K11 Owners Group

Flying Duck · Posted: Fri Aug 22, 2008 7:56 am Post subject: My new GPS

Well, after much study, I gave up and decided just to buy a refurb'd TomTom RIDER from China on eBay for $85. I'm pretty happy with my purchase and should have it mounted on the LT in the very near future.

One cool thing about it is that after installing the latest firmware from TomTom's website I can make my own car icons.

I started by making a roundel icon:

Then I made one of the LT cockpit: (Too bad I can't make it lean in the corners.)

Here's another one:

And what GPS would be complete without a Crazy Johnny car icon? (Scary, huh?)

_________________
93 LT (x2)
94 RS
86-97 K75F(K75/100/1100 Frankenbrick)
86 K75C w/paralever, hi perf cams,TURBO!
91 & 92 K75Ss
91 K1
86 custom K100
14 WR250R
IBA #17739 (SS1K, BBG, 50CC)
Buy parts HERE

Flying Duck · Posted: Fri Aug 22, 2008 8:35 am Post subject:

I tried this one too but all it does now is tell me to make sharp turns to the left:

_________________
93 LT (x2)
94 RS
86-97 K75F(K75/100/1100 Frankenbrick)
86 K75C w/paralever, hi perf cams,TURBO!
91 & 92 K75Ss
91 K1
86 custom K100
14 WR250R
IBA #17739 (SS1K, BBG, 50CC)
Buy parts HERE

Das Boot · Posted: Fri Aug 22, 2008 9:02 am Post subject:

That's awesome!!
_________________
Dom

owrstrich · Posted: Fri Aug 22, 2008 10:54 am Post subject:

will that thing track you so you can post a photo of where you have been like your other g p s...

j o
_________________
yeeeeeehaaaaaaa...

Flying Duck · Posted: Fri Aug 22, 2008 11:12 am Post subject:

Klinker · Posted: Fri Aug 22, 2008 2:16 pm Post subject:

rydor · Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 2:29 am Post subject:

Is it waterproof? I would be interested in this, I think.

mnb · Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 12:17 pm Post subject:

My Zumo 550 has tracking, plays mp3s, supports bluetooth, is waterproof and is designed specifically for motorcycle use.

It's not cheap, but you get what you pay for. I use it all the time, epecially for music, plugging it into the tape player on the LT via a cassette adaptor.
_________________
M N B
1997 BMW K1100LT ABS Special Edition
2003 Husqvarna TE610e
2007 Harley Davidson Road King
2009 BMW F800GS
2011 Husqvarna TE310
2014 Ducati Multistrada Pikes Peak MNB Edition

owrstrich · Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 12:41 pm Post subject:

the 450 is available at amazon for $399 shipped... the 550 is still about $150 more... sooner or later im gonna have to hit a few convince stores to raise the cash to score one of these...

j o
_________________
yeeeeeehaaaaaaa...

mnb · Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 12:51 pm Post subject:

The 550 is $449 here:
http://www.techondigital.com/product.asp?productid=zumo550

I have no prior experience with that company, though, just found the price in a quick search.

I know BestBuy was dumping 550s for about that price recently, but many stores weren't aware of the deal. I think the special has expired, though.
_________________
M N B
1997 BMW K1100LT ABS Special Edition
2003 Husqvarna TE610e
2007 Harley Davidson Road King
2009 BMW F800GS
2011 Husqvarna TE310
2014 Ducati Multistrada Pikes Peak MNB Edition

Flying Duck · Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 12:57 pm Post subject:

To answer earlier questions:

Yes, it is wterproof.

Tracking/logging: Doesn't do it out of the box but I found some 3rd party freeware that can run in the background and do logging to a variety of formats. It will even log in a format that can be imported in Google Maps! (I'll probbly do NMEA though.) I'm a happy camper now. Very Happy

_________________
93 LT (x2)
94 RS
86-97 K75F(K75/100/1100 Frankenbrick)
86 K75C w/paralever, hi perf cams,TURBO!
91 & 92 K75Ss
91 K1
86 custom K100
14 WR250R
IBA #17739 (SS1K, BBG, 50CC)
Buy parts HERE

Jim · Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2008 1:37 am Post subject: gps

Drake - what did you find? This: http://www.easygps.com/ ?
_________________
Jim
1997 K1100LTSE 94,000 - still has gremlins!
1995 R100RT Classic 16,650 crashed - repaired!
1992 K75RTP 46,000

"We shall not all die, but we shall all be changed."

Off the grid · Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2008 8:14 am Post subject:

_________________
Bane of your existence since July 2006
2007 Triumph Tiger ABS. "Sabertooth"
2009 Husqvarna TE610. "The dirty Italian mistress"

Flying Duck · Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2008 9:15 am Post subject: Re: gps

Flying Duck · Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 11:22 am Post subject:

OK, now I've got this thing dialed in:

Created my own custom stripped-down menus to reduce clutter.

Menu now includes a document reader that can view text and html files. I'll probably load up some K bike files on that (Motronic diagnostics, wiring diagrams, etc....)

I have the tripmaster program running in the background logging my track which I can then upload into my old Magellan software to make maps.

Here's some errands I ran yesterday:

I'm running a 2GB SD card in it now. I'm going to upgrade that to a 4MB SD card so that should give me "infinite" tracking capacity.

I can also use Google Earth to fill up a folder full of places. Then I have Google Earth save that as a .kml file and use a program called poiedit to make that a new POI category on the TomTom.

Created a custom car icon that looks like my RS from the rear (notice the black exhaust and the badge on the fender)

This chit is COOOOL!

And cheap too:

About $100 shipped for the TomTom Rider First Edition.

Hacked North America Map - FREE!

