Anecdotes Of A Tomtom One

[Tightwad]

Budget Tales of the TomTom One

Part one, acquiring and setting up the Tom Tom One

Motorcycle farkles are many and varied. When it comes to GPS units, the Garmin Zumo is widely considered the cream of the crop. Many threads have been dedicated to it’s use, abilities, features, etc. The prime example can be found here: http://www.vfrdiscussion.com/forum/index.p...p;hl=tales+zumo

While to Zumo is indeed a work of engineering magic, and encompasses most everything one could want in a GPS, it also comes with a tremendous price tag ($550+ on average). Such a price tag demands many rides to recoup the value (not a bad thing), which may not be possible for everyone. The pricetag itself may regulate the unit to wishful thinking, up there with Staintune exhaust, Valentine 1 Radar, and many other devices. Indeed, for me that is the case. My name reflects my spending habits…not so much from choice, but from having many other fiscal responsibilities (4 of whom continue to grow and need new clothes)…thus when I considered a GPS, I was looking for something a little less expensive….and willing to make the tradeoffs I knew would be part of it.

Enter the TomTom One. The TomTom One is the base model of touch screen GPS offered by TomTom. On the Zumo end you have the TomTom Rider 2, which offers all the same amenities as the Zumo (including the price tag). Price is/was the driving factor for the TomTom One, and it was there that I struck it cheap. My first find was a new unit for $120 after mail in rebate($50). This was a very tempting price, but was above the amount I could afford to drop (without prior budgeting) on a GPS. I did pass this deal on to DutchInterceptor (knowing he was looking at the same unit for $150), and he jumped in for 2 units. I kept searching various deal sights hoping for a miracle…..and miracles still happen! 1 week before I was set to leave on my 2K mile trip, I came across the deal of all deals. $50 for a refurbished TomTom One from www.buy.com, after $20 MIR and $50 bonus for signing up for a new credit card from Revolution Card. I didn’t need the Credit Card, but for $50 I would pay that bill and cancel the account….not planning to buy another house soon so the credit score adjustment wouldn’t be having any effect anyway.

I chose the free shipping option (keeping price low here) and then realized it might not arrive in time! Alas, my fears were unfounded, as even on Budget Shipping Buy.com delivers UPS, and that means 2-3 days max. While I was waiting for my GPS to arrive, I began(continued actually) to investigate what could be done with the TomTom One. Let me backtrack a bit and explain about the One. The One is actually in it’s third edition….and they are backpedaling. Originally it came with an SD card slot, for keeping the maps etc on. It also had Bluetooth capabilities and itinerary planning (multiple waypoints). All this was proving to be too many options for a budget device, and was encroaching on the sales of the “better” devices. With the 3rd edition they did away with all of that….it is regulated to 1GB internal memory, no BT and no itinerary planning. This would mean only the very basic of options(point to point navigation), and Points of Interest that had to be loaded with care, as space is limited.

This would not do, but I found a couple key sites for TomTom users. www.tomtomforums.com is probably the most important. It was here that I discovered that the TomTom is highly customizable…at the expense of time and some investigation. I found that the 2nd edition menu could be accessed still, which restored itinerary planning. True you lost the “Help Me” and some other options, but I was able to get what I really wanted. Along with that, I found something called “Tripmaster”. Tripmaster can record your route as an ITN (TomTom itinerary) file, which can later be opened in Google Earth to review your entire route. Tripmaster also offers a display showing just speed and heading, with elapsed time and mileage, moving average, top speed, and overall average speed. It even offers a speed limit warning that is customizable. Of course, Tripmaster wasn’t really built for the TomTom One 3rd edition (furthermore called the TT1 because I am tired of typing it). You actually have to install Tripmaster 1.8, then Tripmaster 2.0 Beta, then it won’t display correctly, and you go into a file and edit 1 line to change the display type….really not as hard as it sounds, but rather strange in sequence. The last program I got is called TYRE…or Trace Your Route Everywhere. This is the coupe de grace when it comes to the TT1. With this easy to use software, you can prepare a route using Google maps, and save it to your computer AND to your TT1. It also converts GPX and other common GPS files to ITN files, which is what the TT1 needs. So simple I was able to show HispanicSlammer how to do it from memory, so he could share routes from his Zumo to Dutch’s TT1.

