Go910 Won't charge on car mount

[Philaustin]

I've had my Go910 for about 7 years, bought for a driving holiday in the USA. Recently I discovered it wouldn't charge, so I replaced its battery. Then I found that the disk drive wasn't spinning up, so I replaced that. I charged it up on the mains charger, reinstalled the software and maps from a backup and road tested it for half an hour. It worked. Brilliant! This weekend I went for a long run in the car, using the GO910. It shut down after a couple of hours with a flat battery. Obviously it wasn't charging whilst mounte4d in the car.
By this time I'd already bought another, used, GO910.
I am able to compare the two.
Both charge up okay on the mains charger, (showing that the mains charger is okay.)
Both maintain their charge for a couple of hours without being connected to a power supply (showing that both batteries are good).
I'm using a car starter unit (the yellow boxes with a 12v output, compressor, light and cigar lighter socket) to test the two GO910s on, using the car mount, to simulate use in the car.
My 'new' GO910 works fine on this setup.
My original one doesn't. It doesn't charge from the 12v unit. The green LED on top of the GO910 lights up, but it still doesn't charge.
I read about missing rubber grommets. Neither GO910 has one, so the problem is not that.
There is quite a lot of dialogue about the GO910 and charging problems on various sites, but nobody seems to have found the answer.
Did anyone here ever discover the answer/cause/solution please?
Thanks,
Phil

 

[travelsteve]

I believe its a motherboard problem. Seems a common problem with the 910 and 710's. There are a couple of people on ebay uk who offere a repair service.

 

[Philaustin]

I think I found an answer travelsteve. If I push or pull the 910 on its car mount (not sure which now) the red winking battery warning indicator goes and it starts to charge. It seems that pressure is needed to make the connector work properly. I jammed a ball of sticky tape in between the 910 and mount to push it harder onto the connector and that worked okay. I also tried jamming a cocktain stick in; same result. It looks like the missing grommet is the cause of the problem. I emailed TomTom and they said they looked around for a grommet but couldn't find any. Seems a shame that thousands of 910s have probably been scrapped for the sake of a bit of rubber that falls out and goes missing.

 

[Arno]

This may be far fetched but places that sell industrial bearings also sell O-rings.
You may be able to get something to match there, providing the counter person is not extra busy and is in a good mood.

 

[Philaustin]

Interesting idea, thanks. Does anyone here have a picture of the missing piece of rubber? Does it look like an o-ring?

 

[Arno]

I have never seen a 910 and my 930 uses a standard mini USB connector.

 

[Chris Hayes]

Hi, all. There is an excellent close up of the GO x10 rear grommet on this web page: http://www.faultygps.com/tag/go-510/
I found it by doing a Google image search with the terms "tomtom go 710 reset". The particular webpage discusses how to reset the device. The reset button is framed or encircled in red and the roundish grommet is clearly visible in the photos.
Hope this helps.

 

[Chris Hayes]

Now that we all know what the grommet looks like, does anyone know how to source them? The grommet on my 2006 GO 710 is also missing...

 

[dhn]

Try ebay.