Does anyone know if a gadget can be obtained that will allow me to charge my mobile phone,and run my Tom Tom sat nav in the Chummy please?

Location: Wessex

I have found a spot in my ruby ,where I have secreted a 12v motor cycle battery(nice and compact) I keep it well charged and use for just that purpose. With a converter. It is a bit of a pantomime!so only used occasionally.

Location: Ferring. west susex

I think this has cropped up on the forum before. I have installed a cigarette lighter socket on our RP and our Tomtom works perfectly well on 6 volts, I don't know about mobile phone charge-ups, we are still on smoke signals down here.
Brian

Location: Just East of Sandy

Ian,
Both the Sat Nav and Mobile charger usually require about 5 volts.
Connect one of THESE to your 6v battery and see if they work using the lead that you use for 12v. My Sat Nav worked OK. Have not tried mobile.

The main trouble I found with the Sat Nav was, I could not hear it with engine running. I had to fix a microphone to the back of it connected to a motorcycle intercom, and listen on the earpiece.

Bryan

Location: Hertfordshire

Or convert the whole car to 12 volt. Looking into this it does seem to have advantages.

Location: United Kingdom ooop norf

Hi Ian, I used to run my TomTom GPS directly from the 6V battery on the Chummy but found whilst this worked well without the headlights on, the drop in battery voltage with the headlights on was sufficient to prevent the GPS charging.

So, I bought one of these about 2 years ago, it lives under the passenger seat, next to the battery to which it is connected via the battery isolator switch. The output is connected to a 3 socket cigar lighter extension socket (from Wickes) which lives in the passenger side glovebox.

I use it for both powering the SatNav (now a Garmin) and charging the mobile - often at the same time - and it does the job, headlights on or not.

RECOMMENDED

There are cheaper DC-DC up converters available from China via the internet but all come just as a circuit board. I went for this one because all of the electronics are "potted" in a resin filled enclosure so it is, to all intents and purposes waterproof and resistant to most physical abuse.(also quickly obtainable from the UK)

If you decide to go for one, email me direct and I'll give you a few fitting tips, if you wish.

Ian Mc.

Location: Shropshire

Thank you all for your kind advice.
Last summer I connected my old TomTom "Live"directly to the 6 volt battery,as I had read that this was safe to do.
It ran OK for 3 days and then gave up the ghost completely and lost every thing.I have tried all over the place to get it repaired, but to no avail,and have now had to buy a new one.
I am now very wary about connecting this one to 6 volts,and will take Ian's advice and ask Dunford Minor to get me one via ebay,as I have had no dealings with this particular kind of magic!
I shall take up your offer of fitting tips when the little rascal is in my hands Ian.Thank you.
Andrew you reccomendation of converting to 12 volts is much appreciated,but not something that I really want to do. I have run all my 7's on 6 volts for 48 years now and only once run out of electrikery which was down to a broken dynamo.

Location: Wessex

Ian,
If connecting to a 6v battery , I still recommend that it done via your original 12v lead with cigar plug, and a cigar lighter socket connected to you car battery. I think there are some electronics in the cigar lighter plug that adjust the input voltage be it 12 or 6 to the output voltage required by the Sat Nav. Probably similar applies to the phone charger.
Bryan

Location: Hertfordshire

Absolutely correct Bryan.

All the car supply/charging leads for SatNavs and mobile phones contain, usually in the cigar lighter plug assembly, a little electronic voltage regulator which is expecting to see 11 to 27volts input ( they are usually intended for both car and truck use) and then regulates it down to about 5.2 volts required by the device on charge. The difference between the minimum input voltage required by this regulator and the 5.2 volts regulated output is commonly known as the "drop-out" voltage in the world of electronics and it varies between devices but is usually around 2 volts.
This is why my TomTom charged happily when the headlights were off and the battery on charge at about 7.2 volts, but also why it failed when the headlight load cause the battery voltage to drop closer to a nominal 6 volts.

The device I have recommended will do not much more than run the SatNav and charge a 'phone as the (nominal) 12 volts output is only rated at 1 amp.

Ian Mc.

Location: Shropshire

Johny Johnson and I did the EURO tour this year and used the sat nav plugged into the cigar socket(6volt) for 2 weeks we did'nt get lost either but we did get pis@@D several times!