There are other enhancements I didn’t take advantage of….hacks to turn your TT1 into a movie player, MP3 player, flashlight(white screen) etc….so many that I will have fun for months to come just trying some of them. Some of the hacks are in other languages, the TomTom is truly a world wide item, and many of the changes require knowledge of French, German, Spanish etc…All part of the fun.

With knowledge of what was available, I eagerly anticipated the arrival of my TT1. When it arrived I was pleased to see that the only indication it had of being refurbished was a UPC sticker over the original, and a note in the box that it had been refurbished. The unit retains it’s 1 year warranty from TomTom, and from what I understand they stand behind their products.

TomTom advertises that you can use their product out of the box, with zero setup. As I recall mine needed the battery charged, but otherwise this is the truth. It came with:

windshield mount

plate you could stick on the dashboard to use the windshield suction cup

Car Charger

USB cable

Quick Start guide (Spanish and English)

I fired it up, installed TomTom Home (software which helps manage the device) and immediately made a backup. Backups overwrite the previous backup, so I also created a separate folder for an emergency backup as well….you can never have too many, even at 1GB per backup basically.

Satellite acquisition is good, it even shows you how many and has the ability to edit them….not sure what you would want to edit, so I ignored that feature (for now anyway). I installed Tripmaster, the 2nd edition menu for the Itinerary planning, changed the various options to my preferences (Miles instead of Kilometers, set the clock, etc). Tripmaster has automatic day/night colors if desired. TT1 is a manual change to night/day colors. Both work very well, GPS is glaringly obvious while traveling.

I immediately decided that my map pocket was too far from my line of site, so I looked at various mounting options. Although Duct Tape fits into my fiscal budget, I didn’t feel this would be a valid mounting option. I also didn’t feel that paying $40+ for a ram setup would make much sense, given the original idea was to do this on the super cheap…..enter the Plexiglas. I have used Plexiglas in various previous projects to make brackets for computer parts, and do other non-needed things….generally for fun. As I considered various mounting options, I decided the tank bolts gave a good starting point, so I did some eyeballing, some actual measuring, and looked at what I had on hand. Plexiglas also isn’t cheap, but I can be. I had previous been in Lowes, where I scrounged 6 or so pieces of ¼” thick plexi that were remnants from larger pieces. Each was about 3.5” x 12”….perfect size for fabbing stuff up. I got my trusting sharpie out, measured for my bends, and using my Heat Gun ($13 harbor freight special) I began forming the mount. Here is what it looked like originally:

You can see I removed the mounting clip from the suction cup base, and double-sided taped it to the mount. I didn’t want anything super permanent, at least until I knew if it would work. I found I got a LOT of vibration and bounce from it, but I couldn’t tell exactly where. My guess was the shallow/long bend, where the TT1 mounts, so I added a brace:

Turned out this wasn’t the (only) source of the bounce, so I had to add one more brace:

This brace solved 95% of the bounce. Good enough for most things, and total cost so far was about $1 in double sided tape. I could also remove the mount by taking out the two tank bolts, so when not touring I don’t have to have it there. I later added another section to mount my camera on, and when I braced it against the windshield 98% of the vibration is gone…..I will be redoing the mount to be one piece going forward, as I like the results of the camera mount and want to improve it.

Here is a shot of the TT1 in action (sort of) prior to adding the braces:

Next up…..actually using the TT1, positives and negatives, and things I want to change……to be continued

[motogpfan]

Thanks for the write up still thinking I should get one,would you consider selling a bracket /

Mike

[Tightwad]

Thanks for the write up still thinking I should get one,would you consider selling a bracket /

Mike

Sure, if I make a new bracket I won't need the old one. It is currently coupled with a deal to hold my camera, which i imagine is quite specific in size, but it worked pretty good without that part. I will post up when i have a new bracket.

I plan to add more about the funcionality I liked and disliked. I would suggest the TT1 to anyone who wants an occaisional use GPS. If you plan to tour extensively, then the Zumo or Rider 2 is a better option.

