Got a "vintage" motorhome? If your motorhome's "parents" have gone out of business and now you've got an orphan, you know that finding parts can be searching the proverbial haystack. Now imagine what would happen if your rig's speedometer gave up the ghost.
Modern technology rides to the rescue. Now any rig, motorhome, tow rig, even an ATV or bicycle can be fitted with a new digital speedometer based on GPS technology. Sure enough, those satellites that can guide you almost anywhere can also send you accurate speed reports. There are a host of "GPS speedometers" available, and some are surprisingly inexpensive.
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| courtesy ebay.com |
If you're watching your dollars, the low end GPS speedometers are generally a simple device that you can stick on your dashboard. Some manufacturers provide "heads up," systems. These devices actually stick on the dashboard, and digitally project your speed onto the windshield. Result: You don't have to look away from the roadway to check your speed, "reducing the risk of traffic accidents." Others are just stick on the dashboard and look at a digital readout on the device.
The drawbacks of these low-dollar units are that they don't provide an odometer function; keeping track of maintenance intervals or distances between points is impossible. Still, they are a relatively inexpensive solution when keeping an eye on your speed. We've seen some "heads up" units for sale on eBay for around $70. Others can be found on Amazon.
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| Courtesy Amazon.com |
Coming up the financial – and feature – scale a bit are GPS speedos that look more like, well, "real" speedometers. These "gauge" style devices may be "analog" style, giving you a scale and pointer to determine your forward velocity. If you keep your motorhome below 120 miles-per-hour, you can get one of these round-gauge readers for less than $170. Still, no "odometer" function.
To get an mileage recorder on your GPS speedometer, coming up the price scale becomes mandatory. We've found them all over the price-range map, as low as $270 on Amazon, to into the six and seven hundred range. These latter units are best suited to the rocket-fueled RVer who wants to endurance test his rig at over 200 mph.
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| Courtesy Amazon.com |
Installation of the round gauge units requires finding a place to locate the readout head, and some small ability to fish wires. 12 volts power, always, a ground wire, and generally a wire run up to somewhere on the dashboard to a remote GPS antenna that reads the open sky. When shopping, find out if your prospective speedometer is of the "hot start" variety, meaning when you fire up your rig, is the speedometer ready to read out speed in a matter of seconds, or does it require longer satellite acquisition time?
With GPS satellite speedometers, one thing does go out the window. If you're pulled over for speeding, your old excuse of "Wow, the speedometer must be 'off'" is a thing of the past.
This is very cool, thanks for sharing this! I think that this is something that should definitely be in a lot of commercial trucks because it is only going to help monitor your speed. Another thing that could be of use for commercial vehicles is a GPS antenna that will allow us to keep track of all of the commercial trucks that we are sending out every day.
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