Sat Nav Dock mount for dashboard ?

[Mark34bn]

Does anyone know of a 'dock' for mounting a Sat Nav onto a flat surface rather than on the windscreen?
There is a flat part of my dashboard which I would like to mount a Sat Nav on, which would enable me to hide the cables and make it look more OEM. Something like this one below -

If anyone has this one, does the Satnav work when it's plugged in ? I have a powered USB outlet in the glovebox to power it.

[nickwilcock]

This is the best I've managed for my Garmin:



Unfortunately there's still the ugly power cord and external TMC receiver - if only Garmin had a neater hard-wired power cord and remote TMC system!

[mmm-five]

TomTom themselves make two dashboard options...although I don't like either ;-)

dashboard mount disks


dashboard bean bag


Alternatively...
there's the air-vent clip...


The charging base you show on your picture does let the unit run whilst it's charging, but it doesn't affix to the dashboard in any secure way so you'd have to sort that out. If you affix it permanently you're going to let every tea-leaf in the area know that you might have a sat-nav in the glove box.

Edited by mmm-five on Thursday 25th February 16:27

[Mark34bn]

Hi, yes I've thought of that which is why I want something small & discreet. It won't be on top of the dash, it is going into the centre air vent position.



Imagine the bottom 5 louvres are missing, that's where the dock will live. My air vent was broken anyway so I've smoothed out the interior and want to fix a dock to the flat surface on the bottom. there's about 30mm depth to play with. It will look OEM, I'm a bit OCDish about that and shouldn't be noticeable from outside.

I was also looking at this one

http://www.tomtom.com/products/accessories/accesso...

And this one

http://www.activegps.co.uk/navman-b2-hands-free-tr...

[Mark34bn]

Can anyone tell me how this works, I can't see a socket for the Satnav to 'dock' into?

http://www.tomtom.com/products/accessories/accesso...

[mmm-five]

The pictures on the TomTom site are not necessarily of the correct product

Although in this instance, they've just shown the photo from the side that doesn't show the connection (which is at the back/bottom of that dock).

Plus some of their descriptions are not particularly accurate, and that dock is supposed to be for the older generation TomToms anyway which have a different mount system to the newer ones.

Edited by mmm-five on Thursday 25th February 21:35

[sjg]

Brodit - http://www.brodit.com/ - make some nice mounts designed to go on their own brackets, but will fit to any flat surface. For most models they have options that are powered too.

If you're sinking it into the dash bear in mind that GPS reception will be weaker too - it may be enough of a problem to need to fit an external aerial and then that's another thing to plug in when you remove it.

Would be slick if you removed the vent vanes and made a cover to go in front of the navigation unit so you could leave it in place rather than dock it each time.

[Mark34bn]

Decided to go for one of these - Mio (Navman) C310t
http://us.mio.com/products-car-navigation-moov310-...

It has a very small dock with the power cable built in. I had a similar unit recently (Navman S50) which was fine but I didn't like the silver sides. I can sink the dock into the panel slightly so the unit fits flush with the surface.
If it all goes wrong I've got a new centre air vent in the garage so no worries!