How to Disassemble an Edge

[racerfern]

There is one more option and probably the best one. For users who bought at an authorized retailer and registered with Garmin, call them. Even if you are out of warranty they are very accomodating. There have been numerous postings here about people getting replacement units for $99 or less. I wish I had done that with mine rather than butcher it just for the satisfaction of keeping it in my grubby hands.

[ricomundy]

On the other hand, I'm not sure the replacements Garmin is sending out are of better quality than earlier models. My friend bought a new 305, it's less than a year old. The "Enter" button stopped working after a while, pressing it did nothing. That was the only problem with the device everything else worked fine. He sent it to Garmin in December 07 and they sent another unit (at least it had a different serial). Within a few weeks this one started having a problem where it would stop the timer and then start it during the ride. It would say "Timer Stopped" and "Timer Started" rather like the autopause, even though he never touched a button. Soft Reset, Hard reset nothing fixed it. Then the unit completely froze and the only thing he could do was turn it on with the Power button and then have to do a soft reset to turn it off. No other buttons worked, hard reset didn't work, nothing else. He sent this one off to Garmin and got another unit with a different serial (can't tell if it is refurbished or new). This one has a problem that the auto-pause kicks on randomly even when riding in open conditions at 7-8 mph or more. We can be riding side by side, with our GPS accuracy at the same level and his will just pause and start again for no reason while mine never does that. Now that my unit is starting to turn off on big bumps after about 18 months, I'm thinking I might want to fix the contacts myself rather than send it to Garmin and get a worse unit than I had. My 305 has been a great unit, never had any problems with it and I'm very satisfied with the quality of the data and how it has held up. I wouldn't want an experience like my friend has.

[rpeter]

Hi,
 on my Edge came also to first signs of woreness of of rubber buttons.
What you mean with ..."I've talked with the local Garmin people,you can't change the casing." ?
You can't change the casing or they can't change it?
What if I break the display glass or back mount, etc....?
Some service must be done, i think.

I've talked with the local Garmin people,you can't change the casing.
The idea of using a little tube patch seems? reasonable......and cheap.

In wet conditions I put the Edge in a smalll plastic bag,with a hole in the back for the mount.

[monmak]

I think the spring contacts will always be a problem. Didn't Garmin realize that bicycles hit bumps? I moved the battery wires to the main board. No more warranty for me, I guess. But why would I expect to get one that works right when this is obviously a major design flaw?
Update:
 The black wire was tacked to a small plated pad and came loose after a month. I ended up moving the black wire to the other side of the main board, above the display, to what I assume is the GPS antenna. It's white and round and there's a big solder blob in the center. I attached the black wire to the blob and it's been working fine.
 Update:
So now, more than 2 months and 1000 miles with no shutdowns, except when the black wire came loose last month. I had my doubts about tacking to that tiny pad but it was the closest point. Now if I could only remember to charge the thing before I go.

[surge919]

I think the spring contacts will always be a problem. Didn't Garmin realize that bicycles hit bumps? I moved the wires to the main board. No more warranty for me, I guess. But why would I expect to get one that works right when this is obviously a major design flaw?

So has your unit shut off since you've done this?

Mine shut down on me about 5 times in the last 2 rides (and these were rides on the road..not mountain biking)

[stubzzz]

What a moneysaver topic...

I have been using my edge 205 for a year now. And suddenly it started turning off, first times i thought the battery was empty but when i restarted it the battery icon showed full. I also lost the GPS track of the track that i was riding. I bought the edge via ebay and when contacting Garmin, the-bring-your-edge-in-via-an-official-dealer-crap-talk began... What a bummer, until i found this topic.

Last week i opened my edge, i slighty bend the pins on the display side and put some rubber under the print where the screws are on the battery side.
Have been using it for two 100km runs on a MTB and racing bike and it went well. Fingers crossed 

@monmak, seems like a great solution when mine stops working again. Just one question there.
You have 8 pins, And the first two from the side on are for battery. Which one is the first ? Black or Red ?
On the picture you have uncluded the black wire isnt attached to the first pin but to the print itself. Is there a contact there ?
The red one is connected to the first pin but nothing is connected to the second pin, i'm lost here :-), Can you explain to me how it works ?