$30 for the addtional bike mounting kit (I'll only be using the cradle on the LT. Might use the other stuff on the RS though.)

$20 for the 12V hardwire cable.

$14 for a 4GB SD card on FleaBay.

I'm a happy camper now. Very Happy

_________________
93 LT (x2)
94 RS
86-97 K75F(K75/100/1100 Frankenbrick)
86 K75C w/paralever, hi perf cams,TURBO!
91 & 92 K75Ss
91 K1
86 custom K100
14 WR250R
IBA #17739 (SS1K, BBG, 50CC)
Buy parts HERE

Klinker · Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 4:54 pm Post subject:

A new level of geekdom has been acheived. Wink

(Yes, I'm jealous.)
_________________
tlp
1994 K1100RS

Only the Reasonists. They believe in an evidence-based world, something called Rationalism. But it's a tiny group, not so influential.
- Page Griffin

Flying Duck · Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 3:53 pm Post subject:

This morning I copied all of the Chevron POIs out of the big POI database and created a new "Chevron" POI category. That'll make it much easier to find Chevron stations only when touring.

Very Happy

_________________
93 LT (x2)
94 RS
86-97 K75F(K75/100/1100 Frankenbrick)
86 K75C w/paralever, hi perf cams,TURBO!
91 & 92 K75Ss
91 K1
86 custom K100
14 WR250R
IBA #17739 (SS1K, BBG, 50CC)
Buy parts HERE

Flying Duck · Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 7:29 pm Post subject:

My mounting cradle showed up today.

As luck would have it, the camera/GPS mount that I made for my old GPS ends up looking like it was designed a for a TomTom Rider so mounting it was easy peasy. Very Happy

Tomorrow it gets it's first motorcyclce ride - up to the cabn for crabbing.

Still have to wait for the hardwire 12V power cable to show up but it'll do 6+ hours on a fully charged battery so that will work for now.
_________________
93 LT (x2)
94 RS
86-97 K75F(K75/100/1100 Frankenbrick)
86 K75C w/paralever, hi perf cams,TURBO!
91 & 92 K75Ss
91 K1
86 custom K100
14 WR250R
IBA #17739 (SS1K, BBG, 50CC)
Buy parts HERE

Flying Duck · Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2008 2:06 pm Post subject:

OK, so now I've actually ridden with it. Up to my cabin and back and some trips around town. Works great and I'm very happy with my purchase.

On the plus side:

Picks up the signal VERY quickly, even inside my house. Loses signal in tunnels - not a big surprise.

I have my own favorite routes for getting around Seattle having lived here most of my life and knowing traffic patterns. It doesn't always pick the same route I would but that's not a big surprise. What is nice is that within a half a block of deviating from it's course, it senses that and automaticlly replans a new route to your destination based on your deviation. On my old GPS I'd have to tell the GPS to reroute every time I deviated from it's planned course.

It pops in and out of the cradle in a second - very easy and conveneient. Don't know if ithe cradle would hold for dual sporting but a rubber band or two would probably give you piece of mind for off-roading. Seems fine for road riding thoiugh.

Overall it works great.

On the minus side:

Hard to see in direct bright sunlight. I pretty much expected this. I can still see it OK though and all I need to do is shade it with my hand if I want to see it better. I could buy a sunshade for it but I don't really feel the need.

It has two limited "safe" modes. These are limited menu modes to keep you from distracting yourself fiddling with the GPS while moving. I assume it's a safety/liability thing. When out of the cradle and it senses you're moving, it limits the menu to a six function safe"car" menu. You can pick which six options you'd like to customize the "car" menu. When it's in the cradle and you're moving it has a limited safe "riding" menu that has only four options - one of which you can pick. If you stop then you have ful menu access, once you've picked your menu option, you can start moving again and you can still complete whatever function you wanted to perform.

One of the options on the safe riding menu is Find Nearest Gas Station. I've tried this twice. Both times it locked up the TomTom but after a minute it automatically reboots itself which is good. I"m not sure if this is a TomTom hardware/software issue because it could be that the 3rd party Tripmaster software I have running in the background is causing it to lock up. Not a big deal in the whole scheme of things. It provides other ways (Find POI) to find the nearest gas station if I really need to.

There's also a very slight delay in responding to commands occasionally. This is caused by the Tripmaster software running in the background. Again, not a big deal as it's worth that minor inconvenience to have tracking ability.For city riding, I can turn the Tripmaster software off since I don't care about tracking in the cty.

After much searching, calling, emailing, I simply canot find anyone in the US who has a 12V hardwaire cable in stock. I'm giving up and ordering one for each bike from the UK.

Conclusion: Overall very happy with my purchase. Much better than my old GPS and pretty dang cheap.

Other stuff I don't use/care about:

It also has a bluetooth earpiece for spoken directions you can buy. I really don't care about that though so won't be buying one.

You can use it's blueooth to integrate with you phone too. There's a POI category for people that let's you put in the phone number and the TomTom will call for you. Again not something I care about.

There's a couple of other services you can buy from TomTom that I don't care about enoug hto pay for them. One is TomTom traffic which you do through a bluetoth cellphone. The other is maps of safety cameras.

The newer TomToms also allow you to downlad map corrections. My Rider First Edition does not support that. But hey, for the money I'm still happy.
_________________
93 LT (x2)
94 RS
86-97 K75F(K75/100/1100 Frankenbrick)
86 K75C w/paralever, hi perf cams,TURBO!
91 & 92 K75Ss
91 K1
86 custom K100
14 WR250R
IBA #17739 (SS1K, BBG, 50CC)
Buy parts HERE

owrstrich · Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2008 2:50 pm Post subject:

does that thing get fox news...

if so i want one in a badd way...

johnny
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yeeeeeehaaaaaaa...