Quest input voltage

Berisford · Regular Visitor Joined: Mar 13, 2004 Posts: 97

I know the Quest, like most Garmins will work on 12 volts using the supplied speaker / power lead, but what is the voltage supplied to the unit?

I don't require the voice / speaker on my motorcycle so I looking to hard wire it straight into the 12 volt supply, but I suspect it may be stepped down by the Garmin speaker plug.

Anyone know?

or10n · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 20, 2005 Posts: 12

I reckon it's 5 Volts.

Regards,

Skippy · Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2005 10:11 pm Post subject:

According to the manual on Garmin's website, it's "12/24v DC with car adaptor up to 36v".

I don't know exactly what they mean by that. Maybe they mean "12 or 24 volts with a hard wired input or up to 36 volts when used with the car cigarette lighter adaptor".

My GPS-V is supposed to accept an input voltage of 12-36 volts and you can get bare wire cables (ie no step down) so you don't have to use the lighter adaptor. I suspect that the Quest is the same and it will run fine when hard wired into a 12v supply.

Maybe you could contact Garmin for clarification though, you don't want to cook the GPS! 8O
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Gone fishing!

DPL · Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2005 10:29 am Post subject:

I believe what Garmin mean but what they have badly worded is that their adaptor is suitable for 12 and 24v volt input and therefore compatible with both cars (which are 12v) and trucks (which are 24v). However, the step down device they use is safe for inputs of up to 36v.

Solid state electronic devices do not react kindly to over voltage inputs. I would not recommend hard wiring a Quest to anything other than a 5v supply.

Skippy · Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2005 1:44 pm Post subject:

DPL · Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2005 2:26 pm Post subject:

Logical enough stuff but incorrect I'm afraid. Having been inside the Quest speaker/power source adaptor I can confirm this unit outputs 5.0v to the Quest as measured with a multi-meter.

Berisford · Regular Visitor Joined: Mar 13, 2004 Posts: 97

Multimeter and 5 volts 'eh...........I suspected as much.

Garmin could be a little more clear about this in the handbook.

Going to make the wiring job a little more difficult me thinks, not to mention the questionable mounting associated with the Quest.

Thanks for your comments guys.

BJ Nottingham

DPL · Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2005 4:39 pm Post subject:

As I got bored with the poor sound quality from the Quest speaker I decided to bypass it and hard wire to the auxiliary input of my car's radio - easy enough, works great. I also got bored with the lollypop (as this forum has now named it) sticking out of the 12v socket so disposed of that too. So, the Quest runs only on its internal battery which is fine as I don't leave it in the car for the local pond life to nick and just connect it up to the house 240v at the same time as my phone. In my experience the battery will last around eight hours on a full charge as long as you keep the illumination level down to a sensible level. In daylight that clearly isn't a problem. On a recent canal cruise it ran quite happily dawn to dusk sat on the cabin top fully operational. No problem. So unless you are one of these 24/7 motorcycle courier types, charge it up, stick it on your bike and ride off into the sunset...

Number6 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Feb 02, 2005 Posts: 18

So I assume the Marine mount and motorcycle mount (out next week?) with bare wires, have a voltage regulator built in somewhere?

DPL · Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2005 7:05 pm Post subject:

No idea. Just stating what I've found...

DEF · Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 3:20 pm Post subject:

Regarding operating voltage for the Quest, have a look at the output voltage and current on your charging cradle wall transformer. It states the output is 5V, 1 amp. One can assume this is DC out. The Garmin likely always sees the onboard Li battery for power.

Finally, GArmin has a motorcycle cradle with power and audio wires (bare). See their website.
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Dennis in Katy, TX, USA

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