Say you want to do a bit of roading in your family vehicle but can’t be bothered going through the rigmarole of wiring up a sender and finding somewhere to mount it. Then you have to go out and find a suitable piece of road so that you can calibrate the unit. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was such a thing as a simple plug-in tripmeter that can be transferred from one vehicle to another and ready to go in less than a minute? Well, there is.
NEIC’s brilliant new GPS Trip Meter could be the answer to your needs. The secret to its appeal is that it’s a simple ‘plug and play’ unit that relies not on the revolutions of your car’s wheels or gearbox, but any (or all) of up to 50 satellites constantly circling the world. As well as that, it’s almost 100% accurate and will record the correct distance to within 1 metre.
We recently tested this new odometer and came away suitably impressed. Installation is as simple as plugging the unit into your vehicle’s cigarette lighter socket and locating the tiny magnetic aerial on any suitable piece of metal on the car so that it can pick up orbiting satellites. The tripmeter attaches to the windscreen by a suction cup attached to a multi-adjustable bracket, and that’s all there is to it!
The unit is small – 110mm wide, 75mm high and 25mm deep – so it’s really a handy pocket-sized unit, but loaded with plenty of features that will suit the majority of users. It features include simultaneous dual trip scales (one large, one smaller), a highly visible display that is easy to read in bright sunlight or at night, reads in kilometers, miles and nautical miles, counts forward or reverse, displays average speed as well as current speed, and has an optional freeze function and an external reset switch.
Three dimensional velocity calculations are accurate to 0.36kmh and are updated 4 times each second. Measurement of distance is accurate of better than 0.25% over 1 kilometre. Two trips are displayed simultaneously as well as current speed and the number of satellites being used. A freeze function can be enabled so that Trip A freezes instead of resetting when the switch is pressed. The trip distance continues to be calculated while the display is frozen and will be displayed as soon as freeze is released by pressing the switch again. Distances displayed can be read to either two or three decimal places, and the unit has a battery backup for 12 days.
RallySport Magazine tested the GPS Trip Meter in a Mk2 Escort and a Ford Territory, swapping the unit from one vehicle to the other in less time than it takes to read this. Once plugged in, the unit switches on and is ready to go – immediately and accurately. Trip statistics are also available (time taken, average speed etc.). Best of all, it can be quickly removed from the vehicle and hidden away out of sight when not in use, leaving nothing more than the usual suction cup ring on the windscreen.
Convenience and practicality don’t always come cheaply and this unit is no exception, but compared to other trip meters that sell for around the same price (plus anything from $100 to $150 extra for a probe) the NEIC GPS Trip Meter compares very favourably.
RallySport Magazine now stocks these units at $825 plus postage – visit our online shop for further details and to order your GPS Trip Meter now
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