Frank
Member
Month or two back, a relative of mine got whacked by a speed camera doing 37 on a 30 mph, i.e. in a built up area, even though the road is a mile wide. She was faced with a fine and 3 points or a 4 hour 'driver awareness' course that costs around the same as the fine, and chose the latter. Good choice as you have to declare points to the insurance and it will go up and not just for 1 year. Sort of ironic as I drive twice the speed she does everywhere and have no points, even so, it did dawn on me that outside my area I don't know where every camera is.
After that, she found herself constantly glancing at the speedo to the point where it was distracting. I suggested she got a sat nav and set it up in 'non-route' mode, so that it would show the speed limit, her speed and also warn of approaching cameras and also if she was over the speed limit at any point. She's been using like that for a while now and it's a great success.
Anyway, I chose the sat nav and set it all up for her. Boy, have sat navs changed in the last few years!? (I have sat nav programs on my netbook and tablets with a gps dongle these days) I chose a 7 inch version and I suppose the biggest change is that was only £36 with free map updates forever! The 'Places' side is a great feature and it's like having a mini Yellow Pages with you, you really can find anything you want on it. Then it turns out that it will play music, plays vids, show pictures, has games on it and can even transmit, via FM, the voice/music to your radio. A lead out of the headphone socket to the Aux on the radio gives a far better sound, but that FM solution a nice feature to have by default.
I was so impressed I decided to get one myself and this thread is about fitting these units in the car. I chose the 5 inch version (£29 !) as I had noticed that the 7 inch really was too big for the Puma. Added a 8GB mini SD card to hold the music, radio dramas, films and pics and I was all set.
Now, where to put it? I tried the windscreen sucker that came with it - it worked, but screamed aftermarket at me, reflected off the windscreen at night and, because of the steep angle of the screen, was too far away to comfortably touch the sat nav screen to do things. Plus, I don't need this sat nav that often, so would prefer no 'traces' when I've put the sat nav away in the glove compartment.
Next, I tried the 'air vent' attachment -
The idea is that top metal/spring bit hooks into an air vent and then the front part slides onto a knurled plastic knob. It is truly hopeless - it flops about, blocks the air flow from that vent and looks even worse than the sucker route did.
So, after doing a mockup test using duct tape and going for a drive, I took the knurled plastic knob part of it off, ground the back of it to the right angle, drilled through the rear and then self tapper. Result -
..and that's all you see when the sat nav is away. Attached, the sat nav is a perfect distance away, nice and solid and no reflections anywhere. You'll note that the knurled knob is attached high on that button and that's because I had to clear the CD slot and didn't have much room to spare. This is why mockups are so vital.
Getting a right-angled mini USB block is no bad idea either, it means that the charging lead drops straight down from the unit, rather than poking out to one side of it.
So, there you have it.
After that, she found herself constantly glancing at the speedo to the point where it was distracting. I suggested she got a sat nav and set it up in 'non-route' mode, so that it would show the speed limit, her speed and also warn of approaching cameras and also if she was over the speed limit at any point. She's been using like that for a while now and it's a great success.
Anyway, I chose the sat nav and set it all up for her. Boy, have sat navs changed in the last few years!? (I have sat nav programs on my netbook and tablets with a gps dongle these days) I chose a 7 inch version and I suppose the biggest change is that was only £36 with free map updates forever! The 'Places' side is a great feature and it's like having a mini Yellow Pages with you, you really can find anything you want on it. Then it turns out that it will play music, plays vids, show pictures, has games on it and can even transmit, via FM, the voice/music to your radio. A lead out of the headphone socket to the Aux on the radio gives a far better sound, but that FM solution a nice feature to have by default.
I was so impressed I decided to get one myself and this thread is about fitting these units in the car. I chose the 5 inch version (£29 !) as I had noticed that the 7 inch really was too big for the Puma. Added a 8GB mini SD card to hold the music, radio dramas, films and pics and I was all set.
Now, where to put it? I tried the windscreen sucker that came with it - it worked, but screamed aftermarket at me, reflected off the windscreen at night and, because of the steep angle of the screen, was too far away to comfortably touch the sat nav screen to do things. Plus, I don't need this sat nav that often, so would prefer no 'traces' when I've put the sat nav away in the glove compartment.
Next, I tried the 'air vent' attachment -
The idea is that top metal/spring bit hooks into an air vent and then the front part slides onto a knurled plastic knob. It is truly hopeless - it flops about, blocks the air flow from that vent and looks even worse than the sucker route did.
So, after doing a mockup test using duct tape and going for a drive, I took the knurled plastic knob part of it off, ground the back of it to the right angle, drilled through the rear and then self tapper. Result -
..and that's all you see when the sat nav is away. Attached, the sat nav is a perfect distance away, nice and solid and no reflections anywhere. You'll note that the knurled knob is attached high on that button and that's because I had to clear the CD slot and didn't have much room to spare. This is why mockups are so vital.
Getting a right-angled mini USB block is no bad idea either, it means that the charging lead drops straight down from the unit, rather than poking out to one side of it.
So, there you have it.