Thanks for all the advice here, it has been very useful !

[thosj]

I just spotted this thread after getting two replacement 305's for this shut off thing. I wasn't on this board until I got a 705 which also shut off, and is on ITS way back to Garmin. I will definately do this with my 305 if the latest new one starts exhibiting this behavior.

Now, has anyone taken a 705 apart? I wonder if the design is the same and it uses the same spring contacts between halves? That would go a long way toward explaining why a 1 week old 705 started giving Batteries Low warnings and shutting off.

[timwelch]

Thank heavens for finding this thread! 

I've been driven up the wall by the random switching off of my 305 - I was about to chuck it... Home tonight to pull it apart. I quite like the idea of solving it for good by soldering the battery to the mainboard - mines well out of warranty and the local distributor is worse than hopeless here in New Zealand.

Perhaps this thread could be renamed "How to resolve random switching off problems" (or similar) and made sticky?

Cheers, Tim

[mbeh]

Good idea about the bypass soldering, monmak!

I use the auto-stop feature, and, in addition to the power down problem, I have issues with the auto-stop activating even when I am going fast. I suspect that it may be related to this same set of spring contacts. You may want to solder bypass wires for the remaining contacts if you are having other intermittent problems related to going over bumps.

Mine is still under warranty, so I will be having it replaced, but when the next one starts to fail outside of warranty, I plan to have a go at bypassing all of the contacts.

You'd think that Garmin would have an engineering fix for this, so that the replacement units won't have the same problem. I know three other people that have Edge 305s, and two of them have this problem.

[kinboy]

Just under 700km since I moved my contacts and not one shut off! My soldering job is not so pretty so I might wait till the middle of winter and have it professionally soldered at an electronics repair place. I will see about having all the wires jumped as well.
KIN

[superbike79]

First of all: a big "Thank You" to everyone who contributed to this thread (It should definitely be a sticky). My EDGE just started its new (second) life thanks to your advices.

I'm writing from Italy and have been riding with this little beast since last December. So, it's about 9 months and 5.000 kilometers of riding time. I didn't have a single problem till last Sunday. My edge started to shut off randomly (5/6 times per ride).

A quick google search brought me to this thread and... bang. I found an explanation to my problem and a possible solution. I followed the procedure last night, raised the connectors (the first two, the ones related to the battery as stated in other posts, were actually even lower than the other 6) glued everything back together and used culture to "put some pressure" on the edge.

I was really impatient to test the unit in my usual after-work ride this evening. Result: a flawless ride, nothing more to say. The unit actually behaved as brand new (...and I didn't spare my /frame/edge any bump, brick paved road, pit, etc.).

Very good! We'll see how long my handwork continues to work reliably.

Just a little note to everyone thinking to disassemble and repair the edge on his own: be VERY CAREFUL while operating on the spring contacts. I almost tore my 8th connector apart (BTW, does anybody knows what it is used for???).

Cheers.

[superbike79]

Just a little note to everyone thinking to disassemble and repair the edge on his own: be VERY CAREFUL while operating on the spring contacts. I almost tore my 8th connector apart (BTW, does anybody knows what it is used for???).

Ok, I wanted to quote myself just to share one thing: I later found out what the 8th pin/spring is supposed to do. It is part of the USB/Recharge connector interface. In fact, I found out that something wasn't working as expected only when I tried to download the data gathered during today's ride and the 305 didn't respond at all. To my extreme disappointment, I found out that the unit wasn't neither recharging nor transferring data.

I quickly remembered the spring connector that I almost broke yesterday (although USB was working correctly after the "open chest surgery") and then decided to re-open the edge to check the situation. As I could state, with a look of horror on my face, today's ride vibrations finished the job I've started yesterday. Shame on me... The upper part of the spring simply separated from the rest at the weak point I inadvertently created.

