Garmin Forerunner 50 with Heart Monitor and Foot Pod Logo

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Problem with Garmin Forerunner 50 with Heart Monitor and Foot Pod

Garmin Forerunner 50 Battery Replacement

I had trouble figuring out how to release the battery once I had the back of this watch open. Once I solved it, I thought I should share the trick.

The silver strip that functions like a belt to hold the battery in is clipped diagonally. Line the watch up in your hands so that belt is in a 7:05 position on an analog watch (diagonally from lower left to upper right. You'll see a tiny spring next to the upper right corner of the anchor belt.

Now you can save about 30 minutes by taking a black sharpie pen and drawing a diagonal line across the battery, the belt and the plastic sheet that sits between the belt and the battery. The original position of all pieces is critical to reassembly so this black like gives you your clue as to what end of what goes where.

Using a small, slot jewelers screwdriver, pry the upper right anchor of the belt off. It is hooked by one small plastic flange that sit right next to the battery. Be gentle, push down then pry away from the battery. It may take a while but it will pop off.

To reassemble, line up your black mark, make sure the plastic is lined up in the correct direction. Be careful with that little spring mentioned earlier. There is a round cutout in the plastic piece located at the end of the upper right slot (the upper right belt anchor fits through this slot.) The spring must be asscessible when the back of the watch goes back on. (don't pin it under the plastic.) Anchor the upper right then gently press the lower left of the belt into place. It will take some fiddling but it will go.

The battery, by the way, is an 3 volt Energizer CR2032 or equiv.

I recommend strong light and a hands-free magnifying glass. Unless you have really good eyes you won't be able to see the plastic sheet and spring assembly.

Goog Luck

Posted by avatar on Aug 30, 2008

    • By avatarMarcS_Ca Nov 07, 2008

    • Great job on the photos! That helps a LOT.



      FYI to the other folks posting here...after going through this exercise, the battery replacement didn't fix the problem I had with the watch (display just went entirely wacky...totally unreadable.) I ended up sending the watch back to Garmin who replaced it under warranty.



      However, they did require I do the replacement before sending it back...so the moral of the story ends up being that battery replacement is often the START of the journey...not the end.



      Good Luck.

    • By avatarMarcS_Ca May 05, 2009

    • Just goes to show that good Karma seems to come back in spades. Many thanks to Deep_Powder for the photo version. Since I posted the first instructions, the watch has run well...until now. I have to replace another battery and Deep_Powder's pictures make this a WHOLE lot easier. Thank again.

    • By avatarbifidus Mar 31, 2009

    • 3 months into my use the watch says Lo Batt. I jst found this posting on how to replace the battery. No wonder Garmin chose to avoid including these instructions. There is no way any sane person can have the tools and patience to do this! I expect to return this item alongwith the heartrate monitor and footpod (replaced by Garmin under warranty for similar reasons). BTW, my earlier problems with the footpod was that it would not pair up anymore with the watch. The led stayed on forever and the watch kept saying it found a "heart" even though the HRM was no way around it! Other than these anomalies I thought it was a great product. The wireless ANT is the jewel as it uploads the data without any fuss. The distance calibration was about 5-10% off for me on a treadmill but outdoors it seems to work fine. I use it on the treadmill to track my shoe mileage.

    • By avatarGuest Mar 19, 2009

    • After following the instructions, watch stopped working :( going to get on the phone to Garmin to start the return process, real disappointment!

    • By avatarGuest Jan 30, 2009

    • I've had my 50 for about one week. I started getting LoBatt today. Maybe it has been on the shelf for a long time. But, I wonder if it's because I store the watch and the belt together, right next to my computer (and thus the ANT Agent). Anyway, your instructions will sure help.

    • By avatarhimy Dec 16, 2008

    • Garmin forerunner 50 with foot pod; "lo batt" started flashing at 9 mos; now have to replace batteries every other week; stop tracking cadence, pace, etc after about 9 minutes; loses all running data; simply switches on its own back to regular time mode. Garmin inc. is totally unresponsive to problem.

    • By avataroliver king Dec 08, 2008

    • My battery lasted about 6 months before I got the 'low batt' indication. I thought the watch might have been in store for a while, but I'll keep an eye on it and report back. I followed the procedure from Marc, it worked well (though my metal strap was covered by a white label).


