Garmin sat nav bike solutions

[thepeteh]

I have been looking for a solution both for mounting my car Garmin sat nav to a bike, and to power it directly from the battery... hopefully without using a cigarette lighter adaptor (to keep things neat and tidy). Does anyone have any experience with powering sat nav's on bikes? Ideally I would like one that wont drain the battery without having to remove any fuses etc...

I have seen various clamp products for sale on the bay and motorbike accessories shops but having read reviews of some being flimsy and with poor product descriptions thought I would ask here.

Thanks in advance

 

[Bigsy]

Ok here is the solution I came up with that works brilliantly for me, I use the sat nav on my VFR800 and superduke and can swap between them in seconds.

First I got a really cheap waterproof case which is actually damn good, nicely rubberized with waterproof zip, I've ridden for over 3 hours in constant thunderstorms with no issues at all, also has a quick release so comes off the bike in seconds: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Duragadget-...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1279136693&sr=8-1

It clips to my handlebars very easy, and is surprising sturdy, just incase.. I did put a big elastic band on the case zip and thread that round one of my mirrors on the bike incase it comes off the bike but it doubt it ever will.

I also got a small headphone extender for the sat nav which runs out the case:

Then to power it... the common thing between my bikes is that they both had an optimate cable which is also separately fused, so I decided it would be good to use this as the power source (as you can see the cable in above picture). Plus I can easy thread this cable through the fairing so it looks nice and neat. You can make up these cables cheap as its a standard battery (tamiya) connector).

Then I just used the guts of a ciggy lighter charger to give me 12v > 5v, I wired this up inside a little plastic box which they ship cpu's in, this also lives inside the waterproof case (excuse the masses of glue...just wanted to make sure the wires wouldn't work lose):

There we are, it's a bit of a DIY job but I can't think of a solution which would work better for me.

 

[Wolfchild]

Awesome Bigsy, been looking for something similar for my Tom Tom XL as i got a crap ebay mount for my S3 and still have to ziptie it and hope no rain!

This is perfect for my occasional use as its just finding the placed in towns i have problems with. In saying that i have optimate cables on bike too so can try this also.

I take it you just pulled the guts from the cigarette charger and sorted the connections out on other end for optimate?

Also where did you get the connections? Cheers Dear!

Cant wait to try it out when it arrives and will do your elastic band emergency strap too!

 

[Bigsy]

Yeah basically cracked open a cheap £2 usb ciggy to mini usb charger.

One side I could hook straight up to the satnav (although I did chop it down a bit shorter). The other side I soldered on an optimate cable I made from some wire I had and a £1.50 tamiya connector (same as optimate) from mapplin.

Just make sure you use a male tamiya connector to match the female optimate plug coming off your battery.

 

[Bigsy]

Just took the box out the case so you can see the connections better:

Heres a couple of pics of the bike bracket (which I think is pretty good), and it attached to my bike:

 

[PardonTheWait]

That looks really good Bigsy, doesn't look DIY at all from the outside. Nice job!

What sort of bike do you ride, Peteh?

I had my Garmin mounted on my RSV under the screen. A bit of copper pipe basically beaten flat at the ends and bent and drilled, it was clamped by one of the mirror bolts each side. A beat a bit on the middle bit flat as well, and screwed the Garmin clip to it with a little bolt and a wingnut. Whole lot sprayed black, didn't look bad at all. I adapted it from a picture I found on RSVzone, let me find it

 

[PardonTheWait]

That's what I copied then adapted. I used a longer bit of pipe clamped by mirror bolts, not screen bolts, as I had plastic bolts holding my screen on. Different mount as well but the garmin one, I just drilled a small hole through where the ball goes and secured it with a little bolt.

Telferizers are good too, fit pretty much anything. About £30 I think?

 

[thepeteh]

What sort of bike do you ride, Peteh?

Currently a Honda XR125 but I pick up my 2003 cbr 600F3 today infact, I am very excited about it... my first big bike.

I have seen a product on a popular shopping site named after a famous rain forest called the 'tronic pro' which looks to solve my power issue...

Another possible option could be to source a cheap double bubble type screen and drill/fasten the garmin mount onto it directly..

Oh and your solution looks very neat indeed well done