geekybiker

I got tired of all the cheap Chinese phone mounts and finally went and got something solid.

See the driver's eye view


The base is a panavise car mount. You pry up the trim and reuse a stereo screw to mound. Easy-peasy. $18+shipping on amazon.

Side view mount and plate


The mount itself is made up of a couple parts.

The ball mount is their "b" sized AMPS mounting plate. The arm is the "b" sized 'medium' arm (3.xx inches) this is the aluminum one, not the dollar or two cheaper composite one. Get the aluminum arm. The holder is the x-grip. They make one with the mount ball and one without. Make sure you get the ball. It'll hold any phone upto my galaxy note (5.3") screen. These cost about $36 shipped on amazon. Best of all the are reusable on a different car and different phone.They make a xgrip II that will hold 7" tablets too if you want a larger nav screen in your non-navi car.

Pictured is my older Galaxy S1. (4" screen)

dismounted, looks serious


The audio is coming from an isimple that I already had installed. I'll probably wire a micro USB up to the glove box that I can pull out when I need it in the future.

NFLblitze1

Nice set up, how do you like the iSimple? did you lose ability to use XM radio? i want to install the iSimple to have 3 uses, One to retain the ability to use XM, 2nd to have the ability to hook up my iPhone 4 to the car, and 3 to have an Aux input, is this possible?

geekybiker

I don't subscribe to XM, but it's supposed to pass through the radio. Only trick is switching inputs on the isimple isn't the slickest thing. You have to start on another input, and when you switch to xm you have a few seconds to start turning the tuning knob. It'll flash between xm 001, xm002 etc and the input name. Not sure if there are better options. Otherwise it works great. I hooked up the wife's iphone and the steering wheel controls would skip tracks, etc.

Adobeman

Nice setup. A good, firm, easily used, holder makes a night and day difference doesn't it. Mine is more home grown though.

Regarding the micro usb I found it really easy to run it from the center console power outlet in the armrest. It can actually fit under the metal trim. If you are like me and have Google maps nav, streaming music and whatever else running, you will want power sooner than later ! The pictures in this post show the wires in my setup https://acurazine.com/forums/showpos...37&postcount=7

Used these part:
Right Angle Micro USB (6ft) What's nice about these particular ones is that they are thin so they fit well under the metal trim. You may want a Left Angle or straight depending on how your phone's USB jack is oriented. -
Satechi 2412ST Car Lighter USB Charger - This comes with a smart adapter that will make sure your phone goes into full charging mode !! Ever since Apple caused a bastardization of USB chargers, through proprietary/lax use of the spec, many non-apple devices don't enter full charging mode with aftermarket chargers. The results are lots of "why doesn't my phone charge right in the car?" complaints. The one caveat with this charger is it is about 2mm too short to work in the TL. The simple remedy is to unscrew the tip about one turn (as if you were replacing the tip fuse). Then it's perfect. Cheesy hack but it works and it's a set and forget thing anyway. If interested in the charging details you can also Google "USB charger D+ D-" if you truly are a geek like me and the handle geekybiker suggests (is the biker part a bicycle?,if so we may be related in a parallel universe)

geekybiker

Ahh yah, the charging cable vs data cable issue. I actually have a manufacture specific charger with a straight wire already. Bonus is that puts the phone into dock mode so I can use tasker to automate some stuff. I just need to see if the wire is long enough to run under the trim, or if I need to wire it to ACC under the dash.

djDANNY

which panavise mount did you get for $18?

geekybiker

Click the "more buying choices"