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| Russ' VW Golf IV In-Car Mount |
22nd September 2003 |
I have a Brodit Proclip centre mount for the VW Mk IV Golf and Brodit powered cradle. After the mount and cradle were installed I routed the power adapter, along with a 3.5mm lead from the iPAQ's audio out socket, behind the cockpit panels. I used heatshrink from Maplins to turn both these cables into into one in order to tidy things up (you can see this in the shots).
The real pig was de-soldering the actual cable out of the plug in order to get the two cables through the heatshrink before applying heat to shrink it, then re-soldering it back into the plug. A fiddly job but one which looks good when finished.
The power adapter comes back out near the lighter socket below so all I have on show is the actual plug of the adapter cable.
 
The audio cable is split into two stereo phono leads (or RCA's as some car stereo installers call them) behind the panels which in turn are connected to a Pioneer CD-RB20, an auxilary input module for my Pioneer DEH-9300R headunit. This module is really designed for the addition of a CD changer to my headunit but it also lets me hear the output from my PDA through my existing car stereo, meaning both MP3's and of course Navigator 2 voice commands can be heard. Due to the fact I have one Alpine 100W amp driving my front speakers and a 250W Directed mp driving my rear speakers, hearing voice commands from the iPAQ 5450's notoriously weak speaker is no longer a problem! The whole car is filled with instructions from Navigator 2!
The TomTom Bluetooth receiver cradle is stuck to the centre of my dash as close as possible to the windscreen. The power cable for this cradle is connected directly to the ignition system of the car so that the unit powers on and off with my engine, very useful! I regularly get 8-10 satellite fixes with the receiver in this position.
 
As an overview I'm running an iPAQ 5450 with a Fujifilm 256MB SD card, the latest ROM upgrade, Tomtom Navigator 2 Wireless GPS with the latest patches, plus CheckPOInt 2.0.2 and the Pocket GPS Safety Camera Database. |
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