How to fix your Garmin Edge - Extreme Edition

We've previously talked about fixing Garmin Edge units here: http://nobmob.com/node/7864

And in that other thread there was a link to someone who bypassed the spring loaded connector for power.

Well, recently, Steve01 threw his old Edge 305 at me in disgust and taking up the challenge I decided to have a bash at fixing it. Here's what I did...

Disassemble (durh!) so you can play with it. Here's what it looks like front:

And back:

And here's the dodgy spring connector thingo:

Smash that little sucker off so the solder pads are exposed:

Then connect some wires:

And solder the other end to the other side where the spring contacts usually touch. Cover with tape to prevent shorts:

Job done?

OK - maybe not... just put it back in the case and the you're done

This is a bit extreme clearly, but sometimes you just have to face it as a last resort. The whole job was very tricky, so do not try this if you are not prepared to throw the unit away if things go wrong!

There is scope to re-house the Edge in another box (Otter box for example) and put in a larger battery I think. Anyone interested in that?

BTW, handy Edge key combos just for the record:

- Hold 'power' and 'enter' down together, release, then power on gives self test screen. Don't worry about 'Bmap fail' on an Edge - they don't have mapping functions!

- Hold 'mode' while powering up - factory reset. The unit I was tinkering with here had no sound and I thought it was hardware fault, however, after performing this function the bleeps returned

- As mentioned previously, when an Edge seems dead, hold 'lap/reset' button and 'mode' button down at the same time for about 5 seconds. Then let go of these and try the power button.