In car Laptop GPS, for travel + offroading

by **Karo** » Tue Sep 27, 2011 12:44 pm

Bought from Ebay as used for a very good price..
Hopefully i receive it before weekend.

YouTube Videos · by **Trail X** » Tue Sep 27, 2011 1:34 pm

Mike, for what it's worth, my 8 year old dell laptop has no problems with the vibrations and is still running strong.

However, the wife and I agreed that a small 10" or so tablet would be nice if we did the trip again... just to regain some cockpit space.

by **KE7WOX** » Wed Oct 05, 2011 6:54 pm

JamesDowning wrote:Mike, for what it's worth, my 8 year old dell laptop has no problems with the vibrations and is still running strong.

Not even the hinges?

I just bought a Latitude D600 from a surplus sale at the school for $50, including everything except for the charger, and it's in great condition other than the hinges being a bit loose (which I've seen go really bad in plenty of Inspirons), so I might eventually use it in the truck too.

by **djthumper** » Wed Oct 05, 2011 9:00 pm

KE7WOX wrote:Not even the hinges?

I just bought a Latitude D600 from a surplus sale at the school for $50, including everything except for the charger, and it's in great condition other than the hinges being a bit loose (which I've seen go really bad in plenty of Inspirons), so I might eventually use it in the truck too.

Get the AC adapter, upgrade it to 2GB of RAM it will do awesome. Even doing APRS on it. I have one that I use in the truck.

YouTube Videos · by **Trail X** » Wed Oct 05, 2011 10:09 pm

Mine is a D600.

Hinges have a bit of a dead zone (maybe 2 degrees). Might be able to tighten the mounting screws a bit more.

The hinges don't get any wear on the road though, as I have the screen clamp accessory for the ram mount - a necessity for any laptop in an off road vehicle, I think...

by **Blackout** » Fri Nov 18, 2011 2:30 am

I came across these at an aviation site. I found out I'm getting an android tablet for Christmas, and found a bluetooth GPS unit that's built for IPAD and Android systems. I figured I could pick it up and find some kind of mount like the universal ones on that site that I can rig to the TB instead of carrying a laptop, and probably do it cheaper than getting a RAM mount and springing for Delorme USB GPS and software.

http://www.sportys.com/PilotShop/product/16597

Also, you can add in a SPOT device and free app
http://www.sportys.com/PilotShop/product/16425
http://www.sportys.com/PilotShop/product/16442

Thoughts?

by **Nakashige** » Sun Jan 08, 2012 11:50 pm

So I decided to take a jump I got a ipad 2 a GPS unit for it and a ram mount. Now just need to find Topo maps and navigation for the ipad

by **djthumper** » Mon Jan 09, 2012 1:39 am

Nakashige wrote:So I decided to take a jump I got a ipad 2 a GPS unit for it and a ram mount. Now just need to find Topo maps and navigation for the ipad

Take a look at these

http://topomapsapp.com/

http://www.ihikegps.com/

by **Nakashige** » Mon Jan 09, 2012 3:23 am

Ipad comes on the 11th cant wait to try out those apps maybe my truck will be fixed and I can take a light trip and test it out.

by **Nakashige** » Mon Jan 09, 2012 3:24 am

Going to you a droid x2 as a hotspot in case i need internet

by **boog2006** » Thu Feb 02, 2012 3:25 pm

Have you had success with the iPad navigation? I have an ipad2 and just recently got an iphone4s so through hotspot I have gps on the pad. Noe I just have to select the right app. I'm looking at view ranger. Thoughts?

---
I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=36.881753,-88.678718

by **Nakashige** » Fri Feb 03, 2012 1:49 am

Ihike and co pilot on road

by **bartonmd** » Fri Oct 26, 2012 9:20 pm

BOOM! 10" Windows 7 tablet with 54GB SSD, bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and bluetooth GPS with TOPO 9!

by **fishsticks** » Fri Oct 26, 2012 9:22 pm

by **boog2006** » Fri Oct 26, 2012 9:46 pm

Nice!

by **bartonmd** » Fri Oct 26, 2012 9:46 pm

The best part is that the $800 Fujitsu tablet came for the bargain price of nothing. The broken USB port means we can't use it (hardware key), but I can get around not having it for my own use.

Because it's REAL Windows 7 Professional, everything "windows" runs perfectly on it!

Mike

by **fishsticks** » Fri Oct 26, 2012 10:07 pm

bartonmd wrote:The broken USB port means we can't use it (hardware key), but I can get around not having it for my own use.

Elaborate?

You can solder on another lead.

by **bartonmd** » Fri Oct 26, 2012 10:22 pm

We use these on machines at work, and we use a USB hardware dongle on them. Somebody dropped this one, and the hardare key broke the USB internally (the plastic deal that holds the traces inside the connector), so it's basically trash to us/them. We don't usually get these, but this one happened to be on a demo unit, so it came back. There was one with a broken screen that I tried to take apart and switch the USB connectors on, to try and salvage one for work, but they have some kind of conformal coating on the board, which causes me to not be able to get the solder to melt without being worried about killing the board, itself. I may try and do something about it at some point, but I don't want to ruin it, and the lack of functionality isn't killing me. I've got bluetooth everything, and a 32GB SD card to transfer files, so I'm not hurting for this usage.

Mike

by **OKTrailblazer** » Wed Sep 25, 2013 1:00 pm

Many years ago before laptop mounts became so used, I made one for a van I was driving for a company. It consisted of a 2'' pipe with the end threaded, onto it was mounted a piece of plywood and it connected with a pipe to floor mount flange. The mounting flange had threads and was flat on one side with holed drilled through it. My lap top set on a cooler and was secured with a wide webbing kind of strap. It worked great, below the pipe was mounted to a box that contained a radio, inverter, tub type filing system and places for maps. The pipe was secured to it with two pipe saddle clamps. I loved it, simple yet very rugged. The whole thing was made out of 1/4'' plywood and pipe, I think total cost was around $ 50 bucks + time.

Offroad Trailblazers and Envoys