Hard wiring Start 60 - RDS-TMC into roof aerial

[Arfa]

I've just entered the world of TomTom, after my old Becker satnav finally died. My old satnav was hard wired in, with a hidden fag lighter socket behind dash, and a splitter on the FM roof aerial for the TMC antenna. This was an official splitter with gubbins to protect the satnav from any 12V line on aerial and terminating in a 3.5mm jack. Thus I just had a couple of wires poking out of top of dash, going straight onto the dash mount, the Becker clipped into.

Now, I'd like to install my Start 60 with a similar setup. Power is easy enough to sort out. but TMC is more awkward. Especially with a single micro USB plug, moulded to a specific shape - makes building a DIY cable a right pain.

Are there any TMC adaptors available that take a standard ISO-DIN aerial socket?

The official 50 quid adaptor: Is the aerial all in the 'egg' bit inline on the cable? Or is the whole cable the aerial? I presume reception will be naff if I shove this all behind the dash... Neither do I really want a pile of cable or lump of plastic floating around on the dash, that's just plain untidy!

Has anyone hacked this to splice it into their roof aerial?
Any other ideas, suggestions etc?

Also, are there any decent permanent dash mounts for the TomTom's, so one doesn't have to keep plugging wires in and suckering stuff secure, everytime you get in the car? I'm missing my old Becker mount that remained wired up and suckered down, that you just clipped the satnav into each time.

 

[Andy_P]

For the existing RDS-TMC adapter with the "egg", I believe the entire cable from the cigarette lighter connector to the "egg" is the aerial.

There's a write up of a home-brew method to wire the older-style adapters (with a separate aerial cable) into the car FM aerial in a post on the 'YourTomTom' forum here.

Basically, all that's required is a capacitor to block any 12V DC on the cable from the TomTom, so it should be possible to do with the new style adapter, I've just not seen a write-up from anyone who's tried it.

The only windscreen mount with included RDS-TMC was the one for the x40/x50 models as shown in that article.

 

[Arfa]

For the existing RDS-TMC adapter with the "egg", I believe the entire cable from the cigarette lighter connector to the "egg" is the aerial.

Figured as much.

There's a write up of a home-brew method to wire the older-style adapters (with a separate aerial cable) into the car FM aerial in a post on the 'YourTomTom' forum here.

Saw that, makes sense. But my concern is patching this into a funny moulded shaped micro USB plug to go into the back of the Start 60.
Bypassing the 12V gubbins, is not an issue, I've already got my old adaptor to do that. Taking an aerial lead from its 3.5mm jack is no problem.

I've also read on another thread about a 'expiration', being embedded into the TMC 'egg' thing, which is read my the TomTom to decide if it's licensed. :-\ Which makes me wonder if it'll even work to patch in an aerial myself.

 

[Andy_P]

I think the "expiration" is only for US versions.
In the UK, the purchase price of the RDS-TMC receiver includes a lifetime licence for it's use, which is not the case in America..

 

[Arfa]

I think the "expiration" is only for US versions.
In the UK, the purchase price of the RDS-TMC receiver includes a lifetime licence for it's use, which is not the case in America..

Fair enough. But does the 'life time expiration' date still need to be read from the egg to work?

I'm wondering if I could just dismantle this adaptor and egg and just splice in my own aerial, bypass/remove the 'egg', and retaining the original fag lighter 12V power input and micro usb plug output.

 

[Andy_P]

I think you might be the 'trailblazer' for that...

 

[dhn]

The 'egg' version came with the combo rds-tmc antenna/car charger. If you are referring to this one:
http://www.tomtom.com/en_ca/products/accessories/chargers-connect-cables/usb-lt-traffic-receiver/

And it DOES have lifetime traffic included. It also works on a device in both NA and Europe. (I used it on a 540 model in Italy a few years ago).

 

[Arfa]

The 'egg' version came with the combo rds-tmc antenna/car charger. If you are referring to this one:
http://www.tomtom.com/en_ca/products/accessories/chargers-connect-cables/usb-lt-traffic-receiver/

And it DOES have lifetime traffic included. It also works on a device in both NA and Europe. (I used it on a 540 model in Italy a few years ago).

Yep that's the one. That would do the job fine, but I don't want wires and crap trailing all over the dash, hogging the single power socket I've got. I want to put it all behind the scenes, out of sight inside the dash. Of course this will create reception issues, hence why I want to patch it into the roof aerial.