I've decided to go all retro and fit an Autocom!

fred_jb

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I've just fitted an Autocom Logic unit to my GS and thought I would share some thoughts on the installation in case it is of interest to others. I do quite a lot of two-up touring and I had previously used a pair of Sena FMH5 bluetooth units. These were OK, but I found it annoying that I couldn't find any way of getting navigation instructions to go from the Nav V to both me and my wife, as it is quite useful to have us both aware of where we need to turn, with two heads being better than one in the case of dubious or ambiguous instructions, and also in case I haven't caught an instruction due to being distracted by a riding situation, so this was one reason to change to a wired system.

Another reason was that I have recently ditched the Nav V and converted to using the MyRoute Navigation smartphone app, mainly due to the extreme ease of pre-planning routes compared to the Garmin based Nav, and the only issue with this was that the Navigation instructions over Bluetooth were failing to override the Sena intercom in the same way that BMW/Garmin and TomTom satnavs do, so I had to turn the intercom off in any situations where I really needed the audio instructions. The developers of the software are working on this, and are hopeful of a fix, but this is relatively low priority for them, so the Autocom would get around this by taking the navigation instructions via an audio cable from the phone, and automatically feeding them to both headsets, while reducing the intercom volume, but leaving it working. This is actually better than the Garmin/TomTom method as that just cuts the rider and pillion intercom mid-conversation, leaving the pillion unaware at first that the rider can no longer hear what is being said.

There were two main issues to changing to a wired system as far as I was concerned - the first was would we get on OK with the cables, or find them an encumbrance? However, in practice the cables have been fine and not even noticeable - at least not until you try to dismount or walk away from the bike while still connected, which is something you tend not to do twice! The second issue was finding somewhere to fit it. All of my limited underseat space is taken up with either BMW widgets or my alarm, front/rear dashcam recorder box, and Hex ezCan unit. I wasn't happy to run it off batteries and keep in a pocket or tank bag, as while this might be practical for just a rider it is not going to work for a rider and pillion. Eventually I decided to fit it in a sheltered recess inside the front left fairing. My second horn was originally mounted there, so I had to move that to the other side first, and had to make up a vertical bracket bolted to the plastic panel at the bottom of this recess, with the unit fastened to the bracket with velcro. The only issue with this is that Autocom expect you to mount it under the rear of the seat so provide a short cable for the pillion and a longer one for the rider. I had to buy a second long lead as a spare part to reach the pillion position from where I mounted the unit. I ran the cables under the tank cover panels so had to have all the plastics off yet again - getting quite good at this now!

One of the issues I identified early on with this fairly basic Logic unit was the potential need to make manual adjustments to the VOX threshold - that is the level of mic input it needs to receive before automatically opening up the intercom. The idea of this is that you can raise this threshold on faster and therefore noisier routes like motorways so that the mic does not get triggered by wind noise and send that over the intercom, which my wife found extremely annoying on our first test. Raising the VOX level overcomes this, but with the downside that you have to talk a lot louder to get the intercom to work - OK when it is noisy when you would naturally talk louder, but not ideal to leave it on that setting when in quieter situations. Unfortunately Autocom have seen fit to put the adjuster for this in the battery compartment of the unit, so not only do you have to be able to easily get at the unit, you also have to open it up to make an adjustment. To be fair the more expensive units have an external adjuster and can also auto-adjust the VOX level, but they are more expensive and also larger and would have been difficult to fit. I wasn't happy with the Logic model's adjuster, so have modified my unit to put an adjuster in the top/end of the unit near to the adjusters for rider and pillion volume - the blue knob in the picture. This will no doubt have invalidated my warranty, but works really well and means that I can make adjustments without dismounting the unit and opening it up.

I made one other mod, and this was to the arrangements for powering the unit off the bike, which needs a 12V feed. I was able to provide this from the DIN socket in the cockpit, and also power my phone from an adapter wired to this. However, Autocom give dire warnings that if you power the unit off the bike and also power a phone and/or GPS which you will plug into the unit from the bike, then you can get interference and possibly even damage. This is because the audio cables connected between these devices and the Autocom will also have earth connections, and because these devices are potentially powered from a different place in the bike's wiring then the earth may not be exactly the same as that connected to the Autocom. This sort of thing is well known as an earth loop in hi-fi setups, and can cause serious problems.

If the Autocom is battery powered this does not arise because the Autocom is not earthed to the bike earth and so its supply can float to match that of connected devices. To avoid this problem when powering off the bike, Autocom will sell you very expensive isolating audio cables for each device you want to plug in, or you can buy audio isolating widgets on eBay, though some of these are of dubious quality. I decided to take a different approach and insert a 12V isolating converter into the power feed to the Autocom. This takes any input of 9-18V and outputs an isolated and therefore floating 12V which is then equivalent to powering the Autocom from a 12V battery source. The unit is about the size of a matchbox, costs about £10, and seems to work perfectly.

Some pics of the installation below.

Fred

The blue knob is my external VOX adjuster which replaces the adjustor inside the battery compartment. The unused inputs have dummy plugs to minimise the chance of water getting in, and in case it does I have drilled two small holes at the bottom of the battery door to allow it to drain out

A6K-3047129-7092-X2.jpg



Fixings for bracket:

A6K-3047129-7089-X2.jpg


A6K-3047129-7087-X2.jpg


A6K-3047129-7086-X2.jpg
 
I never had a problem with the ground loop thingy probably because I had satnav etc earthed through the same point. If all else fails you might try this.