[motogpfan]

Thanks for the write up still thinking I should get one,would you consider selling a bracket /

Mike

Sure, if I make a new bracket I won't need the old one. It is currently coupled with a deal to hold my camera, which i imagine is quite specific in size, but it worked pretty good without that part. I will post up when i have a new bracket.

I plan to add more about the funcionality I liked and disliked. I would suggest the TT1 to anyone who wants an occaisional use GPS. If you plan to tour extensively, then the Zumo or Rider 2 is a better option.

I think for what I need it appears the tomtom1 would meet my needs,how easy is it to read the mph.

Mike

[Tightwad]

Thanks for the write up still thinking I should get one,would you consider selling a bracket /

Mike

Sure, if I make a new bracket I won't need the old one. It is currently coupled with a deal to hold my camera, which i imagine is quite specific in size, but it worked pretty good without that part. I will post up when i have a new bracket.

I plan to add more about the funcionality I liked and disliked. I would suggest the TT1 to anyone who wants an occaisional use GPS. If you plan to tour extensively, then the Zumo or Rider 2 is a better option.

I think for what I need it appears the tomtom1 would meet my needs,how easy is it to read the mph.

Mike

Reading the MPH depends on your configuration. The more items you show on the map screen, the smaller the font gets for each displayed item. If you use Tripmaster to display the speed, it has a large readout(but no map). You can switch back and forth between them easily.

In the picture of the TT1 in action, you can see 0MPH avove the street name, slightly to the right of center.

[BrittC]

Next up…..actually using the TT1, positives and negatives, and things I want to change……to be continued

I will be VERY interested in reading the next chapter of this story. Great job, and outstanding creativity! :wub:

[VFRbeliever]

It was because of your original post that I too purchased the TomTom One from Buy.com. I applied for the dumb credit card offer and got an additional $50 off the price. Add the rebate on and it brought the grand total to $49.99. WOW! I also discovered the TomTom forum and have already customized it to my hearts content. I did splurge and ordered a RAM mount to go in the triple tree stem. It just arrived yesterday and I haven't put it together yet.

This little unit has performed flawlessly so far (in the car) and I'm going to try it out on the bike this weekend. I tried to use Tripmaster application, but on my unit, it was so slow it was of no real use. It even locked up twice so I ended up uninstalling it. I customized the menu so that the itinerary function is restored and am planning to use it on our group ride coming up in June. New England Ride

Thanks again for the heads up! It was one of those truly great deals.

[Tightwad]

The Ups and Downs of the TT1 ownership….a review of the positives and negatives

I am going to put my 2 cents in on the things I like and dislike about the TT1. No more than 2 cents because this is a budget deal after all….

Dislikes…lets be realistic, this is what people want to hear first:

• No headphone jack, so voice prompts (“turn left in 300 yards”) are useless on a motorcycle
  
• Not waterproof
  
• Hard to see in direct sunlight (angling the mount can help, adding a sun visor might also)
  
• Touch Screen can be tough with gloves on (but really should you be typing addresses while driving?)
  
• Battery life of ~ 2 hours limits non-powered use to short trips
  
• Does not notify you about re-routes, and occasionally waypoints are missed and it tries to route you back
  
• Navigational Map does not stay zoomed to the level you choose, it resets after about 5-10 seconds
  
• Limited memory capacity….1GB is all you get
  
• No Text to Speech….can make navigating tough if there are multiple roads in close proximity. This of course doesn’t matter if you can’t hear….
  
• No Bluetooth option (anymore)…there used to be but they removed it. Bummer. Again, not being able to hear really makes this a moot point
  

The things I liked:

• Price ($50-$120 depending on where and when you get it)
  
• Size…big enough to see (3.5” screen), but not too big to slip into a jacket pocket easily
  
• Powers easily via USB-mini plug, I use a Cigarette adapter plugged into my Powerlet center stem port, using my tank Bag as a 3 way splitter
  
• Price
  
• Seems to find satellites quickly (I don’t time it, it works so I am happy enough)
  
• Reroutes without asking(this is also a dislike, but overall a plus)
  
• Touch Screen offers large enough icons that gloves are not usually an issue(also a dislike, as some places you need a finer touch)
  
• Very customizable….open source software allows the use of 3rd party software(much of which is free)
  
• Price
  
• Easy to use software, allows backups…this is good as I won’t screw things up too royally
  

Things I plan to change (because VFR owners can’t leave well enough alone….):

• I would like to open the TT1, and add a headphone jack….I wanna hear the voices in my head say something useful for a change
  
• I am going to look into making a simple visor, like the TT Rider has (sort of), to help defray sun washing of the screen
  
• learn more about the customized menus....I got lost and gave up prior to my trip...I am sure there are useful options I haven't even investigated.
  

