Car Dock and Overheating??

[Murz]

electronics do this when exposed to direct sunlight for hours at a time. not sure why it's that hard to figure out. if you've ever had a gps or radar detector, you know not to leave them up when you're away from the car, and that they get extremely hot when exposed on the windshield or dash.

it's not your charger, it's not your dock... it's the climate. if you're on a 4 hour trip you don't need it on your dash for so long, anyway.

Thank you oh wise one.... Its not that its hard to figure out that electronics exposed to direct sunlight get hot, lol. Its that the Droid automatically shuts down charging at certain temps. I/we were not aware of this, thus scratching our head when our phones would not charge on the car dock.

 

[solar]

I"ll have to test this theory out too. Its interesting. though, I never had the issue with the stock motorola mount and stock car charger. I only started having the issue of it not charging when I began using the seidio car charger. Its mounted in the same location in my can, and it is indeed in direct sunlight sometimes, othertimes, depending on the direction i'm traveling or the time of day, its not and I haven't noticed this affecting the charging. but, who knows....

 

[pilot25]

I have mine mounted down on my console out of the sun using a ProClip. No issues.

Do you have a picture? I hate the vent mounts and can't figure out where to put this thing out of the light.

 

[pilot25]

I noticed my phone doing this before the 2.1 update, it still does it now after the update, but I wanted to note that because some people are hinting that this problem may be caused by the recent update. I originally thought it was my Seidio car dock that was the problem, but after reading this thread it seems it’s an issue of running too many apps with the combination of direct sunlight on your dash.

Also one of the posters mentioned that they wanted to get cpu temp readings while in the car. My phone was rooted so I have SetCPU, and can say that normally my phone sits around 27c, but when in the car dock on a long trip with nav and other apps running it easily got up to 45c+.

Do you notice battery temp in conjunction to CPU temp.?

I have only been notating battery temp. in my testing.

 

[clark grizwald]

i always wished they made a device to attach a droid underneath the rearview mirror.

 

[pilot25]

Drove again today 30+ minutes running all the same apps. Overcast and light rain. Temperature didn't get over 86F and charged like a dream.

Wish I didn't give away that Garmin because Droid doesn't in the warm weather.

 

[cj1896]

Does anyone know where the magnet is located on the stock car mount. I have had this problem and have been contemplating spraypainting the sucker white and drilling holes in it to vent the heat.

 

[ViciousCircle]

I've got a non moto universal type car mount. I've put the suction cup just up and right of my rearview mirror, so that the droid is not really in the sun, that made a big difference.

 

[dro]

I am switching up my Moto car dock due to other reasons, but my solution may help some of you as well. This wasn't my idea, found it in another thread. Anyway, apparently you can use any Garmin mount with the Moto car dock clip since they use the same ball attachment. I ordered up this from eBay for $5.50 shipped. I plan to mount it somewhere near my radio on the front side of the dash. My hopes are that the stout arm will eliminate the resonance I was experiencing with the Moto arm. In turn, it should also eliminate any potential overheating issues being mounted out of the direct sunlight. Did I mention it is five bucks? You will need the clip though from your Moto car dock.

This should be here very soon, in fact in may be in the mail box right now. Will post pics of it once installed.

 

[pilot25]

I am switching up my Moto car dock due to other reasons, but my solution may help some of you as well. This wasn't my idea, found it in another thread. Anyway, apparently you can use any Garmin mount with the Moto car dock clip since they use the same ball attachment. I ordered up this from eBay for $5.50 shipped. I plan to mount it somewhere near my radio on the front side of the dash. My hopes are that the stout arm will eliminate the resonance I was experiencing with the Moto arm. In turn, it should also eliminate any potential overheating issues being mounted out of the direct sunlight. Did I mention it is five bucks? You will need the clip though from your Moto car dock.

This should be here very soon, in fact in may be in the mail box right now. Will post pics of it once installed.

What's the name of the mount? I searched Garmin's website to no avail.

 

[pilot25]

IG-PSTARA: i.Trek Garmin Nuvi Sticky Mount


Found it.

 

[dro]

Got my Garmin sticky mount today! Brief review and pic after install here

 

[hiimjered]

Learned of this issue the hard way on a recent 10-hour drive. Luckily I figured it out and still had a vent-mount I used to use with my MP3 player.

Running the GPS and listening to music while the phone is in the sun is just too much heat.

Short trips it shouldn't matter, but it is good to know.

 

[baaldemon]

Happened to me about 4 hours into a trip. Phone was plugged in and 100% charged then the battery went down to nothing and the phone shut off. It was extremely hot to the touch and ended up taking the battery out of it and held it up to the AC to cool it down. But even plugged in after I got it cooled down it wouldnt turn on even plugged in. Occasionally it would turn back on for a couple minutes but wouldnt stay on until I got a different battery, went back to my original battery after it had charged all night.

so yeah if you have the car dock dont rely on it as your only navigational tool because you may get screwed over

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

 

[FunN4Lo]

Wow search works!

I use Maps everyday for short trips with Droid in a Moto windshield mount. Sometimes using iheart or Pandora a the same time. Today I had an 8 hour trip using GPS and iheart. The battery stopped charging and about 4 hours in I stopped using GPS and iheart. I put the Droid in the console. It still would not charge immediately, but started charging after about 30 minutes. I will have to try another location on the trip home to see if that works.