      Thanks for the posting.


      Olly

    • By avatarleo4719 Nov 14, 2008

    • I just bought Garmin Forerunner 50. After 1 day of use got "LoBatt" message... In the manual it says that it should last 12 months. Anybody else had problem like this?

    • By avatarGuest Oct 22, 2008

    • Same problem same procedure used, now on third battery for garmin forerunner 50; will not stay on for more than a couple of hours.

      Have to reset each time to use. Royal pain.


    • By avatarGuest Sep 19, 2008

    • Once I replaced the battery the zone alarm sounds no longer worked, neither did the chimes when I activated the chime setting.

Solutions (8)

Best Solution

Thanks MarcS_Ca - I've supplemented what you offer with some photographs at
http://gnjmch.com/public/tips/GarminF50.Battery.html

    • By avatarDeep_Powder Apr 29, 2009

    • I have a theory on what's going on with batteries that have been replaced and then last a very short time (a few days - a week): I think that if the plastic below the clip is not placed just exactly right, the clip will come in contact with the battery resulting in a rapid drain of battery power.

      The first battery I put in lasted many months. The second one went out in a few days and I remember not being really careful about the placement of the plastic. Unfortunately, I developed this theory after I had removed the second one, so can't say for sure that was the case. But I observed on installing the third one that the clip can touch the battery if the plastic isn't correctly placed. On the third one, I was very careful to get it just right, and it's doing fine.

      See http://gnjmch.com/public/tips/images/Gar... for a close-up of the clip and plastic.


i found it so much more simple to actually remove the entire guts and take the metal bracket off the entire watch there are 4 or 5 clips around the edges that separate the two halves of the watch guts.  after that the battery came right out i out the new one in and snapped it back together.  this took me a total of 5 minutes to do the entire change from start to finish.  it actually takes longer to set both time zones and the alram back to where i had them.
so take the guts completely out take the halves apart and it'll be oh so much easier.

Having read this I tried it today. However I tried a slightly different tactic. It was clear that the sticker was across both the clip and plastic sheet, so I left it in place. Instead I peeled back the end opposite the small spring by about 5mm. Then I used a pin to pry the clip off. The wider end of the clip has two little plastic pegs with a gap between which the pin easily fitted between. This lead to the clip, plastic sheet and sticker coming off as a single unit.

Just replaced the battery. The put the sheet and clip back on. Hook the clip on by the end next to the spring as that's just a single peg, then press down gently on the other end.

All done in under 5 minutes from taking the cover off to putting it back on. Didn't lose a single setting as the battery was replaced so quickly. And, by not taking the sticker off it meant that the plastic sheet and clip went back on in exactly the same orientation as they came off.

Solution #4 worked great and seemed a lot easier than taking the battery out from the top (peeling off plastic and dealing with springs). After removing the metal casing, i popped out the entire guts of the watch very easily with a tiny screwdriver. Then you very gently unclip the 6 metal clips that hold the two halves of the guts together. From there, the battery pops out easily once the two halves are separated. Once the new battery is in, it's very easy to snap the two halves of the guts together again, but make sure the 6 metal clips snap back onto the bottom half of the guts.

Nonetheless, it's a pretty delicate operation and I am surprised that Garmin would suggest that the battery is replaceable by the user (I felt like a swiss watch repairman).

The solution is actually describe within the Problem.

I just took the back off, prised off the retaining belt/piece of clear plastic, replaced battery and reassembled. Took me about 10 minutes at most. Battery had only lasted 4 months from new - suspect the watch had been in Amazon's warehouse for some time.

  • By Author imagechalluk Jun 07, 2009

Despite being very careful, I think I snapped off one of the little plastic tabs that one is supposed to hook the metal clip in. Found nothing to hook the broad end in afterwards.

Anyhow, don't sweat if you manage to do this. I dumped the clip completely. The watch's screwed-on back seems to be enough to hold the battery into place. The plastic sheet is still there though, as well as a piece of folded paper in between to make for extra pressure (dunno if this is necessary but I put it there anyway.

  • By Author imagetr_s Feb 26, 2010

I just CANNOT get that clip to clip back on!! I can't see what it latches/clips onto, either at the small end or the large end. can't see a spring at the large end.

  • By Author imagepeadarm Jul 28, 2009

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