Hardwire GPS

[humphb08]

Just recently had the notion to hardwire my GPS to my truck to get rid of the mess of wires. I have read different places which are best to wire (radio, console leading back to lighter) My question is I can't find my 12V circuit light and have cut the power wire to the GPS unit. I have three wires in that cord white, black, red. Ground, hot, ???. What's what without me having to go buy another circuit tester only to find it a week from now. And what places did you hardwire your unit to. Thanks

Brian

(255W Garmin)

 

[A Wise Guy]

I was allways told not to cut the Garmin cord because it has some kind of circutry in the lighter plug. I bought a garmin hardwire cord and used the same power that feeds my homelink in my overhead counsel. Same place my radar detector gets its power. Good part about power comming from here is that after approimately 30 minutes after the truck is turned off homelink also looses power as do the garmin and escort so no lights lighting up the interior all night. Press unlock or open a door and all hell breaks loose.

Garmin is mounted top left on the windshield in the corner and Escort sits to the left of the rear view mirror.

 

[corkey]

i did mine a bit different, i wired another socket into the light harness, and hid the adaptor behind the radio bezel,, than ran the wire through the dash than to the gps,

 

[BrianDye]

I have a TomTom, uses a mini usb, so did my BlackBerry, and i had like 5 mini usb chargers, like 2 car and 3 house ones, the phone ones worked on my GPS, so i just cut one of those, and spliced it down and into the ciggarette lighter in the ashtray (in my 92 ex)

What I would reccomend, is going and buying maybe a universal one that will fit your Garmin, or another maybe knock off brand that'l work with yours to practice with...I just used a LED to see the polarity on the wires, cus they only work pos to pos neg to neg lol

 

[jad2411]

I was allways told not to cut the Garmin cord because it has some kind of circutry in the lighter plug. I bought a garmin hardwire cord and used the same power that feeds my homelink in my overhead counsel. Same place my radar detector gets its power. Good part about power comming from here is that after approimately 30 minutes after the truck is turned off homelink also looses power as do the garmin and escort so no lights lighting up the interior all night. Press unlock or open a door and all hell breaks loose.

Garmin is mounted top left on the windshield in the corner and Escort sits to the left of the rear view mirror.

Ditto, some use 7.2V or something like that and the plug itself (like cell phone chargers) has all of the electronics inside to make it work, so just get a new socket at walmart for $5 and wire that hidden, then plug your GPS there

 

[jrford]

I mounted my GPS on the dash, i bought a hard wire USB / Garmin kit - 12v to 6v converter. I wired it to back of the Radio and the Acc line and ground. My Passport runs off 12v so its also wired to the same wire minus the converter. Now it shuts off when i open the door, comes on when the truck is started.

 

[humphb08]

Thanks for the replies. As an update ordered one of these today http://www.semsons.com/ganutohaca.html. Keep the original charger if I need it in another vehicle. I to will hook to an ACC line that way it shuts off when the doors open and turns on when the car is started. Thanks again for all your help.

Brian