Chris

location checking the inside of my wallet!

Thanks again everone.I did actually connect the Tom Tom via a cigar lighter socket connected to the battery by two crocodile clips.
Any ideas therefore why it knackered the old Tom Tom please?

Location: Wessex

Accidental reverse polarity??

Ian Mc.

Location: Shropshire

Hi Ian,
I'm pretty certain I had it connected the right way round.
Would the sat nav have lasted 3 days if not do you think?
Sorry for all thes gormless questions but it's all a mystery to me!!

Location: Wessex

hi ian,

i bought some 12 to 6 volt reducers from the states the other year.

and never got the change to put them out for sale.

they are made to be put in line to fit a 12volt gauge to a 6volt system.

it may reduce a mobile phone from 12v to 6v

if you want to give it a go i`ll send you a freeby and you can let me know how you get on.

tony

Well, some of this is supposition but, if you had connected it the wrong way round and blown the voltage regulator in the plug it most likely wouldn't charge. However, it would run on its internal battery until that went flat. I don't suppose that you tried charging the old TomTom with a different lead or a mains charger after it went belly up??


EDIT: Incidentally, some of the cigar plug chargers have a little glass 1 amp cartridge fuse inside as protection. Can't remember whether the TomTom did or not and I can't check as I gave it to the son in law when I got a Garmin last Christmas.If you still have the old TomTom etc. it might be worth a look if the plug is disassemblable(is that a proper word?).

Ian Mc.

Location: Shropshire

Thank you very much for your most kind offer Tony . I would be most grateful if you would forward the feeby to Ruairidh who will help me to check it out, over the festive season, where I have managed to invagle an invite.
However I insist on paying the going rate,so please send me an invoice
Ian .

Location: Wessex

Ian
Thank you for your patience.
I did connect the device to the computor at home,,to no effect,and the tiny fuse in the connecting socket is still intact,
The Tom Tom was actuly nearly 3 years old so I suppose it may have just naturally expired,or the shock of suddenly being in an 83 year old car was too much to take.

Location: Wessex

Location: Shropshire

On a slightly different tack- someone just told me a story about a windscreen mounted Sat Nav (GPS) battery which overheated when parked in bright sunlight, exploded and caught fire, destroying the dashboard. Could be an urban myth.
My four year old HP GPS regularly shows a message 'battery overheated' in sunlight.

Nearer to the topic I have run it successfuly from a lighter plug assembly attached to the 6 volt battery as Ian noted but not for any lenght of time -I understood that using correct polarity was the only problem.

Tony.

Location: Melbourne, Australia

The exploding in bright sunlight scenario is somewhat less likely to be a hazard in the UK, Tony!!!

Yes, my old TomTom ran fine on 6volts until I drove in darkness for longer than a couple of hours. The internal battery was about shot and 2 hrs was about as long as it would last; after 2 hrs driving with the headlights on - at less than max. speed - the Satnav just switched off, battery not charging as I said because the battery volts in that situation had fallen below the "drop out" level for that particular voltage regulator in the cigar plug.

The TomTom was fine afterwards with daylight driving.

Ian Mc.

Location: Shropshire

Ian,

Connecting it to 6V will not have killed it.

My tomtom has a led on the front to show that it has an external supply does yours and does it light up when connected to a computer? Is it completely dead or does the screen show anything when you power it up?

Have you tried to reset it? On mine there is a small button on the back to reset it - needs a bit of wire or similar.

Dave

Hi Ian (Mr. Dunford),

Forgive me for asking such an impertinent question, but what is wrong with a map? Surely what the chummy was designed for.

Location: Stretham, Ely, the Fens.

I fitted one of those connectors and it works. There's enough power when you're using the satnav to more or less maintain stasis, and if it's on standby the battery will recharge.
I use a satnav app on my iphone, so yes it does work for mobile phones as well.
To solve the audibility problem you need one of these mounts, if you have an iphone:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kensington-Soundwave-Cradle-Mount-iPhone/dp/B006E0B0V8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1354610304&sr=8-2

I find it works very well, doubling the sound output.

David

Location: Stoke Poges

A map!!

