Compass on your dashboard?

I have an old Airguide compass that was in an old 68 Lemans that I once owned.

 

gentex ftw

 

+1 on the rear view mirror with the compass.

Can be installed in the Gen 1 easily. Always power, switched power and ground. You would need to remove the original mirror and attach a mounting button on the windshield, but it looks nice and adds a modern convenience to a 20 year old truck.

I found one that is auto dimming with Homelink Version 4 (newest garage door openers) and an amber display that matches the orange illumination of the dash. Most out there are green display.

 

Can you see that one at night? The one posted a few posts ago.

 

You don't need a compass on your dashboard, you need compassion on your dashboard!

 

And He'll show you the way!

 

Cool

 

Gyro compasses are the way captains counteract the magnetic distortions caused by the metal components of ships

I think a truck has too much metal for a simple dash mounted compass, you’d have a lot of variation from the vehicle.

Another way ship captains handle this problem is by creating a variation table, they slowly spin the ship in a circle, noting magnetic north ( you could get this reading by standing outside your vehicle with a hand compass) as well as “compass north” from the helm (you driver’s seat) at each specific angle for the ship while they turn 360 degrees. You could do this in a parking lot.

That way they know when your compass reads 35 degrees at the helm your magnetic heading is actually 43 degrees for example.

Then you convert this magnetic north reading to true north using the pneumonic device
True Virgins Make Dull Company add Whisky

So if u wanted to go full balls to the walls you could construct a variation table.

 

The downside is local magnetic fields change. Your deviation in at one lat/long will change at another one. That's why ships, while still equipped with magnetic compasses, use a gyro compass and bar that a gps. Granted, while driving you only need the general direction and not precise degrees. In some places our gyrocompass and magnetic are 40°+ difference.

Although this is all deviating very far from the original thread

 

Very true but the magnetic declination doesnt change unless you are travelling great distances. I was just having fun writing this situation up because I recently got my OUPV license haha

 

I'm sitting in the pilothouse bored waiting for weather with nothing to do other than dream of truck mods. It's all in good fun!

 

I wouldn't worry too much about compasses - read this: https://www.space.com/earth-magnetic-north-passes-prime-meridian.html

 

Only two vehicles I had luck with using old fashioned dash mounted compasses........VW aircooled and (old) Mercedes Benz diesels.

Both had hardly any electrical interference from under the front hood.