GX65 Battery Replacement

All: After hearing that the internal battery was "soldered in" and a special piece, I sent my mid-90s GX65 back for battery replacement several times over the years. This time round, I dared to peek inside, and found 3 volts and a spring receptacle. So, I bought 2 CR123A batteries; soldered wires on one; taped the leads to the terminals (to avoid loss of power to the radio and maybe some sort of lock out mechanism); yanked out the old Matsu****a 3 volt battery and plugged in a new Sanyo. Voila! Saved couple/300 hundred bucks. More money for gas for the old bird. Best, J

johnf_1 said:

......... yanked out the old Matsu****a 3 volt battery and plugged in a new Sanyo. Voila! .......

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Dontcha just LOVE the prudish auto cussword blocker!

Great information! Thanks, John. Is this what is known as a "hot swap"? You didn't by chance take any photos of the operation did you? A photo would be helpful to locate the battery, etc. Is the factory even accepting a GX65 for service anymore?

I just sent in my GX60 for repair this week.

Battery replacement has been done before.
http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=19673

I also changed the battery and have photos somewhere of the replacement. One of my T18 friends took photos of the replacement in his GX65 and I found the photos identical to my GX60.

The hardest thing is removing the cover on the radio.

Curious as to how well the GX units are holding up. I may add a GX50 for IFR gps purposes. I realize if the screen goes black then it is a paper weight at that point. I assume these can and are still used for IFR and can still receive the 28 day updates.??

I did it on my GX-55 without a "hot swap". If you replace the battery reasonably quickly it appears you will not loose any of your custom waypoints or setups. It was a simple snap-in as the others have said.

My screen battery warning was somewhat intermittent, and during that time I actually had some GPS position and speed errors. Speeds showing 100's of knots and a position 50+ miles away from reality...

miyu1975 said:

Curious as to how well the GX units are holding up. I may add a GX50 for IFR gps purposes. I realize if the screen goes black then it is a paper weight at that point. I assume these can and are still used for IFR and can still receive the 28 day updates.??

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I installed my GX60 back in 2001. It has been out of the airplane twice in that time. Once was to comply with an AD for a FREE software update and the other was this week for repair of an intermittent display problem.





I phoned and emailed photos to Garmin AT. They believe that they can fix it. Fee is $500 if they fix it, nothing if they scrap the radio, and $85 if I want the non-working radio back.

Yes you can still get a subscription from Jeppesen for around $400 per year and I have one. It expires in March or April 2013.

The battery can be replaced. (I am uploading photos on another computer as I type this and will link them here.) Photos are of my T18 friends GX65 but my GX60 was the same.







Hope this helps.

Thanks for the memory jog. The battery was an easy replacement from Radio Shack...

http://www.radioshack.com/product/i...source=PG&utm_campaign=product&utm_medium=CSE

RV6_flyer said:

I phoned and emailed photos to Garmin AT. They believe that they can fix it. Fee is $500 if they fix it, nothing if they scrap the radio, and $85 if I want the non-working radio back.

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It would be worth the $85 to get the radio back, but you probably realize that. The screen is supposed to be the part that ends up making these unrepairable. Not my area of expertise, but it doesn't appear that the screen itself is the issue. Your screen could possibly be used to repair a different unit that was functional except for the screen.

Mile High Relic said:

It would be worth the $85 to get the radio back, but you probably realize that. The screen is supposed to be the part that ends up making these unrepairable. Not my area of expertise, but it doesn't appear that the screen itself is the issue. Your screen could possibly be used to repair a different unit that was functional except for the screen.

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Agree. That is my plan.

IMHO, if I had the time, I would reverse engineer the display and fix it myself if I could find some other display that could be made to work. I think these are good units and plan to keep using it till 2020 as long as it is working then I will have to do something with ADS-B out if I want to keep using the airplane the same way.

IF I get it back and it is not fixed, you will see my WTB: GX60 in the classifieds here.

Gary, thanks for the photos! I filed them away for reference--I have had my GX60 in my RV-6 since 2002. I think I have had it out once for said AD or update and perhaps they replaced the 3v battery at that time, can't remember. It's been working perfectly for 10 years.

Good luck with your repair!