Over the past several weeks I've read and heard several questions regarding mounting options for
the Mio C310x. Well, I was like most and just using the suction cup mount on my front windshield,
even though when you add my Sirius antenna plus my radar detector plus the Mio all in the front window
area, you lose a lot of clear, forward visibility.
So what are the options? Well, you have the suction cup mount, and you have the disk that comes with this
that has self-adhesive padded tape on the back, the intent being to semi-permanently affix this disk to your
dashboard and use the suction cup mount on that. Well, I drive a company car and don't want to permanently
affix anything to it. Add to that, the suction cup mount, while being quite user-friendly and jointed to
move in many directions, is still too tall when sitting on that disk and still blocks too much of the
windshield.
Here's a pic of the standard Mio mount that comes with the C310x:
Standard assembled Mio mounting kit (disk not displayed)
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Then I played around with my Mio and set it up for use on my boat. When I got on the boat I tried to use
the regular suction cup mount, and that didn't work because the windscreen is too deep of an angle, and the
space between windscreen and dash is very limited. The disk was completely out of the question as just on
the suction cup mount it was too tall to fit in this area properly.
You can see the target area and the space limitations on the dash of my boat and why the suction cup
mount just would not work in this situation (click on photos to expand):
Where my Mio needs to mount on my Four Winns FunShip 264
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So I had to come up with an option that would work for the boat, and the option I came up with now works
for both boat and car! I have a Garmin eTrex Legend that I used to use to navigate our lake (33,000 acres,
521 miles of shoreline, quite a big lake, lots of shoals and islands and markers) as we like to wander the
lake after dark and that's not a good idea if you've got no guidance system. I was sitting here looking
at my eTrex and thought, "gee, why not use the mount for it, but with the Mio?". So I set out to modify it,
and found that the modification took about 5 minutes, and only required loosening one screw, then screwing
the Mio mount onto the same location where the eTrex was mounted. No drilling, and the only tool you will
need is a standard screwdriver. Quick, easy, and works great!!!
Here I will go through the steps, pictorially, so that anyone else who has this dilemma can attempt the same.
Again, remember that all photos here are "clickable", and will expand on click. Feel free to save to your
hard drive any of these photos that might interest you - click on the photo to expand, then right-click to
save the photo.
For those of you looking for a similar type of mount, the Garmin mount is a "bean bag" mount, meaning it is
filled with bean-type of filler material allowing the mounting base to be flexible. Underneath, the bottom has
a base made of neoprene rubber, so that it won't slide easily where you place (suggestion here, always make sure
that the area you place it on is clean and dry or that rubber will slide easily - dusty dashboards make for fun
watching this slide from side to side on your dashboard).
Inside the base, between the filler and the neoprene bottom, there is a flexible sheet of lead that allows you
to shape the base to the contours of your dashboard. You can see in the photo above that my boat dash has a
pretty sharp angle to it, and this molds easily to that angle with no problems whatsoever.
Oops, I guess I should mention where to get this kind of mount and what it costs. I purchased the Garmin
mount and the eTrex kit at West Marine. I paid $19.99 for the mount, plus another $14.99 for the eTrex kit. You
would need both to set this up the way I have it, but you can experiment yourself and find other options.
I picked up both of mine on sale, so the price listed on their site may be higher. I'm sure there are
plenty of other places that sell this same stuff too. By the way, this is a great idea for residents of
California and Minnesota, where attaching items to your windshield is against the law.
02/01/07 Update - many questions regarding the part numbers and cost of these items. I purchased mine
at a Spring Clearance sale so got them cheap. I didn't realize how cheap until looking this up today.
I found the Garmin part numbers for these items: 010-10306-00 is the Bean Bag mount, and 010-10274-00
is the eTrex swivel mounting bracket. I did a search on the internet and found the bean bag mount at
Amazon.com for $19.00, and the swivel bracket at Provantage.com for $17.79, so you can see that you can still get these relatively cheap if you
search long and hard enough.
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Let's get down to it! First, I took the small set screw out of the middle of the eTrex mount, and removed
the small eTrex round bracket. Then I took that small screw and fed it through the pre-drilled hole in the
Mio's mount (the white part that the Mio C310x clips into), and screwed that to the Garmin mounting bracket.
Black circular piece to be removed (used for eTrex), note silver screw in mount.
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Here's the finished product, after all of 5 minutes of work. Now all you have to do is click your Mio
in place, and set the bracket to the position you wish. One really
nice thing about using the eTrex bracket is that it swivels and folds into multiple dimensions, so you
can really set your Mio to the viewing angle that is perfect for you.
Finished! Mio mount on Garmin eTrex bracket, on Garmin bean-bag base.
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Here's what it looks like when you have your Mio C310x installed. There's more than enough room at the bottom
to run your power cord to your Mio.
Now with the Mio C310x installed.
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In this configuration I've set the Mio at what is the optimum viewing angle for me, when it's on my car's dashboard,
and I'm showing the back so that you can see the antenna connection and speaker are both open and
unimpeded. Here you can also see the adjusting screws and locking swivel base on the Garmin mount.
This really makes for a great mounting solution!
Back of the unit - note speaker and antenna are completely unimpeded.
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On another note, when I am traveling and want to stop somewhere and hide my Mio from view, rather than
having to disassemble everything I've found that the unit folds down easily by loosening the two locking
screws on the back. It then slides very easily under my car seat. I do this when getting out of the car
for short periods of time, but when I'm stopping overnight I usually remove the Mio from the unit and
take it in with me (I use a nice, small camera case that fits the Mio perfectly, plus the power cord
and a spare SD card - purchased at BJ's Wholesale Club for all of $9.99 - similar to Sam's Club). My car
is an '04 Ford Taurus, and there's not a lot of room under the seats, but this folds down and fits
perfectly under either front seat.
Unit folded down for storage.
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This last picture is just another shot, but from the top of the unit, when folded down. Again you
can see the locking swivel base here. That really comes in handy on my boat when I want to sit in a
different position and still be able to see the Mio's screen.
Head on view of it folded down.
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I hope this was helpful to you, and that you can also discover a new way to mount your Mio (boy, that
sounds a bit naughty!!!). If you have suggestions, feel free to drop me a line at the email address listed
at the bottom of this page.
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