That is really it…there isn’t much I want to change right now (that is possible)…I can’t make it waterproof, or have a 6 hour battery life, or add TTS or BT

[V4 Rosso]

Great review :warranty: And at €50 that is a killer deal :wub:

[Dutchy]

Under Change Preferences select Safety Preferences

select either of the safety lock options

you now can select "turn off map display"

what this does (either always or above a certain speed) is change the map view into a solid color background with a large arrow symbol for the next instruction

much easier to see than the map view

try downloading different map colors via TOMTOM HOME

[BCsnowcat]

some good tips, thanks...I have one and enjoy it on the bike, dont reallly care about the route thing, I just go where i want, but its a cool doodad, and i like the speedo on it..I really like the idea about keeping track of the route ridden!..will try that one..

as for a mount, all i did was remove the suction cup from the mount, wrap a wad of tape around the stick part of the mount to give it some bite, then just put a hose clamp around the stick part and my left forktube/handlebar..just under the handlebar clamp bolt.(my bars are at the top of the tubes, so space underneath).thing dont move, cant see the clamp, and simple..

good bang for the buck...Oh yea..If i hit rain i just put it in a bag in my pocket..

thanks again

[dutchinterceptor]

Well done Joshua!

I can honestly say that after 3000miles of use on my TT1 that I am throroughly impressed based on the price. Is it 100% accurate on all roads? No, but it can be corrected. Is it waterproof? No, but as I found out the other day it will take a good bit of water and still work(oops). HS would plot the route in Mapsource, open it in TYRE, save it as an ITN file, and upload the route to my unit in a matter of minutes. Even manually adding the waypoints without a computer wasn't that hard. I recommend it!

[dutchinterceptor]

FYI: If you are using itinerary planning then don't upgrade your Tom Tom to version 8.1. Apparently the upgrade disables it and I haven't noticed a fix for it yet on the TT forums.

[Tightwad]

Just to quick update for the budget minded GPS folks (us really cheap people). I have expanded upon my initial $50 investment, to add some functionality. More details to come, but here is an overview...

Increased memory from 1 GB (full out of the box nearly) to 4GB.

Changed map image to a motorcycle (still looking for a VFR pic to use, rear view)

Added an MP3/Video player....now I can watch movies or listen to tunes....doesn't work at the same time as the GPS however, so limited in usefulness

[Tightwad]

TomTom gets a boost

As promised, my elcheapo GPS got a few upgrades since purchased in Aprilof 2008. Here is a breakdown of what has been done, what I liked, what I didn’t like, etc:

Mods:

Always with the mods. I decided that if I wanted to upgrade the functionality, I was going to need to upgrade the memory, TomTom does NOT make that easy on this low-end device. In fact, it isn’t supposed to be possible according to them. I did some searching, and came across this site:

http://www.opentom.org/TomTom_ONE_3rd_Edition

This nice wiki included some tantalizing pictures…such as:

An SD card pinout! There was also a note that the bootlogger would have to be updated to use anything more than 2GB (something to do with the SDHC vs SD thing, I am not that smart). It notes that the change is not reversible….that is a bit scary! Ah well, $50 isn’t too much if I happen to brick it…right? I found the needed Bootloader file, and applied it. Thank goodness it worked, my investment was still intact!

In addition to more memory, I also wanted to add a headphone jack, so taking it apart was certainly needed.

Here are pics of the inside (not of mine, but looks the same and they have a better camera):

It requires a very small torx bit socket to disassemble. I happen to have one from a previous foray into modding. In fact I have 2 because I am a tool addict. I am joining a 12 step program. Once I took it apart I started looking at where to install the headphone jack….I have 3 different headphone jacks and NONE of them will work…all too big. Bummer…big time. I am a bit lazy, so I never got around to buying a very tiny one, or finding a suitable piece of equipment to rob one from (I do that a lot, being cheap).