I grew up in the fens and a fix on a star and a chart was the most useful way to get about given the lack of landmarks. I was north of the 40ft recently and kept getting a sense of dejavu as I tried to work out if I had passed that particular scruffy barn with a confederate flag before or if they really all do look the same.

Some roads there's so little to look at I get motion sickness as a driver.

I'm now wondering about satnav directions in the fens - turn left - straight on for twenty miles.

You're lucky to be in Stretham right on the edge of it. I love the road Stretham to Soham.

David

Location: Lewisham

Thank you one and all for your much appreciated help and advice,
I am now fairly sure that my sat nav died of natural causes,but I am going to try one of Tony's thingys anyway,as I am certain that with Ian McG's guidance I will get through it.
Lance, maps are all very well and I have a huge collection of which I am inordinately fond,but have discovered that since using the Sat Nav, fist fights between my wife and me have been reduced to a minnimum,and I hardly run into other vehicles at all when on my own.

Location: Wessex

I have a SatNav, Garmin, which was not that clever on my 6v supply - as in recharginging, but I understand Tom-Toms are better, but no experience of them. My Garmin was £19.95 off Ebay (It had not been reset, Max Speed was 138mph, only used around Brixton etc.............).

I bought an inverter from USA, specifically aimed at 6v to 12v Classic Cars, however as intimated above in a previous post, it's just the basic transistors etc, a heatsink was required and box, sockets, plugs etc., Fortunatly by a very tenuous Austin 7 link, the unit was assembled for me by Peter Davey, one of the Cambridge Graduates who hoisted the Van up onto a College roof back in the 50's, Peter lives in the Village (now do I go 'Ambridge or Mousehole'?, no I shall let that rest).

Maps, yes I use them, the SatNav I use in the 7 and my modern for 'unknown' locations, such as ABC Road in Cardiff, I drive on intuition/maps to the edge of Cardiff then on SatNav to the actual location. As IanD implies above, it helps when in traffic on multi-junctioned Roads to get to where you want to without to much hassle.

IF I have the SatNav on, then it's normally set to the Data Screen - Speed, Avg Speed, Time travelled etc.,.

Having left the SatNav on when coming down the M5 motorway and turning off onto the A30, I was instructed to take the 3rd turning off at 83 miles....
** Now here's the challenge**, excluding[/u][/u] Motorways, what is the longest distance you've been told it is to the next turning?

OK, I can well imagine the A9 south from Inverness must be 110 miles to the roundabout at Perth. Any others?

Location: Fed up hosing mud off the dogs - so are they.....

I do the same in a Seven as I do with the modern.

Check the route on google maps and print out the instructions and if I get really lost, stop and "cheat" by looking at my iphone, which works a bit like a satnav but without the commentary!

Location: Near Bicester

In this Village?

If your satnavs/phones need a five volt input you can make a regulator for it that will run of the 6 volt car supply. As Ian Mc mentioned the problem with regulators is the drop out. The regulator needs a certain amount of voltage above the voltage you want out for it to work.

The 'standard' five volt regulator is a LM7805. This is what a lot of those 12 - 5 volt cigarette lighter adaptors use and this is why, as Ian mentions, they might not always work if the input voltage drops too low. They need several volts above the 5 volt output to work.

You can however get what are called LDO regulators - Low Drop Out. They only need an input voltage 0.5 to 1 volt above the voltage out you want. These are perfect for getting 5 volts out from a 6 volt input.

The one to use is a LM2940 5V regulator

I've played with electronics for most of my life so it seems easy to me to whip up a little regulator like this. It really isn't too tricky and only needs a little soldering and a few parts. I could maybe write up a little tutorial on my blog if anyone is really interested? I don't have my special at the stage where I have a battery or any wiring yet though so wouldn't be able to test it under real conditions.

I used to work for a sat nav company when these things were still new and expensive (I still have one assembled from engineering reject parts but never use it). Once one of the engineers got his niece to redo some of the voice prompts for us. The thing would give directions like "Go left. No, the other left dick-head." all said in innocent, pre-school aged girly voice!

For Ian D, maybe this thing I made once is more your style of navigator

Simon

Location: Auckland, New Zealand

LOL, I cheat too.

