Garmin 500

[cccorlew]

I love my minty boost. It's powered my Garmin Edge 305 Bike GPS flawlessly on many a double century bike ride.
BUT
I'm getting a Garmin 500. I hear that the minty boost will charge it, but not actually power it while in use (unlike how it does on my 305)

There is another pricy device that has a switch on it to either power or charge the Garmin 500.

I'm wondering if there is a special cable or some component magic that will let my Minty Boost power my Garmin 500 and not merely charge it.

In any event, I love the product. It's preformed perfectly for years.

[adafruit_support_bill]

Here is the cable pinout. Looks like the 'x' pin is used to control charge mode: http://pinouts.ru/GPS/garmin_nuvi_power_pinout.shtml

[edit]
This would be the deal-breaker for the minty.

Nuvi requires 1000mA for simultaneous charging + GPS operation [many 'generic' 12VDC-to-USB adapters output a maximum 500mA]

The mintyboost is only rated for 500mA output.

[cccorlew]

It's not the Garmin Nuvi, it's the Edge 500. It's a bicycle GPS.
This thing:
https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=36728

Thanks!

[adafruit_support_rick]

The Edge 500 uses the same pinout. You can Google it and find lots of discussions on this topic. The Edge 500 will operate on 500mA from USB, but will only charge slowly while operating. That is, it will essentially run directly off the USB power.

To make this work, you have to follow the instructions on the Russian pinout side to short pin X and pin 5. Once you do this, you should be able to use a minty boost. However, you might want to use 4 AA's. Have a look atthis post.