I've been meaning for a while to attach my car GPS Navigator to the bike to see how effective it would be at getting me around on road trips. The unit I've got is a Tomtom One v4, got it for $270.
I did a test run with it up to Palmer on Sunday and I've got to say it worked great. I definitely wouldn't go on a road trip without it in future.
A few issues that I faced getting it to work on the bike:
1) The battery in the Navigator only lasts for two hours so I needed to hook it up to the electricals on the bike, I found this was pretty easy. I bought a $5 cigarette socket adapter from an auto parts store and hooked it up under the seat of the Sportster, see pics and descriptions below.
2) Another issues was how to mount it on the bike, I eventually found a motorcycle mount for it on eBay ($30) but since it hasn't arrived I just suction cupped it to the speedo on the Sporty for the test run. I figured because the Navigator tells you your speed I could do without the Speedo on the test run. I had it tied on with a couple of wire ties just in case the suction cup gave way, but on the test run both there and back (around 100k's) it didn't come off.
3) The third issue was to cover the screen so it could still be seen when on the bike. For this I made up a simple visor for the unit out of some flexible plastic and then just used double sided tape to attach it (not shown). That worked pretty well to make the screen visible, Sunday was about as sunny as it gets and I could still see the screen reasonably well.
4) The last issue was how to hear the audio prompts while on the bike as the unit I bought doesn't have any audio out, so I just turned the volume up to 100% and hoped for the best. As I suspected though when travelling on the bike the audio could only faintly be heard, it was enough to get me to glance at the screen though to see where the next turn was so I found that I didn't really need to hear the audio.
I got a plastic housed cigarette socked adapter from an auto parts store for $5 and attached a blade connector on the positive wire and a ring connector on the negative.
As I discovered there's an accessory plug under the side cover of my bike which has a plastic cap on the end, all you need to do is take the cap off and the blade connector plugs right in to supply power to the socket. The ring connector I just attached to a screw on the frame under the seat:
Then I simply plugged the Navigator charger into the socket and located both in the gap under the seat:
Then I ran the wire up the left hand side of the bike under the tank to the handle bars and into the unit:
I've got a motorcycle mount coming for the unit but for my test run I just suction cupped it to the speedo on the Sporty, the ride on Sunday was quite bumpy at times and the suction cup worked fine. Although I had the unit tied with wire ties on both sides just in case.
I use the Zumo 550, and wouldn't go on a trip without it. 5,000 MP3 songs on it, dial ahead to get a motel room, and never get lost again.
Even got off a suspect speeding fine by telling the filth that the inbuilt data logger would be used as evidence I wasn't doing the speed he said I was. As soon as I told him that, he said he was only giving me a warning (funny that he had allready written half the ticket out)
They are great.
