| Author | Message | ||
     Reepicheep |
Here is what I did for an economical and effective motorcyle mount for the Quest using parts in the box... The Quest comes with a very nice little AC adapter. While this is great, I will never be using my Quest when I am not around a car or my motorcycle anyway. So if I need to charge it up, the car adapter or the powered motorcycle mount will do fine for me. With that realization, I simply cut the wire going from the AC adapter. Leave yourself as much wire as possible, cut it near the wall adapter part. You then can take the electrical connector part of that wire off the plastic snap on bracket (that just holds the quest). I think it has an annoying little torx head screw, but that is easy enough to manhandle off with a sharp knife or jewlers screwdriver (or use a dremel tool to make it a slotted screw). You can then connect that wire and connector to your cheap Quest RAM mount bracket ($9 or something) for the quest. It includes the cradle, with screw holes, but does not include the electrical connector. So you have combined the wire and connector you cut from your AC adapter (free) with the cheap RAM mount ($9 or so) and attached it to a small bent piece of metal (free from the scrap pile) that was previously sprayed with some wal-mart "truck bed liner spray paint". Bolt that to your mirror mounting boss on your bars, which naturally has been empty ever since you put on the bar end mirrors (3rd eye mountian bike mirrors). Geesh, I really am a cheapskate. Here is how the bracket looks, you can see the connector on the back. It screws right on to the RAM mount. I think the AC connector had a tiny torx screw that had to be "converted" to a slotted screw.  So now you have the quest connected to the cradle, and the cradle connected to the bike. This is what the riders view looks like:  Next, we need to connect the wire to the bike. On my Buell XB9SX, this was fairly easy, I have a clean 12 volt line right under the flyscreen. The Quest wants 5 volts though, so you need a regulator.  I actually had one laying around from voltage regulators I built for the old tube frame Buells that were eating speedo sensors. Many of you probably still have them on your bikes  The inductor (L1) and Diode (D1) are in theory overkill, but when getting $8 worth of parts to power a $300 GPS, better safe then sorry. The LED is optional as well, but it's nice to see a visual to know the regulator is regulating and has power. The size of the inductor and LED are not critical as well, take apart any old electronic device of some sort and grab whatever is handy. Blown PC power supplies are a nice source of good free coils (inductors) and capacitors. Here is how to build one:  And solder them together according to the schematic above  And pot them (I used liquid electrical tape and lots of real electrical tape and some cable ties).  Then wired this into the bike behind the flyscreen.  The LED is there just for fun, you can see it through my "hero blue translucid" flyscreen.  I don't remember which leads were which on the power connector, just measure them from the AC adapter before you take it apart and mark them. Then hook the regulator to the right ones as marked. You only need +5v and ground, though if you wanted to rig a speaker I think that is what the other pins are for. I don't recall if the AC adapter has 4 wires (for the speakers as well) or just two. I can walk out to garage and ping them out with my meter if anyone wants to know. I didn't even look at hooking up the speaker. I'll look at the screen to know how far to go until my next turn. Another approach would be to go to your local wal-mart or target, and look through all their "phone chargers". Those are simply (fairly sophisticated switching power supply) 12v to Xvolt converters. The trick is to find one for a cell phone that wants 5volts. Find one, take it apart and make it waterproof and put on the right leads, and you have your regulator pre built for maybe $8 to $15. That being said, those radio shack parts are probably less then $10, and thats at a 100% markup. Find them at a local electronics shop and it will be even cheaper. Feel free to ask any questions. It's a very easy and cheap install. | ||
| Bigdog_tim |
Brilliant! | ||
| Az_m2 |
I have a 12V adapter and a/c charger. I thought they both came in the box with the GPS. The 12V adapter has a built in speaker/volume control for voice directions. Did yours not come with both? | ||
| Reepicheep |
Yes, I got both. But I wanted to keep the 12V speaker one intact and available for the car. One of the things I really like about the Quest is the fact I can move it between vehicles so easily, and throw it in a pocket when I want. The one I cut up was the AC adapter. If I am charging the Quest whenever it is either in the car or on the bike, I just never saw any significant need to be able to charge it off the house AC as well. If I travel, I will either be on the bike (and able to charge it) or packing the car adapter (and able to charge it whenever I am in a car). (Message edited by reepicheep on November 30, 2006) | ||
| Az_m2 |
Gotcha. I usually charge mine at the house, pop it into the RAM mount on the bike and it's good all day. But there have been times when I've had to charg it while riding using the 12V adapter and socket on the Uly. The Quest is a great little device and is one of the best pieces of gear I've bought  | ||
| Jackbequick |
Nice job and nice writeup! Just as a bit of an aside note, some Garmins (like my 76Cx handheld) don't need a DC-DC adapter to drop the power to 5 Volts. The 60, 76, and most of the other Garmin handhelds will take a 9-35 Volt DC input and do all the power handling conversions internal to the GPS. The Magellan Meridians, like the Quest, also need a DC-DC adapter but it has to be 3.8V not 5V. And none of the handheld GPS receivers that use AA cells for power will charge the cells when external DC power is connected. They bypass the batteries and they are simply not used or charged when on external power. Jack |
