mio p550 battery replacement

gizmoed · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 23, 2007 Posts: 1

I found that slicing the plastic wrapper on the battery with an hobby knife made for easy removal. Once the battery is removed the remaining wrapper peels easily of the 2 sided tape.

Good luck!

Visteongone · Occasional Visitor Joined: Oct 06, 2006 Posts: 2

All this is great guys - BUT how the hell do you get the back off in the first place??? Does it lift off or slide or .......

Help Embarassed

antman99 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jul 16, 2007 Posts: 1

Hey all, i just registered here and thought that i may be of some use, i recently had a problem with my Mio P550 the touch screen decided it wanted to stop working yes fine i did drop it, but hey i decided instead of calling the rather rubbish mio support id have a quick look inside and on the way in (so to speak) i had to remove the battery and i thought id take some pics and share with the world il post them later as soon as i find the camera cable.

mhb · Regular Visitor Joined: Dec 21, 2005 Posts: 155

I'm now in exactly the same dilemma as antman99 and Visteongone but with a Mio P350. I am considering a either larger capacity battery, a second standby battery or else an external battery enhancer. I think I'd prefer a second battery to install if the first runs flat but only if the changeover will be quick and easy, in the field, so to speak. However as yet I have no idea even how to remove the back of the device to get at the battery, so have no idea if there is going to be the double sided tape problem. Can anyone reading this help please?

Also, as regards external battery enhancers, do these power up the PDA or do they merely recharge it's internal battery? If they only recharge it then I don't think these will solve my dilemma as don't want to have to hang around until it is recharged before being able to continue to use it.

mhb · Regular Visitor Joined: Dec 21, 2005 Posts: 155

Sorry, should have refered to lofric rather than antman99 in my above posting.

lofric · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jun 29, 2006 Posts: 8

hi ,mhb
the back has a small screw under a little rubber grommet. once this is out you can pull the back off. the battery extender works very well. it charges the pda up then runs it until the voltage drops below that of the pda.
the battery i purchased came with a screwdriver to undo the tiny screw, but be warned, buy a decent brand of battery, mine was from flea-bay, it was shite.
just be carefull of the tape, it was seriously sticky, the cracking noises it made when trying to get it out was scarey

mikealder · Posted: Fri Aug 24, 2007 6:37 pm Post subject:

Just a quick warning though relative to the post at the top of this page, these type of batteries can catch fire if sliced open, so I really wouldn't go near one with a knife if I were you, sure cutting tape is OK, but don't slice into the battery - Mike

mhb · Regular Visitor Joined: Dec 21, 2005 Posts: 155

Hi lofric, thanks for the info. Presumably, from your comments on battery enhancers, you ended up going down that route. I'm very tempted to do the same thing, given all the problems of changing batteries. I guess you connect up the enhancer once the PDA starts warning of a low battery situation so charging takes place whilst the PDA still running.

Still need a bit more clarification though. If the PDA battery is allowed to run down to the point where the PDA auto switches off, will connecting the enhancer then immediately allow the PDA to run whilst charging?

By the way, thanks for the warning mikealder, as you will see from my comments above, I'm well and truly deterred from even opening the case!!!

lofric · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jun 29, 2006 Posts: 8

i think thats how it works, although i also think that if you are using something like tom tom, it is so power hungry that it probably wont do much charging, just run it for as long as the batterys will allow. i use mine as an extender, as in i charge the pda fully. and the enhancer, then when the main battery runs down the enhancer takes over. i dont tend to use it much these days but used to use it to run memory map when out in the countryside, i used to get a good three to for hours when using good quality 2500 AA batterys.

mhb · Regular Visitor Joined: Dec 21, 2005 Posts: 155

Thanks again, lofric. I'll give an enhancer a try. Like you I intend to use my mio , running MemoryMap, during hill walks etc and I can foresee that 3 to 4 hours even using a higher capacity 2500 battery (I believe the standard battery is only 1200) will not be enough.

I'll report back once I've got and tried out an enhancer, assuming it does do the job and I'm not lost for all time somewhere in the hills!!

mhb · Regular Visitor Joined: Dec 21, 2005 Posts: 155

Well, as promised, I'm reporting back having used a battery enhancer. I purchased a cheap (£7 including delivery) unit into which you insert your own 4 AA batteries. I use 4 not new but good NIMH 2500 rechargeables straight from a charger and put these into the enhancer and straight away connect it to the fully charged PDA. I am finding, after constantly running MemoryMap with the screen illumination on full and no auto switch off, that after 4 hrs there is still plenty of charge left in the AA rechargeables and the PDA battery is still at full charge!! Therefore, in short, I'm delighted with the performance of this enhancer. Hope this helps somebody.

mikealder · Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2007 7:25 am Post subject:

Great news for the battery life, if you are ever tempted to want more batteries than a single set consider a case to keep them safe in, something like This High power batteries like these, even though they are AA sized can still cause a fire if you short them out with your keys in a trouser pocket. Trust me this is/ was painful and I am talking from bitter experience.

Oh and never charge NIMH batteries with any other type of charger than the exact one they need, they can go bang if you get this bit wrong - Mike

ephoras · Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2007 2:51 pm Post subject:

I use my P350 mostly in the car for GPS, but I also use it as an mp3 player (you can fit lots of tracks on to a 2 gig card), when on holiday on my own, and also have several films (you can fit several good quality films on to a 2 gig card) to watch, for this the standard battery is not enough, so following Mike's suggestion earlier in this thread I've got a U2o i-up5400. Must admit it was the second one that worked but I can't recommend it enough, it just doesn't seem to run out of power! It will also charge the mobile phones and surprisingly also runs the CD Walkman. This means you don't have to carry quite so many transformers/chargers around, so saving weight.

Unfortunately it won't power the laptop but I suppose that would be pushing the envelope just a bit too far.

Ricko61 · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 03, 2006 Posts: 19

Hi all,

I'm about to have a go at this with a 2400mAh.

Does the P550 have some sort of internal battery backup or is removing the battery essentially a hard reset?

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