I was already organizing my next trip to a local bike shop, in order to buy a replacement unit, when a new idea struck me. The approach was clearly the latest attempt to "repair" the unit: i tried to bend the lower (the remaining) part of the spring on itself. The idea was to reach a sufficient height, and the right slope grade, to reach the PCB and establish a reliable contact with the brain of the unit. I had nothing to lose... so i simply tried, and it worked. So, if you are as careless, reckless, too strong and not inclined to manual tasks as me ( ), do not despair!!! Try to follow my path (or don't even try to repair the unit in the first place).

I Just hope that my workaround will last and continue to function properly in the future.
See attached images as an example.

Ciao!

[wmpierro]

Hi, You said that your 305 had a switch cover pop off. So is mine. There are 3 pieces, one plastic, one metal plate and the cover. Does the metal plate go under the plastic piece? What is the orientation?

[ricomundy]

My Edge 305 is just past 2 years old, I got it in Aug 06. It's always been a great unit not having technical difficulties like some have had. In Apr 08 while starting to ride double centuries I started having the power off problem. Rare at first, it got worse until I finally decided to repair it this month from the info in this thread. I did not want to send it Garmin for a replacement unit since a friend of mine who has sent his in received what I think are refurbished units that have bugs and quirks that mine never had.

Now that I have joined the club of people repairing or attempting to repair the unit for power off issues, I want to offer my observations which I don't think have been mentioned in this thread yet:

1. The glue Garmin uses to put these units together was stronger than I expected it would be. It was hard to pry apart but I was eventually able to.
2. I first tried bending the contacts up, however, on the first bumpy ride I took it on, they must have bent back down, because I started having even worse power off problems.
2. Next I soldered following the picture by "monmak". It was nerve-wracking, my skills are rusty. I thought I lost the unit. It is necessary to solder the black wire to the little round plate shown in his picture and solder the red wire to the first contact. I did this and tried powering the unit on, but it wouldn't turn on. I was scared I fried it. However, I didn't realize it was necessary to close the shell so the other contacts are connected for the unit to power on. Once put the unit together it did power on.
3. Before gluing the unit together it is important to check all functionality of the USB port. Make sure that data can be sent and received from the unit. Make sure the battery is charging. I'm not sure there is a good way to make sure the barometer is working, but hopefully it is. This necessitated making sure all the contacts were bent up again.
4. I found that I had to keep the solder blobs flat and as low to the circuit board as possible. Especially when I had a big blob on the black wire contact point, I found that the unit would not fit together well and investigation revealed that the circuit plate and the screws attaching it were bumping into my solder blob preventing the two halves from seating properly.
5. Likewise I found the way the wires are run to connect from the battery to the main circuit board was quite critical too. I first tried the position that monmak used, but when I put the unit together they bent and crimped and I couldn't get the unit to seal together properly. I finally ran them in quite a different direction and was finally able to get them out of the way so the unit sealed fairly well. (Sorry no pics, I glued it together before I thought of taking a pic)
6. Good glues to hold the unit together have not been discussed much here and it was nerve jangling to try and find something too. First I tried rubber cement as suggested by others. However, after dry, with only the slightest effort I could pull the unit apart. Next I tried a super-elastic sealant (Lexel). This one bonded more strongly than rubber cement, but not nearly as strong as the original Garmin sealant and I was able to pull the unit apart with a bit more effort, but I didn't feel it was strong enough for the unit to stay together through bouncing terrain. I have now used a glue called UHU All Purpose Sealant from Germany which I have liked throughout the years. It has the strongest grip yet, but still not as strong as the Garmin sealant. I want something that will grip tightly and keep the unit water resistant, yet which can also be broken or pried apart if I need to get in again.

After all this I rode a double century this weekend with some horribly rough roads and for the first time this year I was able to complete without any power off issues. I'm not sure how the solder jobs will hold up. I will try to post updates here over time to say what happened. I'm not sure if I would say this was the best way to go, the experience of doing the work was quite nerve-wracking, but now at least it appears to be working.

Rico

[seilogramp]

I did not want to send it Garmin for a replacement unit since a friend of mine who has sent his in received what I think are refurbished units that have bugs and quirks that mine never had.

