Alternative to windshield mounting

Joined
Jun 27, 2010
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1
Hi All,

Due to recent attempts to break in to my car and steal my tomtom I am looking for an alternative to windshield mount for my GO 750. I dont want to have to keep pulling the mount off the windshield everytime i leave the car. Theives see the windscreen mount and they normally have about a 50/50 chance that the tomtom is in the car somewhere.

Is there any other type of fixed mount that can be purchased? I was thinking the centre console would be a good spot for it. I have a shelf under my cd player (the same size) and thought if I could get something to fit in there it would be great.

Any ideas?
 
for the second piece try ProClip. depending on what vehicle you own. tehy work with all the brodit mounts
 
I always take out my mount out when I park my car and put it back when I go somewhere.
 
The Brodit Mount combined with a Pro-Clip to suit your car and desired mounting position, if you want it quick release to take the "shoe" off the dash then also look at the "mini-move it" clips they supply, you won't need the larger move it clip the mini will do fine.
Note to provide a decent surface area for the mini-move it clip to stich to the back of the TomTom Brodit style holder you will need to fill the void in the back of the mounting plate with epoxy araldite (or similar).

DSL Developments export to Australia and there web site contains details of all the parts required, see Here

750 Mount Here
Mini Move-It Clips Here

For some details on installing this type of mount:

In this case I was fitting the Brodit / TomTom holder for the 940 to my Volvo V70 but the process will be very similar for whatever car you drive. The same mount fits all x40 and x50 models in the TomTom product range, note I didn't use the mini move it clips as this mount stays in the car at all time, the mini move it clips are only required if you need to remove the mount from the dash which just leaves the Pro-Clip in position.

To start fitting the Pro-Clip to the car you use the supplied spacer tools to open up a gap in the vehicles trim, these are simply pushed in between the two adjacent parts.

Clean the surfaces the mount is going to be in contact with using the supplied alcohol based wipe.



Remove the backing tape from the mount before pushing it in to the gap, remove the spacer tools and the clip is now very secure. Note this particular clip is named as an air vent style attachment Pro-Clip but it doesn?t secure to the vent at all ? don?t be put off thinking the clips secure to the flimsy vent they don?t all.



Now we have to attach the TomTom x40 Live accessory dock to the Pro-Clip, you will need to rotate the mount around to gain access to each of the four screws. The supplied screws take considerable force to start before they bite in to the plastic clip, but only tighten them lightly or you could possibly strip the threads.
Consider attaching the mount to the Pro-Clip before you fit the clip to the car as you could damage the vehicles trim should you slip while fitting the self tapping screws.



Job done, it only took around 40 minutes to fit both Brodit holders to the vehicle, no more suckers on the windscreen, a much tidier solution.



Plug the charger lead in to the car ciggy socket, insert the TomTom to the mount and away you go in the knowledge your Sat Nav isn?t going to fly around in the car the next time you hit the brakes or fall off the windscreen when you encounter pot holes.

Next is to hide all the cables, some will consider this too much of a job to undertake but I hate having cables all over the inside of the car:

Having removed the central air vent from the car I set to with a Dremel to cut a small access hole for the cables that were going to the 940, in this case the power lead, audio line out and the RDS-TMC round style plug


The three cables are easily fed through the newly made hole, any V70 owners should note the area I cut through is doubled skinned so you need to make two cuts and if you remove the Climatic Control Panel do not disconnect it or the car will throw an airbag fault.


Feeding the cables through the airvent was good fun, in the end I took the vent to bits and put the cables through where I needed them before reassembling the vent afterwards, fiddly but not impossible, the trick is to only put the power cable through one opening and the othe other two cables through an adjacent vent hole. Doing this lets the airvent still operate correctly and spreads the cables ready to connect to the 940 mount.


As I had most of the dash trim out of the car for access and I hate wires in the car I decided to sort out the iPhone cables at the same time, the power connector for the iPhone is easily removed from the Brodit holder by releasing the two screws on the rear of the phone holder, this makes it much easier to push the cable with connector through any available gaps in the trim.


Push the connector back in to position within the Brodit mount then resecure using the closure plate and two screws.


Resecure the Brodit Active holder to the swivel coupling by tightening the center screw, only finger tight is needed though, any more than this will snap the plastic on one part of the ball joint.


I pulled out the stereo to gain access to certain connections, firstly the RDS-TMC receiver needed connecting to the car aerial cable via a splitter cable I made a while ago (detailed in This Thread).


I was also fitting a three way 12V outlet socket to power the TomTom charger and iPhone power addaptor, the feeded wires to this were simply tagged to the stereo ignition switched power wires using Scotch locks.


At this point its worth checking the power is working correctly so I switched it all on and got indications of charge for both the 940 and the iPhone so it was time to start tidying up.


Before burying all of this I taped up the power addaptors so they couldn't migrate out of the sockets due to vibration and/ or thermal creep - easy to do just bind them together with PVC tape.


The power addaptor was then secured to the underside of the glovebox support bracket with more tape, it looks a little unsightly but once the cars back together non of this will be seen. The orange boxes are part of the iO-Play device I added to the car for decent Handsfree support, this is detailed in This Thread, the boxes get hidden when the trim is replaced.


I added a new cable to the stereo during this install which adds iPOD support to the stereo, whilst I probably don't need this (yet) it saves taking the whole lot out again to add a simple cable, this is nothing to do with the TomTom but adds iPOD input to the stereo and offers full control of a device plugged in to it. I decided against using this with the iPhone as I have a Bluetooth module for that which negates the need for cables.


All cabled up and working - Oh look no wires and remember this includes an RDS-TMC receiver, much neater even though it did take a few hours.


With the 940 off its bracket all that is left is a simple shoe that is pre-wired and ready to go once the device is dropped in to position.


The iPhone holder also attracts less attention as there are no tell tale wires going to it strewn all over the car.


Next job is to vac out the inside of the car, bits of black plastic dust have got all over from the cutting job, but overall I am happy with the installation and the flexibility I get from the kit - Mike
 
Purchase an ARKON TTEP 112 from AMAZON.com. Its a bean bag holder with a mounting arm that you can use for a windshield mount, should you so desire. This thing is rock solid, does not slip or slide and is built tough. Once I reach my destination, I just move the whole bean bag and drop it into my car floor. No sign of a GPS. This is the mount TOMTOM should provided with its units. I liked this thing so much, I ordered 3 for all my TTs. Good luck.
 
Not quite as ambitious as Mike, I elected for the TT Active Dock (Brodit) and proclip to fit my TT740 to my 2006, LHD, Toyota Highlander.

I can easily slip everything out of the car if leaving unattended for some days since the proclip is just held to the dash by friction. Most often I just release the TT from the Brodit active dock and go on my way.

The active dock accepts the power cable (which includes a built-in RDS receiver) and I used two small 3M cable clips to keep the cable neat as it routes to a lighter outlet. Proclip with active dock attached sits down low at about same level as center A/C vents. With GPS removed, mount doesn't look like anything in particular.

I find the display unaffected by sunlight or reflections unless I tilt it strangely.

Chuck
 

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