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I ride with A Garmin Edge 530 and a Garmin RTL 510. What is the best charging practice to preserve the battery longevity? The Radar seems like every other ride its low and I get about a week from the 530. Should I charge them after each use instead?

Juanmoretime wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 21, 2022 6:28 pm

I ride with A Garmin Edge 530 and a Garmin RTL 510. What is the best charging practice to preserve the battery longevity? The Radar seems like every other ride its low and I get about a week from the 530. Should I charge them after each use instead?

Our Radar's (a 510 & 515) get charged after 8-9 hours of use but can't speak to your Edge as we have the Edge 1030. To be sage, I typically recharge both the Edge and Varia's after our Sunday ride each week which includes 1-2 short, 1-hour rides during the week, and 3-hour rides on Saturday and Sunday. I have seen a lot of threads on various forums about some Garmin Edge devices that don't hold a charge and require recharge after every ride and there are a bunch of how to video's on Youtube for how to replace batteries for some of the devices as well.

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I generally charge mine after every use or every other use. Ideally, we could probably save some wear and tear on the battery if Garmin provided an option to only charge it to 80% (assuming one didn't need the full capacity for extra long rides). Doing this manually to have a battery life marginal gain would probably not be worth the time and effort. I got 5+ years of regular usage out of my 510 and it still works pretty well and holds a charge.

My Varia battery lasts at least 3-5 rides so it's battery is still performing well. If you have to charge it every other ride it sounds like the battery is getting low unless your rides are all 3+ hours. Battery life on a Varia is supposed to be around 6 hours.

I'm running a 530 and re charge every 18-20 hours ride time. No radar for me just Assioma's.

Don't use Garmin, but everyone I know that uses a Garmin charges it after each and every ride. Our group doesn't seem to have a problem with Garmin's holding a poor charge.

I use a wahoo personally, and charge it after each ride. It's just out of habit, as during my high volume months (relative) where I'm doing 600-800 kms/week, I don't want my bike computer to die mid ride.

AJS914 wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 21, 2022 7:55 pm

I generally charge mine after every use or every other use. Ideally, we could probably save some wear and tear on the battery if Garmin provided an option to only charge it to 80% (assuming one didn't need the full capacity for extra long rides).

Yeah, that would be quite awesome, particularly now that we have those extreme runtimes like on the 1040 where 80% would still be plenty and then some. I'm already starting to lose track of charging state even with just 1030+ runtime, that has never been a problem on the 1000 where I did "always charge, unless perhaps after a very short ride that was starting at full". Any tiny nudge that says "put it on the charger, it's fine" would be welcome and the knowledge that charging after every ride comes at a tiny longevity cost is the opposite.

I usually charge my Garmin 1030 on Sunday's, unless I'm doing a long ride, in which case I'll charge it afterward. My only concern is that I've had my Garmin lose its charge, overnight, but that's mainly because I put it on "sleep" mode, rather than turn it off.

Have the new 1040 Solar and I'm charging it maybe once a month if not less. It's awesome.

I'm charging my Garmin 530 Edge after every 2nd or 3rd ride, but I'm uptight. lol.

It's monitoring inputs on cell phone (caller ID and texts - LOVE THIS FEATURE), heart rate, power, and eTap while running some widgets. About a quarter of the time I'm running a map, too. I've set the screen backlight to turn off at 30sec and turned off all of the audible alerts.

I'm more concerned with the side button for "down" that's getting increasingly flush with the body of the computer. It's not protruding half as much as all of the other buttons. Like it's scared or just got out of a cold swimming pool.

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Radar get charged after around 3 rides (6-8hrs). Edge 1040 once it gets down to around 30%. Will only charge the device if I know I will be using them within the next couple if days. Lithium doesn't like to be at high state of charge for a extended period of time.