Your friend must be in the minority, since most of the feedback I've read on this forum, as well as my own experience, suggests that Garmin's replacement/refurbish policy is top notch. If your friend is having trouble, he probably needs to call Garmin support and have it RMA'd again if necessary.

but now at least it appears to be working.

Good job!? If you enjoy this sort of thing, and are willing put up with the aggravation, then more power to ya. But I still wouldn't recommend this procedure, especially considering Garmin's liberal repair policy.

[kinboy]

I used to seal the rubber cement and then wrapped electrical tape 2 times around as an extra layer just in case (I like rain). I also noticed that my buttons were getting a bit thin and thought this a good idea just

[LoveToRide]

Worked a treat!  Many thanks to all who contributed to this thread.

I was getting so frustrated with Carmen the Garmin turning off every commute, race and training session. I thought the only solution was to send it back to the US for a costly sum as out of warranty (well, there was another solution and that was to buy the 705:-)

Last weekend I operated, raised the connectors and put a rectangle of tyre tube (daughter's idea) with the middle cut out (similar to the rubber moulding that is already there) under the plate where the screws are on the battery side. Used a plastic/rubber specific super glue to suture.

I go over a severe patch of corrugations on my cycle path commuting and it has stayed on every trip this week. Yay!  Happy girl!

Jane

[dougXN]

So you guys that took the device apart, is there anything interesting under the battery?

The reason I ask is that that I use it for kayaking and want it to sit flat on my boat. I usually put velcro under the device by the 305 sits up funny with little plastic clip on the bottom. I am thinking about grinding it off so I can velcro it more effectively.

thanks
dn

[mtbguru]

This is a very useful thread indeed. I combined the two fixes mentioned here (soldering wires from the battery leads to the GPS board, and adding a spacer to the small connector PCB in order to obtain more spring compression) and two months later my unit is still working? like a charm (it used to power off by the slighest bump... I'd say even when you looked funny at it).

I've put a writeup of how I went about it and lots of photos here: http://blog.mtbguru.com/2008/11/06/surgery-on-the-garmin-edge-305/

Some things I'd like to add to everything that has been said:

- I used Loctite 380 'Black Max' as adhesive to glue things back together - this is an excellent adhesive for rubber.
- I used magnet wire (thin wire with insulated coating used to make inductor/coil spools): because it deforms plastically (keeps its new shape),you can nicely wrap this aside the connector and board when you put the two parts back together.
- When putting things back together, it's important not to leave any gap between the two parts (put a good weight on it while the adhesive cures, otherwise the 'lap' and 'start/stop'buttons will become hard to operate.
- The root cause of the shutoff problem is most likely poor strain relief from the mini-USB port to the connector. It is the adhesive that holds things together and determines the compression of the springs and hence the quality of the electrical contact. Many many cycles of jamming in a cable in that little USB port and pulling it out will affect the area around the port and the adhesive there, and eventually result in the bad contact. I was therefore a bit disappointed to see that the Edge 705 has as far as I can tell the same exact design... so I'd expect the same issues there, unless one is always very careful when plugging in USB cables (which is what I don't tend to be)...

Btw, dougXN: the battery is glued or stuck with an adhesive to the plastic cover and I didn't take it out to see what's underneath, but my guess is there is nothing within that plastic lip... just a guess though, take it for what it's worth.

[ricomundy]

The rest of the story for my Edge 305 repair job... I had no more power issues for months after my repair job mentioned here in a previous post on Sept 14, 2008. It was great to ride hundreds of miles on bumpy roads without any problems. However, after a while the sound stopped working. I took the unit apart again and found the solder connection for the speaker had broken. I tried to repair that with my limited soldering skills and only managed in finally making the unit stop functioning completely. I moved up to a 705, but then someone encouraged me to contact Garmin and see if they would apply the repair policy. I did, and the support person told me to send it in for $99. I did, even with rubberbands holding it together since I had not glued it again, and in a couple weeks I got a "new" functioning unit back. If it is refurbished, it is very well done as I see no scratches or signs of usage. So for those who have disassembled, if you want to send it to Garmin for the $99 repair, you are still able.

Rico