Just the pictures would never have been enough, so I went to this site http://www.meintomtom.de/forum/index.php?showtopic=16334 where I read all about how the mod was done. Of course it is in german, and the only word I know in German is not a word to repeat, so I needed Googles help. Of course Google can translate the page, but it can’t log me in, so I had to join the forums, then log in the german side to see the pictures, and use the Google translated version to attempt to understand the pitfalls and requirements….basically the first post had the wrong pinout. The best advice I found was to use a microSD card, and solder the adapter into the TomTom. This by far is the best idea as it doesn’t subject the SD card to excess heat!

Upon looking at the incredibly small size of the solder joints, I knew I needed a better soldering iron. My $3.50 Radio Shack dual heat (15W/30W) with its large tip wasn’t going to cut it….darn…now I need another tool. I had been looking at soldering stations for awhile, so I bought this:

Best $52 I ever spent. I skipped my 12 step program that day, because I felt guilty. Of course I have a billion other uses for this iron. The difference between this and the RS iron is amazing, and this is still a “low end” iron.

For the microSD card I got this:

From Meritline.com. I got it on sale (of course) for $7.99 shipped. This brought my GPS total investment to $57.98

I used a bit of computer ribbon cable that I already had (I keep all that stuff, invaluable for a mad scientist) and began my modding. As a future note…less heat is better! I went with ~350 degrees as that is what I thought I needed, but I had an issue with one pin and totally fubarred it. I figured I was hosed, but I kept at it and got it to work!. Such tiny solder areas are helped by flux, very small solder wire, and a steady hand. I don’t have a steady hand, but 2 out of 3 did the job, eventually.

I wish I could say my mod ended up like this one:

so I could remove the MicroSD card and replace as needed….but unfortunately it didn’t. I miscalculated the length needed, then got very worried when I messed up one solder joint and knew I wouldn’t get another shot, so I ended up just closing the case with the SD adapter card fully inside. If/when I need to upgrade I will just have to take it all apart, but that should be well down the road and I will burn that bridge when I get there.

Oh how nice it was when I connected my TT1 to the computer and save close to 4GB of space. Beautiful! It is helpful to note that you either use the SD card, or the onboard memory, but not both. Thus 1GB of my card was immediately consumed, leaving just 2.5 GB or so for expansion….still more than enough I hope. I did notice that bootup takes quite a bit longer.

Once I got it all buttoned back up (still without a headphone jack…bummer there) I set it aside and went on to other things….this is called ADD, and yes, adults have it. It only took me 4 months to get the SD card upgrade in, so what was another wait really going to hurt anyway?

Functionality changes:

After some time had passed, I got around to looking at the TT1 again. I have only ridden to work and back, so it wasn’t exactly needed...but I gave up my online game addiction, so I had more time on my hands. I first started the process by upgrading to the newest software version from TomTom, which totally hosed all of my previous functionality upgrades rendering them useless….nice. I managed to find a copy of the older Navcore, and rolled mine back to that point. Ahhh, menus back the way I expected.

There are a ton of add-ons that can be had, and now that I have lots of space, I want them all. I decided to sort them, and work on one part at a time (yeah right, I have ADD, I work on them in a picket fence approach…some of this, some of that, sometimes I get them done). The first thing I did was look at the Menu….for add-ons you have to make a custom menu. When you reach a certain level of add-ons the custom menu has to be edited. I am pretty good at reverse engineering stuff, so figuring it out wasn’t that hard.

The hardest add-on to get to work is TripMaster….but this is also my favorite. Trip Master allows you to record your tracks, and view them later. In addition it allows you to view Top Speed, average speed, average moving speed, Compass heading, altitude, Incline, etc. You can set a speed limit and get a visual warning, and another “max” limit where it really warns you to slow down. I am sure this will come in very handy for long slab times that are bound to happen.