Tom
 
I never had a problem with the ground loop thingy probably because I had satnav etc earthed through the same point. If all else fails you might try this.

Tom

Yes - I doubt I would have had an issue as the two devices are both powered from the bike's 12V socket, though it is possible I might want to connect something else later which is powered from elsewhere, for example my HexezCan. However, as I have an electronics and IT background I was mainly just interested in whether there was an alternative way to avoid any possibility of problems.
 
Some years ago I had a wired Autocom with the box up in the tail area. The VOX trigger setting was a PITA, especially with a semi open face helmet. I therefore broke into the mic wire (red) in the control unit and led a short tail to two small connectors just outside. It was then easy to run a shielded twin core cable up forward to a cheap Maplins waterproof switch velcroed to the flat of the clutch lever

This worked very well as the sensitivity could be set to near max and the “click” of the switch opened the circuit rather than having to shout a trigger sound into the mic. A friend then modified his to accomodate a pillion as well
 
Some years ago I had a wired Autocom with the box up in the tail area. The VOX trigger setting was a PITA, especially with a semi open face helmet. I therefore broke into the mic wire (red) in the control unit and led a short tail to two small connectors just outside. It was then easy to run a shielded twin core cable up forward to a cheap Maplins waterproof switch velcroed to the flat of the clutch lever

This worked very well as the sensitivity could be set to near max and the “click” of the switch opened the circuit rather than having to shout a trigger sound into the mic. A friend then modified his to accomodate a pillion as well

Yes good idea. I read of someone doing something similar by inserting a switch into the microphone lead and fitting it in the helmet, so effectively a helmet mounted PTT (push to talk) switch, but for the rider at least a bar mounted switch makes more sense. I identified some very small switches that might be suitable for this, but will only resort to this if the VOX settings get to be too much of a hassle. We had another test run yesterday where this time I had the chin bar air vent in my helmet closed and we tweaked the mic positions. This made quite a difference, and it seems like I can now run with a near minimum VOX setting even on fast roads, so that is looking promising.
 
That's fabulous - welcome to the early 2000s! It will be tempting to move on again in about ten years to get rid of those leads (incidentally, you might be surprised to find the straight leads better than the curly ones in practice) but stay with it and don't go Bluetooth until you get to the late 20 - teens as it will take that long to get the performance sorted enough to make your Autocom truly obsolete. ;) :D

Joking aside, nice install. I do get your reasoning - the inability to have Nav instructions to both rider and passenger remains an issue on the otherwise excellent 2017 launched Cardo Freecom kit.
 
That's fabulous - welcome to the early 2000s! It will be tempting to move on again in about ten years to get rid of those leads (incidentally, you might be surprised to find the straight leads better than the curly ones in practice) but stay with it and don't go Bluetooth until you get to the late 20 - teens as it will take that long to get the performance sorted enough to make your Autocom truly obsolete. ;) :D

Joking aside, nice install. I do get your reasoning - the inability to have Nav instructions to both rider and passenger remains an issue on the otherwise excellent 2017 launched Cardo Freecom kit.

Thanks - and interesting about the straight leads. I was wondering about that myself as the curly ones seem quite heavy and very resistant to actually extending which is what you would think they would be good at. Fortunately I've been able to fit them such that they don't have to stretch to reach the helmets.
 
I do get your reasoning - the inability to have Nav instructions to both rider and passenger remains an issue on the otherwise excellent 2017 launched Cardo Freecom kit.

Further to that point, something I tried was to tap into the audio output from the Nav V (the spare unused plug on the cable when fitted to the GS) and use this to plug into a cheap standalone BlueTooth stereo transmitter and pair my wife's Sena to that while mine was paired to the Nav itself. The problem I found was that Garmin seem to have decided to only output audio when Bluetooth on the satnav is disabled. To get around this I would have had to fit two BlueTooth transmitters and split the audio feed to drive them both.

I gave up on this as it would have been a bit messy to wire up and power two transmitters, plus the audio quality from the cheap transmitter I tried wasn't great and it seemed a bit iffy on reliably pairing. Also, there wasn't a great choice of BT transmitters which can be powered directly off 12V, most are either battery powered and have to be USB charged, or will only run off a USB adapter, so these would have been even more messy to install.
 
I gave up....

I gave up long before doing any of that - nice try though! My missus has just had to get used to the idea that the Nav lady is going to have her say and she'll get her go later when the instructions are over. I disabled the Garmin audio warning on speed cameras because it was just one long series of continual bongs round here and that reduced intercom denial.
 
I gave up long before doing any of that - nice try though! My missus has just had to get used to the idea that the Nav lady is going to have her say and she'll get her go later when the instructions are over. I disabled the Garmin audio warning on speed cameras because it was just one long series of continual bongs round here and that reduced intercom denial.
Haha - that all sounds very familiar! 😁
 
Still use my autocom on my r1150gs.......have moved to a Garmin 340lm but I still have a working 2610 :rob
 


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