720/730 920/930 Battery Replacement Tutorial - Discussion

[dhn]

Excellent work, Sage!! Glad to see you back.

 

[sdb]

Thanks Canderson. I made one small change to your battey removal procedure. I found this very simple.
The original battery has a black label with the specs that is a 2 piece , a bottom and a top. Removing the top where the specs are written first , this will reveal the actual battery. Peel back the sides carefully . .The battery then was removed very simply. The bottom tape i is still glued to the PC board . I reused this after inserting the new battery and the new battery was held in placed firmly. I paced the original label on top and that was it. Simple reassembly and I was good to go!

 

[andyjstewart]

Add my name to the list of grateful battery changers. All went as advertised, until I came to the flex ribbon. I did get it re-attached, but on the 10th try. Make sure you have a good look at how it fitson the plastic clip before you take the connection apart.
Other than that, everything great and the unit is operating again. It is fabulous having a working battery!
Andy

 

[PeepingTom]

Thank you Canderson and others for providing this information and
I replaced mine in about 30 mins (I had to go buy some silicon adhesive)

My 930 battery started to go while still in warranty but I didn't realise until too late because it was almost always connected to power in car. If the power was disconnected it would discharge more and more quickly as time went on until it was immediate.

I thought it was some hidden power saving feature gone awry till the answer dawned on me. Searching through the net I realised just how common place it is and I now believe it is a built-in obsolescence and all units will fail, sooner rather than later and those without tech savy to replace a battery will be forced to replace an otherwise good unit.

I think TomTom uses underhand and reprehensible tactics in not offering a battery replacement service outside warranty - whats worse if it is in the last 6 months of warranty - you bear the courier costs.

I'm a Taxi driver and literally hundreds of people ask me what I think of my TomTom - and I tell them !

 

[redswoo]

Well just registered to say thank you. A lot of helpful comments in this thread that helped me not to mention the invaluable pdf document.

And hopefully the things i learnt can help someone else. This post will be mainly for people from the UK but some things may be of use to others also. My experience is also with a TomTom 920T over a year old.

First off the things I used and where to buy them:
Battery: Purchased from amazon marketplace. Very good price(?9.99 delivered) and despite a 5 day advertised wait for delivery the battery arrived the following day! Link Top service. No tools supplied though.

Tools: So next step was to get the needed tools and I found Maplins (both online/and instore) have a great selection of Precision screw driver sets. I went for a ?7 Rolson Branded set as it seemed great value for the 32 different bits for future projects as well. With this set you get t4,t5,t6,t7,t8,t9 among many others that are of good quality, The handle could be better, however its perfectly adequate for this job. Turns out the only size I needed was Torx T6 size. Link
You can even check stock of your store online and they are open every day of the week! perfect for my needs on a sunday. One thing to note is the set i have is not magnetised.

Now something that may be of use to more people. I also decided to have a go at the alternate method of removing the battery and with success yay! Another bonus with the method is I did not have any 'adhesive' to hand so this saved me even more time.
The Method:
I first used a stanley knife blade to very carefully slice around the battery to remove the top layer of the black plastic covering the battery(a sharp knife shouldnt need any pressure). Next I peeled down all 4 sides away from the battery, this took a minute or so, I cut up some clear plastic packaging to use as thin plastic tools which helped.
This revealed some writing on the battery saying Varta PoliFlex on a silver background. Next I pushed thin plastic pieces into each end of the battery between the silver battery and the black battery cover(still stuck to the board). I found this wasnt enough motivation for the battery so got out a credit card(use one that you dont mind breaking) and slided the credit card corner into the end furthest from the wire between the battery and cover again and pursuaded it enough to be able to put my finger inside and with a VERY slow motion proceeded to take the battery out. Another time I think I would go straight for the credit card as it was very easy once that was in. Although the earlier attempts might have helped. Overall I spent around 5-7 minutes at the battery.
With the battery off it left a nice layer of sticky glue to stick the new battery back onto. I also folded back up the sides for even more strength.

other afterthoughts
I left the mic wire attached the whole time. The flex cable was somewhat tricky to connect back in. Remember that the flex cable goes above the brown strip also if the brown strip falls out, it will just slot back into place easily, you will here it click when it is locked back into position.

