I have looked at a few of the discussions on here regarding this and have decided to tap into my ignition switch for the power and ground to a bolt on the frame. My question is, I cut the cig lighter plug off the Garmin power cord and rather than finding a red and a black wire inside, there is a single white wire with stranded wire around the outside of it, between the insulation on the white wire and the black, outer insulation of the cord. Am I correct in assuming the inside (white) wire is the power and the stranded wire around the outside is the ground???
CaptCaper
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I bet your right. That's always the case. The ground is on the outside for noise supression.
Garmin use to post their wiring diagrams but I doubt that they do now.
Can't you take the lighter plug and plug it into an outlet in the car and test it that way? I have a meter that will tell pos and neg for 12vdc which makes that easy for me to do.
Garmin use to post their wiring diagrams but I doubt that they do now.
Can't you take the lighter plug and plug it into an outlet in the car and test it that way? I have a meter that will tell pos and neg for 12vdc which makes that easy for me to do.
oh yeah!!! never thought of that!!! duh!!!
yup!!! it's the center!!!
When I test it through the cig plug, it gives a really dim light...is this low voltage or low amperage?? Is there some kind of reducer in there cutting the current down?? If so, how will this work just hardwiring right to the sled???
trailhed1
Expert
I hardwired a new cig outlet to battery and just plug in Garmin cigarrette plug there tape it solid and leave it for season. I have had to change the cords the ends at the gps fail after too long at -20 to -40. They break. In that cig plug for garmin is a fuse no?
CaptCaper
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trailhed1 said:
good idea..
CaptCaper
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4strokelover87 said:
I bet you can't direct to the gps. If it's a Nuvi it might run on 5 v's. My Nuvi is powered by the USB port witch is 5 v's.
In the old garmins you could hard wire it and I think the gps had the reducer built in but now more I bet.
Do like he said above about hooking to battery.
marq
Expert
I hardwired mine to the battery with a "bare wire cable". It has bare connections so you can add an in-line fuse and run it to the battery, and it has the reducer built in so you don't fry your GPS. Not sure what model you're running, but I'm sure there is one available. Just look up your model and it's usually available as an accessory. I think mine cost about $14 Try these websites:
www.mountguys.com
www.gpscity.com or www.gpscity.ca
www.mountguys.com
www.gpscity.com or www.gpscity.ca
EX TOPGASSER
Newbie
Don't make the mistake I made with my first GPS. I hardwired it with the cig. lighter cord (only to find out the hard way) that the cord contains a step-down voltage reducer. I plugged it in and fried my GPS.
Don't use the cig. lighter cord unless it's plugged into a cig. lighter.
I added one under the hood and mounted it into a Spare Belt Holder Clip. This kept it from bouncing out, which it was constantly doing with the stock mounted one.
Don't use the cig. lighter cord unless it's plugged into a cig. lighter.
I added one under the hood and mounted it into a Spare Belt Holder Clip. This kept it from bouncing out, which it was constantly doing with the stock mounted one.
X2 with this way. I just bought the cord designed to be hardwired right from Garmin( red and black pigtails hanging)marq said:
....because the output IS less than 12 volts. No problems for 2 years now.
Awesome!!! Thanks for the help guys!!! I will be ordering one ASAP!!
Ordered from GPS city for $25 plus $9 to ship since I chose 2nd day...not too bad!!! Thanks for the help guys!! Has anyone just pulled from the ignition switch for power with this cable, or have you all just gone straight to the battery???
marq
Expert
4strokelover87 said:
I went right to the battery with mine because I wanted power all the time. The internal (non-removable) battery in my GPS is just about junk. When I lose power the thing dies. I wanted to be able to reference the GPS when the sled is shut off at an intersection or side of the trail.
Also, the cable for my model has a power light on the reducer. It's just a small LED letting you know you have power.. so the drawback going that route was that I had to add a toggle switch so that my battery didn't drain. I don't know how long it would take that LED to kill a battery, but I didn't want to find out. Obviously tapping into other wires would prevent this issue, but as I said, I wanted always-on power.
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