Replacing the battery on your Garmin 500

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With the four Torx screws removed and the front plate pryed off you will see the screen resting on top of the board. The screen lifts easily off the
board, it is not bound with any screws.

6. Remove the three Philips screws holding the board to the lower body.
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With the screen lifted carefully away from the board (easy), you will see three Philips-head screws which attach the board to the lower body.
Remove these screws. Do not separate the screen from the board.

7. Remove the Board from the lower body.
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An image of the main board of the unit held snug within the Edge 500’s lower body. The removed screws are pictured at the top of the image. You
will need to pry the board away from the body using the green tool.
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An image showing the board (with screen) removed from the body of the Edge 500. The green bar was used to pry the board away from the body, it fits rather snug.

8. Disconnect the battery (old) from the Board.
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A quick picture showing the battery’s connecting pin disconnected from the board. It just pulls off easily. The new one will snap in easily as
well (pay attention to which side you are pressing down into the connector on the board!)

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9. Remove the old battery
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The battery has been disconnected from the board and lifted off of the body. There is some double-sided tape which held it in place. You will need double-sided tape on the new battery to old it in place against the body. The battery has two leads coming from the connector down to the speaker, soldered into place. I chose to cut these wires from the battery. Instead of soldering in the new wires, I used a different method for connection (if you don’t care for or use the speaker, just disconnect the wires completely and don’t attach the new ones leave them in their packaging tape to ensure they never touch each other).

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The original battery on the Garmin Edge 500. Note that it reads a higher Wh and mAh compared to the replacement. How will this effect performance? At the very least, 600mAh (new) vs. 700mAh (old) indicates a lower overall capacity. However it is also running at a lower Watt-hour which does not affect the unit’s performance from testing.

Side note, I removed the surrounding seal to make working easier.
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The rubber seal between the plates on the Edge 500 body is easily removed, no glue necessary. Removing it helps get it out of the way, it can be
easily placed back in the channel when re-assembling the unit.

10. Attach the new battery’s lead wires to the speaker wires.
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Instead of removing the old wires to the speaker and soldering in the new wires, I opted for a much quicker and easier solution.

I cut the old wires from the speaker and stripped away a portion of their housing, then twisted them together with the leads from the new battery. Black to black, red to red. A dab of hot glue encased the low-powered wires together. Normally hot glue is not recommended for high powered electricity lines as it would melt, however in this instance it would be fine. The low-heat ensures the glue still flows over the two wires which are wound together and it dries quickly. Soldering is nice, but a bit overkill: the sealed unit will not experience enough movement to warrant internal parts moving around drastically, the hot glue does seal the wires together in a strong form, and I won’t have to smell solder smoke. Win-win-win. A hot glue gun, by the way, is a designer’s best friend if you’re in a charette. [ATTACH=CONFIG]7898[/ATTACH]

You can check to see if everything works by pressing the upper left button on the side of the board – this turns the unit on with the new battery (and gives a beep if you’ve connected the speaker and actually have the sound preference set)

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11. Re-assemble the unit!
This is pretty easy: attach the battery’s connector to the board (press down gently so it snaps in place, make sure you have the correct side down), put everything back following the previous steps in reverse.

Here is an image after immediately re-assembly. I’ve powered the unit back on, and it showed that the new battery was charged to 70% from the factory.
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