Thank you and good luck to anyone else attempting this, I would recommend it to anyone. Anyone can do this if you follow the guides.

I have also ordered a Philips Power2Go for even more back up power for when I take my tomtom out of the car or when for any reason I cant use the car charger. Link as even 2 hours isnt enough for me People have reported this device let them use tomtom for a full days bike riding with charge left. Handy for mobile phones too. i will update if its any good.

 

[redswoo]

I have also ordered a Philips Power2Go for even more back up power for when I take my tomtom out of the car or when for any reason I cant use the car charger. Link as even 2 hours isnt enough for me People have reported this device let them use tomtom for a full days bike riding with charge left. Handy for mobile phones too. i will update if its any good.

OK this is an update on my previous post. I have tested the life of the tomtom with calculating 3 destinations, demo routes permanantly running, sound low and navigating menu a little, also to note I had no power saving features enabled such as turn off inbetween instructions.

It lasted just over 2 hours 30 minutes.

Next I plugged in the fully charged power2Go SCE4430/05 and did the same test with the tomtom on an empty battery. This time I calculated 4 different routes and all settings the same as before. The Tomtom stayed on for 4hours 50 minutes. Quite good I thought. Which means you could use the tomtom for up to 7 hours and 20 minutes non stop with out the need for plugging it in.

I imagine with power saving features enabled you could really go for a lot longer than this.

Also I am very impressed with the Power2Go build quality, and its a lot lighter and smaller than I expected. So for anyone looking to improve the battery life of tomtom or other small electrical device(as it works with mostly everything) even further, this is the one I would highly recommend.

 

[jimmyt5]

I have a Go 920. Can someone tell me the size I need TORX to remove the two screws on back???

 

[mikealder]

T6 will fit the screws on the back and the screws that are used to secure the PCB - Mike

 

[jimmyt5]

Thanks Mike, you are always most helpful...............

 

[jaykitz]

TomTom 730 Battery

Find at the link specified a full, gory and detailed explanation of where you can procure a battery for your 720/730 920/930 unit, and how to disassemble the unit and install the new battery.

If you find anything unclear about it, or have questions, feel free to ask here or PM me. Sorry about the quality of a couple of the photos -- I wasn't working with much light, so the depth of field wasn't what it could have been on some of the tight shots.

Please advise if there are ever any problems with that link. File type is PDF.

Click here -> TomTom GO x20.pdfhttp://www.mediafire.com/?dimzs2snfm3

Candice,

Batteryship has a battery for the 730. The battery that you posted goes to the 920 and is more expensive. Is the 920 battery different? Last Longer? Do you know what the difference is?

Thanks,

Jay

 

[canderson]

Candice,

Batteryship has a battery for the 730. The battery that you posted goes to the 920 and is more expensive. Is the 920 battery different? Last Longer? Do you know what the difference is?

Thanks,

Jay

Candice? Boy, is my wife ever going to be surprised!

The original battery I was employing in the 720 R&R project was the one that Batteryship originally showed (P/N AHL03713100) for the 920/930 and 720/730 which is why I originally posted that number. I have no idea why they made the change.

http://www.batteryship.com/htmlos/htmlos.cgi/07426.4.1160256179310328454 P/N 1697461
is now shown at Batteryship for the 530, 630, 720, 730, 740, 930, 940 models. I don't know why they specify a different battery only for the 920.

They now show this one only for the 920 TomTom GO 920 Battery for some reason. The P/N AHL03713100 certainly fits the other models -- it's in my 720 now. Perhaps the leads are just a tiny bit longer for this one?

Whatever ... the capacity and voltage is identical, as is the 3 pin plug on the end. Go with the P/N 1697461 and save a couple of bucks.

 

[jaykitz]

TomTom 730 Battery

Candice? Boy, is my wife ever going to be surprised!