Here are some screen shots from the Tripmaster site. Mine looks like this, but again they have a better camera etc:

Link to Tripmaster:

http://www.webazar.org/tomtom/tripmaster.php?lang=uk

Daytime view:

Nighttime (changes automatically)

Setting speedlimit

What each thing is:

I discussed Tripmaster before, so I won’t go into more detail…plus I forgot a bunch of stuff I am sure. I did get to look the route Slammer and Dutch and I rode in Arkansas…that was cool.

Next up was more Functionality changes. I wanted to make my TomTom a media player. This is the first disappointing thing I have found…it can’t do both at the same time! I know I will be torn on long slab trips between knowing my average moving speed, and having tunes built in. In any case I opted for at least having the choice, so I installed TomPlayer. Easy install, can be had here:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/tomplayer

TomPlayer is pretty cool. It will play MP3 as well as AVI movies! I ripped a music video from YouTube and played it on my TT1. Not bad for Mono sound, but then I am not an Audiophile, I am a gadget junkie(and really cheap).

I added the appropriate menu bits so I can access it, and tested it out. It has some functionality I am not fond of…there doesn’t seem to be a “play all” option. I had to put all my songs in the same folder so I could access them without browsing, but you still have to pick what you want played, then you can shuffle them. There is also no text menu…its all guess work…I will have to learn it better through trial and (lots of)error.

After this major hurdle, it was on to lighter things. First off was a mod called “Flashlight” this puts an all white screen out, turning the TT into a flashlight(more like a nightlight). Works very well, no idea of how long the battery would last in this state, but for roadside emergancies it might come in handy. Similar to Flashlight there is a Blackout option….turns the screen black. Again limited in usefulness, but doesn’t cost anything so why not have it available.

One thing with the Custom menus is you lose the original menu’s. this isn’t really an issue for me, but I wanted to have all original functionally, including the “Help Me”. For this you need TTMenu. TTMenu toggles between your custom menu, and the default. Easy to install, easy to use. Can be had here:

http://home.comcast.net/~spheasant1/TTMenu_custom.html

the next addition I am not sure why I installed it. It is a command line tool(TT Console) that allows you to issue linux commands. I don’t know Linux, and can’t understand the commands, but by golly it is possible! If anyone can/does understand Linux and is willing to help me out, I would be interested…there are some options that are only Linux based, at least from what I understand from here:

http://www.opentom.org/TomTom_Console

it looks like this:

It appears they have another MP3 player and video player…I am interested only if they can work while the GPS is also running.

From what I can tell, you are limited to 9 custom menu items. I think I am at 7 with what I installed…I didn’t install everything out there because much of it is covered by Tripmaster.

The last upgrade was an Image Viewer…I can put pictures on my TT and view them as a slideshow. Not great as you can’t skip images, but if I get bored I can also peruse the images I put on there (none placed on there yet). Images are converted to the correct format, so removing the JPEG after running once is a good idea…saves space.

Other “upgrades”:

Now that I have all the menu items available, I decided I wanted more POIs, as well as more voice choices (for when I can actually hear the thing work). I started with voices, and installed some fun ones….Darth Vader, C3PO, Yoda, K.I.T.T., Sean Connery….just to play around. Hearing “You Journey to the Dark Side is Complete” instead of “You have arrived at your destination” is at least humorous.

For POIs I am the most disappointed. I wanted just 1 HUGE file that would have them all…but this doesn’t seem to be the way the TT1 works. It is “special” and you have to pick categories…so I have 7-11(Mmmm, Slurpies…), Chili’s, various hotel chains, other gas stations I can think of, etc….still looking for a much better selection.

That’s about it for this installment. Next up is:

• Prettier Waterproofing ideas
  
• Audio Output jack (I really need a multi-input selector circuit)
  

[V4 Rosso]

the next addition I am not sure why I installed it. It is a command line tool(TT Console) that allows you to issue linux commands. I don’t know Linux, and can’t understand the commands, but by golly it is possible! If anyone can/does understand Linux and is willing to help me out, I would be interested…there are some options that are only Linux based, at least from what I understand from here:

If you want to learn a bit about linux it is easier if you install a Linux distro on your PC. I briefly looked at tomplayer and it is just a shell around mplayer, the standard media player on many linux distributions. After having a brief look at the sourcecode I also found that you should be able to have tomplayer to play mediafiles in the background while using your nav software at the same time. Using TTconsole you should be able to play music using the following command although I am not sure the xargs command is supported by busybox:

find / -type f -name \*.mp3 | xargs mplayer &

Linux is being used on a lot of appliances like routers & networks storage drives, and like the TomTom can be modified to do a lot more than what it was initially intended for.

