hardwire help for GPS mount

[Longitude]

I've been very frustrated with the poor connectivity of my Garmin GPS cigarette lighter power plug, which goes on and off often no matter what cig lighter slot I use in any of our family's cars. I couldn't find a good aftermarket replacement, and I definitely don't want to buy a new Garmin one either.

 

Previously I've used the connectors from Motorola V3 Razrs to charge my Garmin, but it cannot fit my mount since the connector needs to be bending 90 degrees to fit.

 

So I may resort to hardwiring. But I don't know anything about electricals. So I might pay someone to do it. But before I tell someone what to do, I'd like to see if you fellow Legacy owners have any insights on where to connect the hard wiring.

 

Here is part I think I would need. http://www.meritline.com/gps-hardwire-cable-006.html

 

I have Garmin Nuvi 360.

 

Eventually I want to mount my GPS at the drivers side Air vent to the left of the steering wheel, so wire should disappear into the vent somehow.

 

Thanks in advance for any helpful insight.

[rtbrjason]

Pretty sure all you need to do is run the 2 wires to the fuse panel. Really only one wire to the fuse panel and the other to ground. I've done this a couple times with radar detectors just by chopping the cig lighter plug end off. You can use a fuse tap for the one wire that needs to go to the fuse panel to connect to an existing constant power source, like the radio maybe.

 

Through the hvac vent is a pain in any car. You might be able to sneak the wire around the trim and down somehow though to make it invisible.

[TSiWRX]

I'll post a couple of links from my home laptop, when I get off work.

 

The problem with what you'd proposed, rtbrjason, is that with detectors and many other accessories, we're used to a 12V tap....with things like various sat.-radio units and GPS units, there's a step-down in voltage, so you'll need one of those adapters (and can't just "chop off" the end).

 

There are various home-made solutions to this, too, in case you didn't want to spend too much cash on the project.

[nemo]

Garmin's spec sheet says the input is 12V. However I would double check on that. Look on the charger you have, it should have an input/output voltage on it. If it's 12V, you can directly hardwire it to your fusebox, like jason said. Just make sure you use an inline fuse

[CzarDestructo]

I'm almost 100% all these new Garmins use a standard USB plug, so 5VDC, not 12VDC.

 

Hard wiring anything directly from the car into a sensitve electronic device is a bad idea. Voltages in the electrical system flucuate depending on weather the car is on or off and what kind of loading you have, expect a swing from 10-14 volts to be safe. This is not good if you pipe that directly into your devices.

 

Longitude, what you linked is what you need, its a typical DC to DC converter that will give you the 5 volts your Garmin wants. Just make sure you find out the cable lengths so you can do what you want with it while hiding the brick portion.

 

edit: also if you want to put your Garmin near the center console tapping into the stereos aux power with a painless inline splice would take about 5 minutes. It will already be fused and should have plenty of extra overhead to power your Garmin as well as the stereo. It's also not out of the question to route the wire over the gas/brake then up the dash to the vent, depending on the cable lengths. You can always easily add extra length.

[TSiWRX]

Sorry so long in coming!

 

http://www.gpspassion.com/forumsen/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=104260

 

^ I only found this one link - but it does contain the "home-made" step-down adapter.

[Longitude]

Thanks for the tips guys. I'm not so adventurous or blessed with leisure time to try any DIY action, but these ideas will be good when I can get it done.

[TSiWRX]

^ NP. I'm one of those "if this looks time-consuming enough, I might have to pass" kind of guys, too. Having a 2 and 1/2 year-old around, I've learned, is not exactly compatible with having a lot of free-time.

 

I'd then go the plug-and-play way. It'll be super-easy to do, then.

 

That's what I did with my wife's XM, bought the step-down on-line. The hardwire only took me, like, 15 minutes to do. The ready-made saved a lot of time.