I've got one of those very rare things, a wife that can read a map!.

I go where she says, and we always get where we are going.

Lance,

before this gets quite out of hand I think it is only fair to let you know that both my parents, now quite aged, have become almost totally incontinent, this together with the drooling and the fact that they have traditionally kept their maps on the floor in front of their seats has led to many of them turning literally to mush. In an attempt to save the family collection of priceless maps my sister and I purchased a Sat Nav that is mounted quite some distance above the tide mark.

I trust this puts the matter to bed and chastisement on his choice of navigational instrument will now cease.

I'm so sorry Ruairidh, I hadn't realised the full extent of the nav. problem. There is a picture at the top of page 18 of Wyatt's pictorial tribute showing an early form of satnav attached to the steering wheel of a chummy.
My wife has just reminded me that contributing to this forum suggests that I don't have enough to do! Better do some work!

Location: Stretham, Ely, the Fens.

Of course there are some of us who can't read anything written etc., whilst a vehicles in motion, I'm one of them, quick glances at dials are OK though, then again because I have lost the ability to focus my eyes easily that is also a problem. I have three pairs of bi-focals for different activities. Anything nearer than three feet and I am at most able to see + or - one inch either side of the focal point of a specific lense perscription. I do have one pair of Vari-lenses, graded between 2 feet and 9 inches, that is as sharp a grading across the lense as I can cope with.

So, SatNav for me, but yes I do also print off Google Maps, had to this morning to find a house tucked well away from a road near PZ.

Location: Fed up hosing mud off the dogs - so are they.....

Splendid. The similarity of the driver and passenger to the aforementioned lady and gent is uncanny!

Sandy,

In Zambia in 2010, we left Lusaka heading for the Luangwa Valley game park, W knew the way from our previous lives there, but put the Garmin on and Eloise said to us "In 530 kilometres, turn left". That has to be the longest instruction and very depressing it was to hear as well.

Location: Rainy SW France

Hi Simon

No idea how to do the "quote" box so here it is:

The one to use is a LM2940 5V regulator

I've played with electronics for most of my life so it seems easy to me to whip up a little regulator like this. It really isn't too tricky and only needs a little soldering and a few parts. I could maybe write up a little tutorial on my blog if anyone is really interested?

YES! Please do! I've been trying to find a simple solution for this problem for use on my old 1952 BSA bike and being a complete cretin with anything electrical I would be forever grateful if you could provide an step by step guide so that an idiot such as I could understand it. I have a soldering set-up for making Bowden cables for I could probably do the necessary with only 3rd degree burns

Please, please!!

Cheers
Pete

Location: Germany

I'll see what I can do!

Location: Auckland, New Zealand

Hi Simon

Did you get a chance to have a go at this problem?

With the roads covered in snow here I have time to get the soldering iron out, I just need to know what I'm doing

Cheers
Pete

Location: Germany

Oh, I replied earlier but it got lost! I haven't had a chance to do it yet but I do have all the components. I also have a new scope to play with and need a little project so will see what I can do this weekend!

Simon

Location: Auckland, New Zealand

"my parents, now quite aged, have become almost totally incontinent"
The great advantage of a map for the incontinents of Europe is that you can indicate the location of toilets along the route. I'm not sure whether sat-navs have this built-in mictoritional facility.

Location: Crossed legs in Colchester

mictoritional? I had to look that one up in Stedman's!

Location: Near Bicester

Seems quite self explanatory to me then Ivor!
Renaud

Location: Fox den in Brest

I was momentarily held back on this one but then it all came flooding back to me...

When you say "incontinent" do you mean the SatNav only works within Europe?