[Tightwad]

the next addition I am not sure why I installed it. It is a command line tool(TT Console) that allows you to issue linux commands. I don’t know Linux, and can’t understand the commands, but by golly it is possible! If anyone can/does understand Linux and is willing to help me out, I would be interested…there are some options that are only Linux based, at least from what I understand from here:

If you want to learn a bit about linux it is easier if you install a Linux distro on your PC. I briefly looked at tomplayer and it is just a shell around mplayer, the standard media player on many linux distributions. After having a brief look at the sourcecode I also found that you should be able to have tomplayer to play mediafiles in the background while using your nav software at the same time. Using TTconsole you should be able to play music using the following command although I am not sure the xargs command is supported by busybox:

find / -type f -name \*.mp3 | xargs mplayer &

Linux is being used on a lot of appliances like routers & networks storage drives, and like the TomTom can be modified to do a lot more than what it was initially intended for.

So I would need MPlayer on my TT1? I don't understand the command line codes....what is xargs?

[V4 Rosso]

You allready have mplayer when you have installed Tomplayer, tomplayer is just a wrapper around mplayer. Xargs is a Linux commandline program that, in the example, takes the output of the find (a list of all mp3s on the TomTom filesystem) and feeds them to mplayer as a list of files to play. In TTConsole type the command xargs --help to get help in how to use the command.

Here is the list of commands that are supported in Busybox.

Both find & xargs are supported commands.

On a normal Linux PC all these commands are individual executables with a lot of options. BusyBox is a single binary that does most of what those seperate executables do but uses a lot less space.

[Tightwad]

Awesome information, thanks!

[Jon28]

Good write up. I just got the TT Rider 2 and have been very pleased. I only spent $350 and it was worth every penny, factor in the Scala Rider headset was a $100, that brings the cost of the actual TT to $250.......hard to beat for h20 proof, ram mounts, etc. :warranty:

[Tightwad]

Good write up. I just got the TT Rider 2 and have been very pleased. I only spent $350 and it was worth every penny, factor in the Scala Rider headset was a $100, that brings the cost of the actual TT to $250.......hard to beat for h20 proof, ram mounts, etc. :warranty:

Very nice deal!

I figure I have had $50 worth of fun just figuring this thing out, although i hope it doesn't break on me for saying that

[Guest]

I got a TT1 (New Edition) which, I think, is the 2nd Ed. Upshot is I have the SD card slot and the older functionality. Since it's older, I can only use NavCore 7, which made Tripmaster install a breeze. I also installed the other apps the Tripmaster guy has, such as off-road Nav, Skip Waypoint, etc. Haven't tried the command line console yet.

I'm in the middle of adding an audio out 3.5" jack. Combined with a Jabra Bluetooth module, and voila, Speaky Nav Voices in your head. I twisted the wires to the bare wires on the speaker end for a dry run and it works great to the BT speaker in my helmet. Nice and loud.

I'm also replacing the battery with a new one from Radioshack while I got the sucker cracked open.

I "inherited" this one from my pop who went and got himself a new shiny one.

BTW, find and xargs isn't supported by default in the version of busybox on the TT1.

[PLCGuy]

If it's not in your budget for a zumo 660 ($700), mabe this.

garmin nuvi 550 - Waterproof, $225 delivered.

You MUST carry a baggie so WHEN it rains you can save your GPS. One drop of water and that WindowsCE computer goes away 4-ever.

I made a mount from an expansion plug and bought ram mount parts off EBay. goes in the fork center.

Works nice and is adjustable.

[String222]

I understand this is a very old thread, but does anyone happen to have a pic of the motherboard of a TomTom ONE 130 (30 Series) model #N14644 GPS device, plus the wiring to add a SD card to it to increase my (1GB) memory?

I have seen many videos for the XL, but I am not sure if that would apply the same to mine. I've also read and seen the pics in this forum, as well.

Any help will be appreciated in advance.