumed there might be an inline fuse that went out. I'm gonna take a ride today or tomorrow and I'll see how it acts then. | ||
| Brother_in_buells |
http://www.twinmotorcycles.nl/webshop/artikel.asp? guid=YXHFSC&aid=2716&cid=5327&s=&a=&aname=Buell_GP S_cradle_Quest_navi | ||
| Reepicheep |
I'll have to look. I think it may be a user setting. | ||
| Froggy |
Yes there is a setting on the Quest to turn on and off when the cradle gains/loses power. I personally had mine set to remain on when power is lost, that way I can stop for gas and not have to wait an hour for the GPS to boot back up and receive enough satellites to navigate. My newer Zumo lacks this option, but it goes into "sleep" mode instead of turning off so it works the instant it is turned back on. | ||
| Zane |
Checked my setting. They are: GPS Mode=Normal Voice Guidance=Button Only External Power Lost=Turn Off Text Language=English Keypress Tone=On Safe Mode=On | ||
| Reepicheep |
OK, so power lost behavior, not power gained behavior. I knew there was something. So the next question is if the default behavior was ever to just power up when power is supplied? As opposed to the little dancing battery charging icon that is displayed when connected to power and charging. | ||
| Zane |
I went through with a VOM and checked the fuses and all show continuity. With the engine running, I could not find power at the cradle. I'm thinking it might be the relay. I'm gonna go for a ride tomorrow and verify that it's running off of the battery and not power from the bike. I'll get back to you on the results. | ||
| Reepicheep |
OK. We should be able to gut the cradle and put in a new 5v regulator. Its a trivial circuit. | ||
| Zane |
Ran down and back to Galveston to do some banking. It was about 40 miles round trip. I had the GPS on a charger for about 15 minutes before I left and it stayed up and worked fine except for not turning on and off. I'm going to keep the unit on the bike and make some trips and see what happens. | ||
| Ratbuell |
You're running on battery. Cradle est kaput. | ||
| Zane |
Yeah, that's most likely the truth. Gonna run it until it dies and then see what happens. I'm thinking a new and more modern GPS is in my near future. I'm likely moving soon so it will have to wait. Maybe a Christmas present to myself... |