Mictoritional?
not having access to a stedmans and being lazy I have not looked it up, but I offer this alternative.
You will require a condom and about 4 feet of 1/4" clear plastic hose and a zip tie, those with no imagination will require a bigger zip tie and a pair of sidecutters!
You cut the end off the condom insert the hose and fasten with the small zip tie. The result is attached to your offending member (not you Shirley) and the hose is passed down your left trouser leg exiting at the ankle and through the Austin seven floor leaving just enough slack to allow operation of the clutch. This can then be conveniently tucked into your wet sock when exiting the vehicle. A word of warning! On no account must this hose enter the prop shaft tunnel.
Those who have chosen the first option will have to practice with the sidecutters as by the time you have found the Mictoritional conveniences this area will be getting quite tight. cheers Russell

Location: OZ

That made my eyes water somewhat

Geoff - Not quite snowed in, yet

Location: South Norfolk - Near Suffolk

Interesting thread.
As an electronics engineer I have some concern of connecting an expensive electronic device to a "raw" dc supply in a car. The electrical environment in vehicles is notoriously noisy, with spikes and drop outs very common. Car cigarette lighter chargers or USB adaptors include some filtering to limit these effects. I would therefore be very nervous of connecting directly to the 6v supply. My Speedy runs on 12v and I have a dual cigarette lighter connector happily supplying power to the satnav and phone chargers without problems.
As an example, I have developed a very sophisticated electronic dynamo regulator to help squeeze as much as possible out of the A7 dynamo. I thought this was virtually bomb proof; immune to reverse polarity, good to control up to 35 amps (I wish!), filtered against normal voltage spikes etc., all this without needing a fuse - the protection is all electronic. This has worked brilliantly for a few years and many '000s miles.

However, the one challenge I forgot was a loose connection to the dynamo, allowing the voltage to rise dramatically (can reach '00s volts!, which took out some of the semi-conductors). I've now added a clamp to protect any repeat of this problem.
You may well be lucky if you connect directly to the 6v but......

Good luck

Martin

As mentioned on the forum before- I thought all you had to do was connect a cigarette lighter socket (from your favourite auto parts supplier) to the 6 volt battery (negative earth), plug in the standard GPS (Sat Nav) charger and away you go.

Worked for me.

Tony.

Oops- just read Ian's comment above -

All the car supply/charging leads for SatNavs and mobile phones contain, usually in the cigar lighter plug assembly, a little electronic voltage regulator which is expecting to see 11 to 27volts input ( they are usually intended for both car and truck use) and then regulates it down to about 5.2 volts required by the device on charge. The difference between the minimum input voltage required by this regulator and the 5.2 volts regulated output is commonly known as the "drop-out" voltage in the world of electronics and it varies between devices but is usually around 2 volts.
This is why my TomTom charged happily when the headlights were off and the battery on charge at about 7.2 volts, but also why it failed when the headlight load cause the battery voltage to drop closer to a nominal 6 volts.

I will get me hat and go home

Location: Melbourne, Australia

I made up the little regulator circuit in the weekend and am testing it out now. I'll put a write up on my blog.

It's LDO regulator and it's pretty much made for car type applications. It will give you a fixed 5 volt output (at up to 1 amp) from an input voltage right down to 5.3 volts (up to 26 from memory?). Once it goes below 5.3v it will give you whatever the input is minus 0.3 volts.

I've been testing it using my ancient GPS unit (from the days when they were rare and expensive and power hungry) and that works fine. That unit shuts down when the input drops below about 4.7 volts.

The circuit is simple, one three pin device and two capacitors. It has reverse polarity, short circuit and thermal overload protection built in. It does need to be installed on a little heat-sink, especially at higher input voltages

I don't know what the voltage range is on a standard 6 volt car though? If someone can tell me that I can do some more testing.

All the details are at home and I can't remember the actual part number of the top of my head but I think I mentioned it earlier in this thread.

Simon

Location: Auckland, New Zealand

There's a simple alternative to electronic solutions.

Buy a small 12v sealed battery and cigarette lighter socket(now referred to as a power outlet if you want to be politically correct) connect together and your sat nav will last sufficiently to complete the jogle.

Prices have risen recently but it's still an easy solution and even a chummy has sufficient space. As they're lead acid you can charge from your normal battery charger (switched to 12v!)

David

Location: Under the snow

I went down a similar sort of line, only I bought a secondhand 12v starter pack ( the yellow plastic box that holds a charger/ air pump) . I gutted it and built a box around it incorporating the light, cigarette lighter , battery conddition indicator. it fits under the passenger seat of my opal with the pack charger (to top up when required) and my first aid kit. I used it for 4 days in France last year on the satnav and mobile phone using vertually nothing on the meter.

Location: Basingstoke