My Arkon CM925 install (lots of pics)

[RD2hypeD]

The Arkon CM925 is actually a PDA mount (http://www.arkon.com/pdamount.php). I chose this one partially because of Galley (http://forums.ilounge.com/member.php?u=28217) and his pictures (http://forums.ilounge.com/showpost.php?p=858509&postcount=4).

I've been looking around for a decent mount for my car since I got my first iPod (4G 40GB) a couple years ago. In my old '98 Nissan Altima GXE, I used the Belkin TuneDok (http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=153999) in my cupholder. That worked decently. I used the SiK imp (http://www.sik.com/imp.php) charger/line-out cable and that worked well. Sure it doesn't have a volume control, but I'd rather control the volume from my car's sound system. I used a cassette adapter from XtremeMac Audio Kit (http://www.xtrememac.com/audio/cables/audiokit_ipod.php), which worked decently as long as you know how to keep the cassette from ejecting once you put it in.

Now I have a new car. It's a Nighthawk Black Pearl '06 Honda Civic EX w/Navi. The interior is definitely different. It has an AUX in jack (THANK GOODNESS), which means I can use one of those cables from that audio kit with the SiK imp and get my iPod working. Thing is, I traded in my white 4G ipod for the black 5G 60GB iPod. I also got the black iSkin eVo3 (http://www.iskin.com/store/I2shop_evo3.tpl) case, which adds a little bit of thickness to the iPod. Removing the iPod everytime to mount it to a car mount would be really annoying among other things, so I wanted a mount that holds the iPod in its case. That's one of the concerns quite a few us have when considering a car mount, right?

The Arkon CM925 mounts to the rail bolt of the passenger seat. The bolt in my car was too big for all of my tools (my biggest socket was a 13mm), so I went to Pep Boys (http://www.pepboys.com/) and bought this 14mm socket which fit in perfectly:
http://home.comcast.net/~rd2hyped/pics/ipodcar/ipodinstall01.jpg

I connected the gooseneck to the bracket and installed it into the rail bolt of the passenger seat:
http://home.comcast.net/~rd2hyped/pics/ipodcar/ipodinstall02.jpg

Notice that the bracket has many holes so you can adjust the angle of the gooseneck:
http://home.comcast.net/~rd2hyped/pics/ipodcar/ipodinstall03.jpg

This is how the whole setup ended up. I had to adjust it a little as I used the car since I realized that I had it too close to the shifter at first:
http://home.comcast.net/~rd2hyped/pics/ipodcar/ipodinstall04.jpg

This is how the cradle comes:
http://home.comcast.net/~rd2hyped/pics/ipodcar/ipodinstall05.jpg

And this is how the iPod in the iSkin eVo3 case fits in with the arms at the widest length:
http://home.comcast.net/~rd2hyped/pics/ipodcar/ipodinstall06.jpg

The arms are adjustable to fit the size of whatever device you mount there. They snap in place and there are those cushions on the arms so your device won't get scratched:
http://home.comcast.net/~rd2hyped/pics/ipodcar/ipodinstall07.jpg

These two things at the bottom of the cradle holding your device adjust left and right in that slit. They're useful since a lot of devices have openings in the bottom to connect to power and other things, such as the dock connector:
http://home.comcast.net/~rd2hyped/pics/ipodcar/ipodinstall08.jpg

Here is an overhead view of the whole setup:
http://home.comcast.net/~rd2hyped/pics/ipodcar/ipodinstall09.jpg

This knob on the gooseneck loosens to allows you to adjust the cradle horizontally:
http://home.comcast.net/~rd2hyped/pics/ipodcar/ipodinstall10.jpg

[RD2hypeD]

And with the cradle being adjustable that way or by its tilt feature, the passenger can control the iPod too (which I allow in my car):
http://home.comcast.net/~rd2hyped/pics/ipodcar/ipodinstall11.jpg

Here is the extremely helpful AUX-in jack:
http://home.comcast.net/~rd2hyped/pics/ipodcar/ipodinstall12.jpg

The Radio Shack near my house was closing its store, so I took advantage of that today and bought a 6ft 1/8" (or 3.5mm as I prefer) gold cable. The cleanest non-invasive solution I have for that is to wrap it downward in between the driver seat and the center console, around the back under the mat, and to the passenger side in between the center console and the seat connecting to the SiK imp.

In this picture, my brother was sitting in the driver seat and I was sitting in the passenger seat. The mount does not get in the way of the passenger at all:
http://home.comcast.net/~rd2hyped/pics/ipodcar/ipodinstall13.jpg

Here is another view of the iPod in the cradle:
http://home.comcast.net/~rd2hyped/pics/ipodcar/ipodinstall14.jpg

And this is what I see:
http://home.comcast.net/~rd2hyped/pics/ipodcar/ipodinstall15.jpg

Another angle:
http://home.comcast.net/~rd2hyped/pics/ipodcar/ipodinstall16.jpg

The iPod's controls are comfortably in reach while I drive. In this picture, however, the mount was too close to the shifter. I fixed that later on. The best part about the mount is that I can keep my arm on the armrest while changing the song:
http://home.comcast.net/~rd2hyped/pics/ipodcar/ipodinstall17.jpg

Another view:
http://home.comcast.net/~rd2hyped/pics/ipodcar/ipodinstall18.jpg

From the back seat:
http://home.comcast.net/~rd2hyped/pics/ipodcar/ipodinstall19.jpg

[RD2hypeD]

And at night:
http://home.comcast.net/~rd2hyped/pics/ipodcar/ipodinstall20.jpg

This sure beats leaving the iPod upside-down in the cupholder. :D

Another thing I forgot to mention earlier is that I removed plastic belt clip and the round disc from the iSkin eVo3 case so I can have the iPod flat against the cradle. It just works better that way.

Hope you enjoyed this review and the pictures!

[Galley]

It appears that it has been re-designed.
BTW, there's no "r" in Galley. ;)

[RD2hypeD]

Oops! Thanks.
Yeah, it did look quite different than yours, but it rocks!