We have signed up.....

Hello again and I wish you a happy new year.

With regards to the house situation, my last post on this was telling you we had decided not to go for the house in the small village attached to Radauţi and we were looking at another.

Well, there were no utilities like drainage and water with that house so we decided not to go ahead with it.

Showing some friends the pictures we had of the house in the village, we were wondering why we had not decided to buy it as it looked so good for the money. I have not said anything here for a while as I wanted to be sure it was right but today we have signed up and have bought the house.

It has stood empty for a few years and has no heating. We also want to put our mark on it and do some work that is needed so we are going to stay in the apartment we have as it is at present between -2 and -12 during the day. With no central heating it would be hard to live in at first and our apartment is so lovely and warm.

The pump for the water supply is broken so that is the first job I need to do so we will be able to use the facilities etc. (And make a cup of tea.)

To see more pictures and the work we want to do go to my site. This will also be updated as we go along with the renovations.

This has turned out not to be a house build but there is still plenty of work to do.

Thank you for reading.

Non working Goodmans GNav10 Satelite Navigation

Click on image for larger view.


For those of you who have found this blog looking for ways to fix your non working Goodmans Gnav10 SAT NAV unit, you may have found the right place.

I was recently buying on Ebay and decided to look at someone's other auctions and came across an auction for the above SAT NAV unit priced at £11.00 plus £5.00 postage with the words "will not start" in the description and "sold as seen".

I thought about this and decided to bid the £11.00 and see if I could get it working.

My main thoughts were that it must have a rechargeable battery inside and maybe it has not been charged for a long time and it might be replaceable. Not ever having a SAT NAV unit in the past I did not know anything about them but would give it a go.

Time was up and yes I won the auction. I paid up and the unit arrived.

I tried to get it to go but no matter how I tried nothing would turn on. Plugging it into the mains I did not even get a charging LED to light up.

I have always been someone who like to know how things work, even as a child I used to take things to bits and my Dad would give me old radios etc. just so I did not dismantle his good ones.

So.... it was off to find a small enough screwdriver to fit the tiny screws on the SAT NAV unit. Having taken the back off and had a look inside I could see a rechargeable battery. So another screw or two later to get at the battery I had it in my hand wondering where I could buy such a unit locally. At the time I was back in the UK, (I live in Romania at present) and staying with my sister. I knew my sister's boyfriend was into electronics so I asked him.

Next thing I knew he was taking the whole unit with him to test things out saying that there is often a bit of circuitry that cuts off the battery as the type that was in the unit could sometimes blow up ??

Two days later he brought it back switched on. (Never really asked exactly how he got it working?) The battery had half a charge in it according to him. Now it was working that was fine BUT......... it was not an easy matter to turn it on and this is the bit I think you are all looking for......... To turn it on I have now to go through the following procedure:

There are two on/off switches, a main switch and a button. Both these need to be in the off position, and I need to either plug it into the mains or the 12v car charger to give it power. The charger light comes on showing red, before this goes out I need to turn the main switch to the on position AND press the on button to start it up. Once it is turned on I can use it as a SAT NAV unit and did so. I found it working perfectly.

Now because I did not have much faith in myself I ordered one from China, via Ebay, new. On this one too I noticed two on/off switches. A main switch and a button to turn it on. I think the main switch it to protect the battery from discharging itself totally. So if you are not going to use your SAT NAV system very often I would advise you to switch the main switch off as well as just switching it off at the button.

I never did find a replacement battery but that was because I got mine working. Maybe someone somewhere does sell one, if so this may be another way of getting a dead unit back to life. To replace the battery is quite easy. Once you undo the four very small screws that hold the back on there is a battery holder held in with similar screws, (two I think) to stop the battery floating about and once this is undone it is just a matter of unplugging the battery and plugging in a new one and reversing the above procedure.

I hope this helps someone to get their unit back alive and if anyone ever finds someone selling replacement batteries for this make and model please let me know, I may buy a replacement.