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Blind as a Bat

oldcarkook

Subzero Scooter Idiot
I have a Street Pilot III that I bought last summer for my wife, who is forever lost. Well, I was never able to get it to "work" for her because she is direction impaired, even with a talking GPS. So it sat back on the shelf all winter until last week I decided to mount it up on my RT and see what it's like.

I ordered a mounting kit from Cycle Gadgets and I must say that the mounting setup is really really impressive and good. It's on a swivel setup off one of the the handlebar mounting bolts and it centers it nicely so that I still have full view of the gauges and idiot lights, and the GPS "hovers" over my tank bag. Very impressed with the engineering and design in this setup.

So now my question. I had trouble with this in the car seeing in daylight when I used it due to glare, and now on the bike, it's just as bad if not worse! I bought a hood for the unit from Cycle Gadgets when I ordered the mounting kit, but this only allows me to see about 1/3rd of the screen without glare.

Anyone have a Street Pilot III that they are using on a bike? It's really more a novelty item for me as I have no interest in investing heavily in this thing, but I did like the fact that I verified quickly today that my speedo is off about 10%.

Who knows what?
 
I noticed that issue with the colour screens when I was shopping for my GPS. I ended up buying the StreetPilot Monochrome since it was far more visible in sunlight. I liked the colour display, but if you can't see it, its not much good. I do find that even with my monochrome that I have to adjust the contrast sometimes depending on the light conditions. Perhaps that would also improve the view on your StreetPilot III. Also try putting the backlighting on during the day to see if that improves the view.
 
Is it polarized? If not you may want to try a computer screen anti-glare cloth. Some people also call them privacy cloths.
 
I run an SP-III with the Cycle Gadgets shade and love the thing. In fact, I won't leave the garage without it on the bike. Try turning the brightness all the way up and set the contrast at about 3/4 full scale. It washes out ocasionally in bright Texas sunlight, but it's more than adequate 90% of the time.
 
harpeaux said:
I run an SP-III with the Cycle Gadgets shade and love the thing. In fact, I won't leave the garage without it on the bike. Try turning the brightness all the way up and set the contrast at about 3/4 full scale. It washes out ocasionally in bright Texas sunlight, but it's more than adequate 90% of the time.
Harpo: Thanks - that took care of it perfectly! Now I can stare at my GPS instead of the road!
eee.gif
 
OCK,

I'm glad it worked out for you. You're now well on your way to becoming addicted.

Eventaully you will master the fine art of watching your GPS with one eye, and the road with the other. It takes practice though! :D
 
Here's the Cycle Gadgets setup I used

They have two or three options on mounting this beast but to me this looked to be the most practical in terms of ability to swing it to an area that didn't intrude on the rider's view of the instrument panel.
It is "hovering" over the tank bag in this view:
SP3_Front.jpg

This is looking from the right side at the swivel/ball setup
SP3_RtSide.jpg

Here you can see the nifty little setup for utilizing the existing bar mount hex drive cap bolt. This thing is very clever from IMHO.
SP3_LftSide.jpg
 
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