The original battery I was employing in the 720 R&R project was the one that Batteryship originally showed (P/N AHL03713100) for the 920/930 and 720/730 which is why I originally posted that number. I have no idea why they made the change.

http://www.batteryship.com/htmlos/htmlos.cgi/07426.4.1160256179310328454 P/N 1697461
is now shown at Batteryship for the 530, 630, 720, 730, 740, 930, 940 models. I don't know why they specify a different battery only for the 920.

They now show this one only for the 920 TomTom GO 920 Battery for some reason. The P/N AHL03713100 certainly fits the other models -- it's in my 720 now. Perhaps the leads are just a tiny bit longer for this one?

Whatever ... the capacity and voltage is identical, as is the 3 pin plug on the end. Go with the P/N 1697461 and save a couple of bucks.

Canderson,

Please accept my apology. I really appreciate your help.

Humbly,

Jay

 

[yur_maker]

Your Link is full of adds and spyware...............
what are you making a couple bucks off routing peeps to these sites.

 

[dhn]

There is nothing wrong with the link. If you are getting spyware, it's from another source.

 

[canderson]

Your Link is full of adds and spyware...............
what are you making a couple bucks off routing peeps to these sites.

Neither the mediafire link to the instructions nor the two links to batteryship.com have any problems. I suppose it would help if you'd mention which link you're talking about.

 

[GarCor]

Candice? Boy, is my wife ever going to be surprised!

The original battery I was employing in the 720 R&R project was the one that Batteryship originally showed (P/N AHL03713100) for the 920/930 and 720/730 which is why I originally posted that number. I have no idea why they made the change.

http://www.batteryship.com/htmlos/htmlos.cgi/07426.4.1160256179310328454 P/N 1697461
is now shown at Batteryship for the 530, 630, 720, 730, 740, 930, 940 models. I don't know why they specify a different battery only for the 920.

They now show this one only for the 920 TomTom GO 920 Battery for some reason. The P/N AHL03713100 certainly fits the other models -- it's in my 720 now. Perhaps the leads are just a tiny bit longer for this one?

Whatever ... the capacity and voltage is identical, as is the 3 pin plug on the end. Go with the P/N 1697461 and save a couple of bucks.

I don't pretend to know the difference between the 920 and 930 battery's as you say they both fit ?? all I can say is that I ordered a replacement battery for my 920 and at first I thought they were all the same and I figured why not order the one for the 720 etc etc. then I was talking to the rep and they told me that was the wrong battery for the 920 so for a couple of $$ more I went with what they suggested.
After installing and charging the battery in my 920 I was able to get over three hrs out of a charge.and that is at least a hour longer than I would get when my 920 was new.

 

[flyingFajita]

Battery bypass

Hi,

Thanks for the excellent tutorial. My GO730 fried and after ordering a replacement, got the new battery installed with no issues.

That's when it got weird: I charged the unit via USB as usual. About three hours into the charge I had it turned on and was changing settings when it powered off hard. Now the green light comes on when USB is plugged in but the GPS won't power up.

The first battery shorted out while plugged into a bad power cable. I don't want to buy a third one and have the same thing happen again.

Is there a way to bypass the battery pack altogether? Running only plugged in is better than a totally dead GPS.

Is there any way to solder the three-lead battery connector into a jumper? Has anyone successfully bypassed the battery?

Thanks!
Jeff

 

[mikealder]

It should be possible to bypass the battery but you will need a car charger that can provide 3,7V DC probably the safe way will be to make a power addaptor using a DC to DC converter with the output carefully adjusted to 3,7V - Mike

 

[chilegirl]

Great directions until reinserting ribbon... any easy way

What great instructions.

I got everything removed, inserted (reused double sided sticky tape on battery) and have put things back until... I got to the ribbon.

Any special and easy way to insert the ribbon and lock it down?
I've tried several times and failed.

Thanks,

 

[chilegirl]

About that ribbon reconnection

Now I know why they use black tape!

After I put my Tomtom down for a while, I relaxed and managed to get it working.