Australian Cycling Forums - Bicycles Network Australia

On my way to my bike to ride home the other night I accidentally dropped my Garmin Edge 500 (from a not great height, onto carpet) and when I picked it up I noticed it had a rattle (never a good sign). I then put it on my bike and proceeded on my way home - it said "Locating satellites", and has only said that since. Therefore I guessed the rattle was either the GPS module, the aerial or something similar.

I rang Garmin support as I wasn't sure of the warranty details. It turns out I'm 3 months out of warranty, and they won't repair it, but offered to sell me a factory refurbished model for ~$196, with 3 months warranty.

I got around to opening it up this morning and immediately saw the cause of the rattle - the large rectangular blob at the top of image 1 was floating around inside the case. Given its relative size and weight, it was held on by a ridiculously small amount of solder, and not surprising that it came loose.



where it was


where it is

I might have to try my hand at fine soldering and see if I can get it reattached. Pushing it on v hard while outside, while the unit said "Locating Satellites" appeared to have little impact.

Can anyone confirm that Garmin items bought from the UK will be repaired under warranty in Australia? I've heard stories either way. Given the relative difference in price, I'd probably prefer to spend the little bit extra and get the extra 9 months of warranty

Garmin AUS have accepted a return my OS Garmin 500 before

i think petal665 in a previous thread alluded to the same..

i have a low power very fine tip soldering iron if u want to post it my way and ill resolder it for u....

child's toy anyway, innit? LOL

You can always skip the "Locating Satellites" screen by pressing the Page/Menu/Enter button if you wish to ride without the GPS just using the speed sensors.

Richard.L wrote:You can always skip the "Locating Satellites" screen by pressing the Page/Menu/Enter button if you wish to ride without the GPS just using the speed sensors.

Yeah, that's one thought in my current considerations - however it does make it a little less useful when transferring to my other two bikes (which don't have sensors on board).

Dr_Mutley wrote:i have a low power very fine tip soldering iron if u want to post it my way and ill resolder it for u....

thanks for the offer Dr_Mutley - will have a good think about that option.

Hi had you ever sorted this issue with the Edge 500 out?

Just to follow up on this, with the help of someone else with finer soldering iron, we soldered the piece back on. I then tested the unit outdoors, and it was picking up 1 or 2 satellites, but very weakly. I had another edge 500 with a broken screen (yeah, not having a good run), so instead of messing around trying to fix the gps, I just swapped the working screen to the unit with the working GPS.

After this though, we noticed that the piece that we soldered back on actually had 2 very fine connections up one end, and one connection at the other - the first attempt at soldering hadn't really taken that into account. If I had another screen, I'd spend a bit more time on it, but right now I'm not going to bother.

If anyone else has a broken unit, or knows where to find a replacement screen, I wouldn't mind giving it a go though.