--- In [email protected], "Barry L. Lankford" <bar...@...> wrote: > Even at the OP's desire to run 400 mA, that's 3.5+ Watts, still a lot of > heat (think of it as two 2W night lights). If you use a regulator that has > a thermal mounting tab and provide a heatsink, you'll still need to provide > very good ventilation to the heatsink to let the heat out.
Just a a point of note, (I think I remember seeing it hashed out here before sometime) if your looking to power a Nuvi from the OT2 it doesn't need a constant 400mA to operate. For the longest time I ran my Nuvi powered directly from the OT2's internal 5V regulator with no issues. If your nuvi is totally dead, or has been off for a extended length of time it can draw up to 375-400mA when it kicks into charge mode, but even on the factory internal regulator there was no significant overheating or temperature rise that concerned me, I was also powering it via the rear port on a modified nema cable, so if the nuvi was discharged significantly the voltage drop over the wire was enough that it could take 2-3 days to fully recharge, but it operated fine the entire time. On startup it will ocassionally draw up to the 350-400mA for 5-10 seconds if the internal batter voltage has dropped a little. During normal operation the nuvi 350 only draws between 75-100mA I believe were the numbers I had when testing it. Garrett VE6RKY
