how waterproof are they?
i've not finished building the car yet, but i'd like a sat nav at some point, but this got me thinking, how waterproof are motorbike sat navs?

like, if i had a small aeroscreen affair, and got caught in a sudden downpour, if the sat nav was mounted right behind the screen to keep it out the way of most of it, would it be quite happy?

just a thought...

I put mine in a thin plastic bag
Out of the worst of it worked ok

my dad uses a normal satnav with a freezer bag wrapped around it.

the best feature of bike satnavs is theyre desinged for hands in gloves so the buttons are bigger etc... but there twice the price!

yes i did notice they were alittle on the expensive side, but if they were able to be pretty much submersed in water, it was almost worth it. still, i plan on getting one of them rally intercom things, with an input for radio, mp3, satnav etc, so can but my normal one in my pocket and just listen to it or something

i have a V.1 tomtom rider and have no probs with it. saw one on test in a bucket of water once. was in it a week. V.2 is even better if you can afford it at circa £400. garmin is better for gloves as my rider 1 is unuseable with gloves but the garmin got me lost twice so bought the tomtom.
believe the new tomtom auto links with the cara ( i think) in helmet comms kits.

big difference with a bike sat nav and a car one is how they get the sound to you. rider is blu tooth and my v.1 use a blutooth dongle that clips on coat then has a head phone jack. garmin has a head phone jack on the unit, too many wires for me that, being pluggged into the jack

mind you i use the rider in the car without the head phone, i.e. visual only and 99% of teh time its ok. even in the indy i only use it either end of the journey.

consider you may only use it on long trips on cruising journeys so phone connection and music feed may be a consideration along with driver to passenger comm's

pif

I use my HTC TyTN II phone in a cradle next to the steering wheel. This is connected via the cradle and a lead to the Autocom intercom system for MP3 & SatNav voice (the phone has TomTom on it). I also have the Autocom bluetooth module which connects to the phone for phone calls.

Been to the Ring 3 times like that and have been caught in a number of downpours in the Phoenix and haven't had a problem with water.......yet

I did think about getting a bog-standard tomtom and mounting it behind a cutout on the dash. If it's siliconed in well it should be reasonably waterproofed, plus I'd make a cowl over it for visibility and this should keep off the worst of the rain anyway. It may be necessary to amend or even discard the casing, maybe silicone in the screen itself.

Voila - built in satnav, and waterproof.

^ mmm i like! my dash already has a number of redundant cut outs from its racing days. was tempted to make a little window to fit in there which was going to be helpful for seeing the fuse boxes on the bulkhead to see what i'm doing when needing to change fuses.

i guess a little platform could be made behind it to mount a sat nav to. that, or maybe by the time i finish the car, te cheapest of chep sat navs should be pretty, er cheap even the one i bough 9 months ago for £130 is now about £80 in tesco, so i could fit it in like you say, silicone it in

Only problem I could see with the Tom Tom rider was that it only came with UK maps as standard. I have been all over UK and europe with my TT One Europe. Been splashed with rain quite a few times no problem. A deluge is another mater and then will need some water protection eg. freezer bag

- Jim

do the touch screens still work on in freezer bags? i've had touch screen stuff before that only worked if you touch it with actual fingers