pbee

Im thinking of buying a Road Angel GPS black spot detector. It says you can use the serial interface to connnect to a laptop and using the NMEA standard it can communicate with a pc based navigation software such as InfoMap.

I would like to use Autoroute and maybe connect it to my PDA. on Blackspots website they say it doesnt work with Autoroute. anybody know why ??. Does Autoroute not support NMEA ??. Does Tom Toms or any other map software that has a pocket pc add on support it ??.

is anybody using the Road Angel as a sat nav with a laptop ??. if so what mapping software are you using ??.

another question about the Road Angel is it speed sensitive, ie if you are doing 25mph in a 30mph zone approaching a camera does it still alarm ??.

ok last question. I already have a bell euro 550, so my 12v socket is occupied are splitters available or could i wire them together ??. How hard is it to wire these in permenantly.

cheers

Peter

Chelspeed

Don't know aught about Road angels I'm afraid.

But I do know you can get 2 or 3 way adaptors for the cigarette lighters, halfrauds will do them. But do you really want this? They're the right size for lighting cigarettes but make crap 12V auxy power plugs and sockets, far too cumbersome. Much better to hard wire in decent plugs. I used to use mono 1/4 headphone plugs as they're cheap and the sockets are very discreet. Gone off them a bit now as the plugs stick out a long way and are quite delicate if you catch them when they're plugged in. Now I use 2 pin sureseals which are very relaible, easy to fit and available from RS. Lots of competition electronics people like STACK use them so that's good enough for me.

Someone posted a few weeks ago that they had fitted the radar detector to the top of the windscreen and used the small switcheable map light as a power source, then you can use the switch to turn it on and off too. Clever.

pbee

Thanks Chelspeed. I have a friend who is a electrician so will check out RS and ask him to give me a hand. I want something I can unplug and remove both units and use them in a different cars and also remove them easily for security.

sillysi

Peter,

IIRC Autoroute won't work as it is at the wrong baud rate.

I have an iBook with Route66 software but as yet no serial/usb cable to connect to the RA.

The RA can be set to warn sooner if you are travelling at a higher speed but I am not sure about no warning if you are below the limit.

Si.

pbee

Been looking into using my Ipaq instead of a laptop. Need a device for getting a serial connection into it.

Need a mounting kit for the IPAQ £30 and a cf card to serial these are about £120.

anybody know of anyother way of doing this ?.

DarkForce

If you're looking for a GPS solution with a iPAQ, you can't go far wrong with the Navman 3000. I've seen them for £200, which is a bit of a baragin. A couple of friends have them and they swear by them.

Chris

Neanderthal

iTrader: (6)

In the short time that I had a Road Angel and in the even shorter time it worked correctly I can tell you that it is speed sensitive. It's user selectable and if you set it to on it'll still warn you of a camera coming up but with no audible alert if you're under the speed limit.

I had mine when it was released which was a few months ago now. Hopefully they've ironed out the bugs by now.

Matt