PDA GPS power issues (i.trek Mouse)

Mark Morissette wrote:

Hello everyone.. I've posted this question in a few different NG's
and forums, so appologies in advance for anyone reading it again.

Anyow..

I have a Sony Clie TJ25 Palm-OS PDA that I recently purchased an
i.trek mouse GPS receiver for from Semsons & Co. in the USA. I'm
located in Canada, myself...if that matters.

Anyhow, I plan on using the GPS mainly for general-aviation navigation
as well as the odd Geocaching adventure.

However, I have discovered a problem - The i.trek unit will *not* work
unless the cigarette lighter power plug (Which is part of the PDA to
GPS interface cable) is plugged in. I didn't know this ahead of
time.

Is the GPS you have the one described on:
http://www.semsons.com/itmousgpsrec.html

According to that page, it needs about 5V @ 90 mA. Rather than mess
with the PDA cable and also risk running down the PDA internal battery,
I'd just hook it up to a holder with 4 AA cells. If you'll use it quite
a bit then NiMH rechargeables would be the best bet and a set of 2300
mA-hr cells would power it for over 24 hours.

Hi Peter;

Is the GPS you have the one described on:
http://www.semsons.com/itmousgpsrec.html

That's the one..just received it a few days ago. For anyone
interested, I had excellent service from that Company, highly
recommended.

I just wish that they would clearly note on the page for that unit
that when used with the included PDA connector, it *requires* that the
cigarette lighter be plugged-in for the GPS to function. :-)

According to that page, it needs about 5V @ 90 mA. Rather than mess
with the PDA cable and also risk running down the PDA internal battery,
I'd just hook it up to a holder with 4 AA cells. If you'll use it quite
a bit then NiMH rechargeables would be the best bet and a set of 2300
mA-hr cells would power it for over 24 hours.

Hmmm....excellent idea. I have about 48 NiMH AA's around the house,
ranging from 1800 to 2100 mA-hr's...so that would work.

The majority of my flights are 1hr each way, so that would fit the
bill...and extra cells are easy to carry in the flightbag.

I intend to carry the PDA charger with me during flights, so if
required, I can plug-in at point-b to recharge before the return.. My
Sony unit does charge fairly quickly.

Regardless, I would *still* like to sort out a way to power the GPS
directly from the PDA on occasion, as like I mentioned, carrying
around another battery pack (Even a small 4AA pack, admittedly)
becomes more cumbersome.

From experience, the PDA will run for 6 to 7 hours with active use,
and full backlighting - it has a great (and replaceable) Lithium-Ion
battery. I can't immagine that even with a 90 mAh draw from the GPS
that it would seriously impact the battery life beyond a still
functional time for my needs.

Thanks for pointing out that the GPS's voltage requirements are
mentioned right there on the dealers page, however.. I failed to
notice that - I've been looking for that exact information for a few
days now (in order to sort something out to solve this problem), and
believe it or not it's actually not included with the unit itself, nor
could I find it anywhere else.

Silly me, never thought to check right back at the source.. :-)