New Life for Garmin 696 Battery Pack

[Special Delivery]

Garmin 696 Replacement Cells for Battery Pack

Back story:
Garmin 696 installed in panel for 10+ years with battery installed. Yep, the battery appears to be toast and won't take a charge. When connected to the Garmin wall adapter/charger, the unit functions properly but won't take a charge... sometimes displays "battery missing" and sometimes after a few minutes of "Battery Charging" the unit displays "Charge Error". Opened up the battery pack and sure enough, 3 of the 6 cells measured <.2volts.

A replacement battery pack is $200 so it seemed prudent to at least search for availability of replacement cells. Found a match for all specs: BatterySpace.com P/N MH-4/3A3800B Qty 6 @ $2.90/ea. plus $11.39 shipping.

So there ya go... for less than $30 and some labor, you too can give new life to your Garmin 696 battery pack.

[RV10Man]

I had to solder in a new internal battery in one my 295s. Found the battery on Amazon, Garmin "didn't have one".

[XPPilot]

Let us know how your Garmin 696 battery replacement project went.
- How long new batteries run your Garmin 696
- Do you get any alarms with new batteries
- Does replacement batteries weight the same as original batteries

[XPPilot]

Found this from YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUvDmIT_Ol8&t=104s

[Eagleflip]

Ernie--

how did you get the original battery pack open to replace the old batteries? Mine appears very well sealed and I don't want to mess it up by opening it cave man style...

[DaleB]

I've rebuilt a couple of 696 battery packs. Getting them apart just takes patience and popsicle sticks. After that, it's fairly simple. The cells are not difficult to source. In fact, I bought the last batch as an assembled pack for about the same cost as the individual cells. I just had to add the thermistor.

[Ercoupechris]

Do you know the specification of the thermistor. I bought a new battery pack but the thermister was glued to the old battery pack and was damaged when I tried to remove it. Thanks

[emsvitil]

Measure the resistance of the thermistor at various temperatures and you can probably figure it out.

Or post results, and somebody here can figure it out.