[dirk simoen]

Any one has experience with a GPS on a burgman 650.
Which one ?
How it is installed.

 

[SCOOTNVA]

GPS

There are tons of choices out there for GPS units, so narrow down your search by determining your particular needs. Perhaps you can purchase a used or cheap unit from eBay as an intial unit.

I have a Magellan Platinum GPS unit that I transfer from the Burgman to my cars. The 128mb memory card holds plenty of mapping data. I mount the GPS on the Burgman with a RAM mount system, works great and is very easy to remove for security or vehicle transfer.

Ride on.

-Greg

 

[mactd83]

i have the street pilot III on mine...i also used the R.A.M mounting system and have it mounted on top of the right side brake resivoir which i drilled 2 holes in the top for. pictures of it are in the photo section under the general burgman usa pics

 

[minnmax]

Garmin eMap

I went with a Garmin eMap which I mounted first on my Honda Reflex in 2002 and moved it to my Burgman 650 in 2003 using a RAM mount specifically designed for it attached to the left side of the handlebar front cover.

The eMap is a discountinued product from Garmin, but is still available from many vendors. The pluses of this unit is it's low price, decent size display, easy to use controls, and it was specifically designed with roadway use in mind. (Most of Garmin's handheld units are designed for hiking and boating with roadway use thrown in as an after thought.) The short comings are that it is water resistant not waterproof, the buttons are not backlit for ease of us at night, it does not have auto-routing features, it uses proprietary memory cards, and it is not WAAS enabled.

For me most of the minuses are easily overcome.

NOT WATERPROOF - I've ridden with the unit mounted in the air flow on my Reflex during a major downpour with rain and hail. The inside of the pattery compart had a couple of drops of water in it, but the unit was fine. This past Memorial Day weekend I rode with it nestled behind the windscreen of the AN650 through two and half days of rain with no issue.

NO BACKLIT BUTTONS - I don't ride much at night, but I also know where the buttons are and can hit the right ones without seeing them. Further, once I've programmed in my route, I really don't need to hit the buttons while in motion much anyway.

NO AUTO-ROUTING - Since 99% of the time I program in my roots through the Garmin computer software which has auto-routing capabilities then download the route to the eMap, this isn't an issue. When I have to change my route on the road, it isn't that big a deal for me to manual enter the route I want to take. Further, not downloading the auto-routing info from the computer software frees up space for more maps. A friend with a Garmin GPS V and I compared the units. The eMap with a 16 meg memory card holds more map data than a GPS V with its built in 19 meg memory because of the data needed to use the auto-routing feature oft he GPS V.

PROPRIETARY MEMORY CARDS - If one searches online, you can get a good deal on Garmin memory cards. Also I was able to find someone selling third party memory cards that worked in the Garmin. I've been using one of these third party cards for years and am quite happy with it. After all, once you get the size card you want, you don't really need to buy more.

NOT WAAS ENABLED - For the uninitiate, WAAS stands for Wide Area Augmentation System. Basically, it's a system of satellites and ground stations that provide GPS signal corrections, giving you even better position accuracy. A WAAS-capable receiver can give you a position accuracy of better than three meters 95 percent of the time. Since the eMap does not have this feature its accuracy can be as much as 15 meters off. However, the eMap does have a "lock to roads" feature which takes into account the direction you're heading to place your location on the appropriate road. This increases its accuracy side to side while traveling. Ultimately, for on road travel the difference between WAAS enabled and not are fairly insignificant.

All this being said, if I had to replace my eMap today, I'd probably buy another one.