Ryan McFarland

My car before the installation of the Treo600 charger.

I decided to install the charger where this vent is. I wanted it clearly in my line of sight since i usually play music too loud to ever her the phone ring. I also wanted the cradle placed so that i could easily grab it while getting in and out of my car since my commute is only 5 minutes or so.

My car with the cradle installed and the Treo in place.

Here it is… all installed and ready to go.

I disassembled a desktop charger, removed the metal weight, and then glued in two magnets from an old hard drive. I chose these because they are thin enough to slide fairly high in the narrow void that forms the support for the back of the Treo and are quite strong for their size. I think that this step can be skipped but i wanted just a little more peace of mind for the bumpy roads and sharp turns that i want this thing to sustain.

I popped out the directional thingy and used a dremel tool to cut an opening at the bottom of the duct. I simply have the desktop cradle plugged into a car charger and have the wires behind the dash for the most part. The charger is then plugged into my cigarette lighter and the coiled part of that cord helps keep it tidy. I’d like to hard-wire the charger and also have the USB plug available in case i ever wanted to synchronize to my laptop while in the car for some reason.

The last thig i did was superglue the cradle in place. I would have rather figured out a better solution to attaching the cradle to the dash - but i was able to do it without leaving much glue in places that would be evident if i wanted to remove the cradle some day. I needed to have the back part of the cradle lifted significantly to have the Treo and cradle fairly flush with the rest of the dash.

Next is to add the ability to play mp3s from the Treo through my car stereo… but that will wait a while.