Making a Garmin Nuvi GPS Unit More Water Resistant

[dduelin]

We all use bikes differently. I can't ride a bike to work so none of my miles are commuting. A lot of my miles are on roads off the beaten path where the GPS is invaluable to me. I'm usually either following a GPS route or picking my way cross country on state or county roads using the GPS as an electronic road map. At night I'm often running Mapsource on an old laptop I carry looking at roads for the next day's ride. Many of the events I attend are scheduled months in advance and I'm going rain or shine and when I'm a long way from home I'm prepared for whatever weather. I know I pay more for a GPS but I logged lots of miles in all kinds of weather never worrying about them. One was new and the other was a $200 Garmin refurb. The touch screens would go bad at about 40 or 50,000 miles. In some ways I'm disappointed with my current Zumo 550 compared to the 2730. It has much less waypoint memory (500 waypoints vs 2000) and I've had to resort to making regional or by-state waypoint maps and loading only the waypoints by state I'm expecting to use in order to free up memory for creating additional waypoints on a trip. I like having weather and traffic services but with other data devices in my pocket these days these features assume less importance to me. It is nice to get severe weather alerts on the GPS screen when riding and be able to change path to avoid embedded thunderstorms in heavy rain so I continue to use weather and I can't get that without traffic from Sirius.

 

[dbzeag]

I have used this before and works quite well.

Amazon.com: Buybits Universal Waterproof / Weather Proof GPS SatNav Case with RAM 1" Ball Fitting for RAM Mounts: GPS & Navigation

I have a RAM mount on my OEM taller windscreen bar and this fits a treat. Even has room for a small external battery so I don't have to be connected to the bike to power it completely. Still trying to figure that wiring out.

 

[BrNaCa]

Be careful with silicone and electronics. Many silicones secrete acetic acid as they cure. They will corrode and kill circuit boards. There are silicones made for electronics.

 

[kpinvt]

I just use my phone...
Galaxy S4 active is water proof (down to a meter I believe) has bluetooth, and updated traffic...

It isn't as useful when I don't have service, but I have offline maps of the US loaded on it so I can at least see where I'm going even if I don't have turn by turn navigation (and so long as you start navigation when it has coverage it will keep navigating even when it looses coverage) and besides, as the point where I'm far enough out to loose coverage getting lost becomes half the fun.

Turn by tun spoken instructions can by found in Sygic, which is a GPS program available in the Google Play store. The price and terms varies, I paid $24 US several years ago for a lifetime license with downloaded maps on my Android phone and Nexus tablet.