Unforeseen situation

Well, it stayed on; didn't work lose and was bone dry inside even after heavy rain. What I hadn't accounted for was the screen randomly spinning; upside-down, side-ways and back again. The Tom Tom app has no screen lock and because my bike has such a small cockpit; there's only one place it can go and it sits at a shallow angle where vibration and bike movement confuse the hell out of the accelerometer. It's useable, but annoying.

Perhaps more damping, somehow. Or a steeper angle (making it harder to see, though).

Ideas welcome.

iPhone mount: final assembly (no power yet)

Reassembled, it doesn't look too bad (IMO), good enough to serve the purpose. I'll test it on the way to work tomorrow, probably with the supplied lanyard tied to the bars (just in case). I didn't put any top-coat on, so let's see how the paint holds up.

iPhone mount: paint and assemble

I've been hanging on to a heavy-duty plastic bracket for about three years now. I think it originally came off a car phone mount; a piece of someone else's junk saved from the skip. Now it seems almost perfect for modding into a handlebar mount, with the addition of some stainless steel M4 screws and a small rectangle of 6mm polycarbonate. Thin sheet rubber (again, saved off-cuts) serves to provide grip and some vibration cushioning.

Old phone bracket serving as bar clamp, screwed into iDry base.

Only a single stainless steel M5 holds the iDry case in place. Will it be enough?

The above photos show the disassembled iDry case; the top comes off simply by pushing out the hinge-pin, and the end locking handle comes off with two small screws.

Some more thin rubber sheet, laid inside, should help prevent scratching and provide a little more cushioning.

Thin rubber sheet and double-sided sticky tape ("for quickness").

Rubber sheet added to bottom and back.

With that done, I needed to spray the in-your-face white. I had white, fluorescent orange or gloss black...

Sprayed gloss black (looks like grey in pic).

Safety lock removed before spraying.

Left to dry briefly before each light coat, then left to dry properly.

iPhone on motorcycle?

I recently bought the Tom-Tom app for my iPhone; it's my first Sat-Nav and worked quite well stuffed inside my jacket pocket, giving turn-by-turn prompts to me over Bluetooth in my helmet. Less than ideal satellite visibility and not being able to see the additional info on the screen, prompted me to mount it on the bike.

My motorbike doesn't have a lot of cockpit space; no fairing or screen and not much room on the bars, so I didn't think the commercial (and expensive) bike mounts would be suitable. Most mounts I found only held the iPhone and offered no impact resistance or weather protection.

So I looked for a hack-together solution. I ordered an iDry waterproof iPhone case from Amazon, with the intention of making holes in it! I need a secure mounting and ideally be able to charge the phone while on the bike.

iDry waterproof case

It's not clear from the photo or the description that the screen cover is a silicon rubber, fine if it's wet, but difficult to pinch-zoom when it's dry. Not that I'm bothered; it'll be difficult enough with gloves on (more on that another time). I don't like the white either, but it doesn't come in any other colour, so I may have to paint it.

I'm not planning on submerging it, so if I'm careful, any holes I make shouldn't be a problem. Although it's also not clear, from either photo or description, if there was any kind of access port for the connector. There isn't. I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to get power into the box in a robust, weatherproof way. Let's get it mounted first, but I have to take account of the opening mechanism:

Operation