Slow, death by shamrock
So I returned to the gym yesterday, the first time since last Tuesday. As expected I felt quite weak but it was at least good to get back into the gym environment. I followed up with my post work mini-workout. I only got 15 pull ups during it but again, it is a by product of the recovery process. I skipped the wall handstand hold as I didn’t feeling like having a waterfall of snot pouring out of my nose.
Ali bounced back from her Saturday run problems by putting in an hour on her bike trainer and following it up with 20 minutes on the treadmill. She said it wasn’t easy but at least she was doing it.
When we finished up our 20 mile jaunt through Ireland I noticed that my trusty Garmin GPS looked like it had some moisture under the glass. I figured it was just a by product of the horrible, wind driven, cold, rainy conditions it was subjected to for 4+ hours.
Well once we got back to the states I tried to fire the watch up and was surprised it didn’t turn on. I just figured the battery was drained so I charged it up. It appeared to charge normally, flashing the BATTERY CHARGING message on the screen. Imagine my surprise after pulling it off the charger and it still refuses to turn on.
Well at that point I put two and two together and assumed somehow the moisture I saw in the watch in Ireland was the cause of the problem. Of course the easy thing to do would be to toss the watch in the trash and get a new one since the 201 is an old model that uses less sensitive electronics that sometimes loses your position when you are under things like trees. Well the watch has been my companion for a number of my toughest physical challenges of my life so I decided it was at least worth a shot at fixing.
Trying to disassemble the watch was an exercise in futility. The case was obviously a snap together deal which was probably sealed with some sort of waterproof sealant. I pryed all over the thing with a thin blade screwdriver but was unable to have any luck cracking it open. I gave up and turned to the internet, looking for advice.
I was lucky and found a thread of Garmin owners that also were struggling to open their 201’s albeit a thread that was 3 years old at this point. One poster talked about a tiny slot he found where he could start popping the case apart. I saw the spot he was talking about but I had no luck getting anything split. Then further down the thread I saw another post describing a brute force method. Put the watch in a vice.
Specifically, the recommendation was to put the watch in the vice so the bottom half is between the jaws and then GENTLY applying pressure. I was a bit skeptical of this method but I had nothing to lose. I wedged the watch in my table vice and gave it a little tug, the case popped open almost immediately, wow that was easy.
So my problem seemed to be the power button was simply unresponsive. People said they fixed similar issues by just disconnecting and reconnecting the mylar connectors on the logic board. I did this and then snapped the watch back together. The button still didn’t work correctly.
I futzed around with it for awhile disassembling (the watch popped apart easily now) and reassembling the watch. I discovered that when the watch was together, if I applied slight pressure to the right of the display the watch would turn on and operate normally. However if I removed the pressure the watch would turn off a few moments later.
On that side of the watch there was a contact pad where the electronics are connected to the battery. I thought that perhaps if I wedged a small piece of cardboard under this pad to slightly elevate it I could cause enough pressure to rig the watch. It didn’t work.
In the process of taking the watch apart and back together a couple dozen times I wound up inadvertently damaging the mylar connector that the buttons make contact with when it got pinched in between the halves of the case. I plan to make one more attempt to McGyver the watch but I think a replacement is unavoidable at this point. I certainly don’t want a watch that could cut out without notice in the middle of a ride/run.
Part of me wants to get another 201 but it would make little sense to do so with the old tech. Hell it still sync’s to the puter via a SERIAL connection. Even so, I may keep the 201 tucked away in my desk drawer for safekeeping, just because.