Article by Dave Burrows

One thing members having been thinking about for a while now is how to get a mount that moves freely when you want it to, so you can move the direction the Pocket PC is facing in easily.

Ted has taken this thought and expanded upon this by creating his own mount and fixing it to his car dashboard.

 
Ted decided to get a simple camera swivel mount (ball socket) which rather than being mounted on a tripod is screwed onto a small bolt which is set into the vent grill and gives maximum maneuverability allowing you to dodge the sun when it's behind you and shining onto your Pocket PC. 

Ted drilled a hole in his dashboard to take a bolt which would make it semi-permanent – but the bolt can just as easily be fed through the vent with a washer to retain it. 

Most of the vents simply pop-out of car dashboards. (Ted also has a small cover for the bolt when the mount isn’t fitted which looks fine – and a grommet would fill the hole for selling the car)

The mounting plate was removed from the Navman mount and this fits very snugly and securely to the camera mount via the convenient hole that is left when it is cut off.

It does look really neat, it will not fall off, and is virtually infinitely adjustable.  The bits cost less than a tenner!   It could be easily adapted for fitting to any area of the car required providing  you can drill a hole and be able to position a bolt from behind it and pass it through.
 

Ted's Ball/Socket Mount with Navman Sleeve

Ted's Ball/Socket Mount without Navman Sleeve

Step One: Drill the dashboard and pass a bolt through from the other side and secure it with a nut.

Step Two: A cover can be placed on the thread when not in use allowing you to take the amount with you.

Step Three: Now cut the end of the Navman mount off and fix this to the tripod ball/socket platform

Step Four: Now fix this by screwing this onto the bolt that was previously positioned on the dashboard

Step Five: If you don't have a socket mounted headphone socket on the dashboard, you can purchase one of these from many electrical component companies, try Maplin Electronics and these can be fitted quite easily by drilling a small pilot hole.  These can then with a splitter behind the dashboard on the radio be connected to the speaker wires allowing you to pipe your audio from your Pocket PC through your Car Stereo Speakers.

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