ruffhyder

I just replaced my tomtom one LE that I had purchased from BestBuy on black friday with a new Garmin Nuvi 200. The tomtom crashed on me and had to be replaced. Since they didn't have any tomtom's in stock, the manager at BestBuy was nice enough to replace it with a Garmin Nuvi 200 at no extra cost.

The problem I am having is that the tomtom one LE was hard-wired to the car so I couldn't return the car charger that it came with. Thinking that it is the same USB charger that the Nuvi uses, the manager at BestBuy just opened the Nuvi in the store and took the charger out of the box and put it in the tomtom box for an even exchange.

Now when I plug the Nuvi into the tomtom one's charger, the screen says Garmin and has a small image of a gps plugged into a big box (like a desktop PC). It is able to charge the GPS with no problems, but the issue I am having is that I can't use the Nuvi for directions when it is plugged in!! what will I do if it ever runs out of battery? I can't sit and wait for it to charge before using it every time.... someone please advice as to what the solution to the problem could be. Is there a difference in the watts on the chargers that's causing this problem?

I got the tomtom charger hardwired at BestBuy. I drive a BMW M3 and the wiring was done from under the steering wheel to the left panel. It's not easy to take the charger out otherwise I would have done so.

Thanks for the help!

Andy

The problem is the Nuvi may have the same size/shape connector but it doesn't mean it uses the same pins as the Tom Tom. The Nuvi thinks it's plugged into a computer instead of the charger. I think you will need to get Best Buy to wire in the Nuvi's cord and remove the Tom Tom power cord.

ruffhyder

yea I'm going to run to Bestbuy's car audio/video installation department and see if they can take the tomtom one's charger out. I have a bad feeling that they are going to charge me another $40.00's to take the charger out AND pay for a new Nuvi car charger... this sucks! Do you know if they have spare chargers that would work for the Nuvi at Bestbuy? Where can I find one cheap and quick that I can take to them to swap out? Thanks for the input.

Andy

Any chance of finding that manager and the Tom Tom box he put the Nuvi's charger in?

dav

Correct me if I'm wrong, since I have a different model, but doesn't the "hooked to the PC" screen only appear when attached to the USB port?

With my 750, the car charger is a completely different animal that plugs into the car cradle and the unit fits on that.

I can't imagine that the Tom-Tom and the Garmin cradle cords could be similar at all.

Am I way off base, is the 660 that different from my 750?

While the unit does charge when attached to the USB cable, calling that a charger cable is quite wrong. It is a PC connection cable that just happens to include more power than the unit needs to operate. You should never have a need to use the USB port while in the vehicle.

ruffhyder

i called bestbuy install today... they told me that since i had the install done less than 30 days ago, they will swap out with tomtom charger for the garmin one free of cost... woopee! i just need to find the time to go up there...

to answer dav's comment: both the tomtom one and the garmin nuvi 200 use the usb port as a charger. there are no other open slots on it for anything else...(besides the SD slot)

Max

I run into this will cellphones too, the port is 'industry standard' but each vendor tweaks the logic applied when _____ type of signal is present. Garmin's 'car charger' I assume has a short or a straight open on one of the sets of mini-usb contacts so that their charger knows 'ok this is a charger' as opposed to the +/-5vdc achieved from signalling when plugged into the usb port on the pc.


Did that make sense?


Either way glad to hear they are taking care of you Ruff . Those guys at best buy aren't the greatest, but they do come through sometimes and are 10000x better then circuit city for that stuff

rapriebe

The 2xx series do not plug into the cradle, they plug directly into the unit. There is one connection that does all. If you don't have the correct connection (correct number and length of pins), the unit will usually go into mass storage mode and can't be used for navigation. It will still charge in this mode.

Max

Oh yeah, I kinda forgot to mention that in my rambling :Q .

Thanks for the clarification

dav

Thanks for letting me know that difference. I want to be helpful, but just don't know, sometimes...

So many devices, such similar names, yet so different.

Sure glad to hear they are going to take care of you.

Andy

I'm not sure how accurate this site is, but this could be the reason the two power connectors weren't compatible. Check out the pin outs.

Garmin Nuvi GPS Power Connector pinout and signals @ pinouts.ru
TomTom wired GPS receiver interface port pinout and signals @ pinouts.ru