I got a new phone last week and want to be able to charge it while in my car. I did this once with my friends audi where the end of the car charger came out under the arm rest in a little cubby. My phone uses a USB plug so i wanted to do a USB setup so i could charge any other USB items.

Enough with the explanation though.

First off you need to pick up a few things. 12v car jack (about $2 on the internet. $6 at auto zone) a 12v USB adaptor (i bet they are really cheep on ebay i paid about $15 for mine, you want it to be approximately 5v and 1A) and a USB cable extender (shorter the better but because of the nature of what it is the shortest i could find was 10')


Strip the wires off the 12v plug adapter and attach them to the ones coming out the back of the cars 12v plug (there is a black and redish wire. the red one corresponds with + and black - so it's kind of hard to mess up). Put the USB adapter in the 12v plug, at this point you can make sure you got everything put together correctly.


I decided to put my plug in the little coin thing to the right of the shift area since i never use it and it is kind of inconspicuous, it pops right out if you push from behind. it was a mess down under and around the area so you might want to get some cleaning supplies ready


I cut out a slot for the female end of the USB cable and used some superglue to secure it in there.


Secure all the cables, put everything back together...

 

step 3: profit

 

Nice Mod

 

wait.....all this when you can just get the car adapter for the phone? What's the point of the USB connection?

 

because it moves the adapter and cable away from where i need to shift and it makes things a whole lot cleaner.

It took 22 minutes from the first picture i took to the last picture i took so it's not like there was all that much involved

thanks for the feedback though

 

Do you retain normal use of the lighter? If so I might do this.

 

yea, everything is like normal except now i have a powered usb in the little coin thing.

 

thats pimp! what a sick mod! nice write up bro

 

why cant you get a cigrate usb adaptor?

 

Nice! You can probably eliminate the battery clip adapter by just soldering wires directly from the usb adapter to the power wires (the battery clip adapter probably has some inline fuses though).

He did use a "cigarette" usb adapter...it's just installed behind the trim with a USB cable routed so that the usb connector is flush with the dash.

Only thing is it might pop a fuse if you have two power-hungry devices plugged into your USB port & the 12v accessory outlet at the same time. If this is a problem, you could use the accessory outlet's positive lead (or accessory wire) as the trigger for a relay that gets power directly from the battery.

USB ports are just 2 pins providing 5 Volt and then 2 pins for data. USB "powered" devices just care about those 5 Volt pins. I've always found USB ports convenient as a DC supply when I need 5 Volts (for example, a portable device that takes four 1.5V AAs...they can usually can run off 5 Volts).

 

I thought about doing a direct solder but in terms of future flexibility and ease of install this was the clear choice

The two plug adapter is 5v 1A max so if you had 2 devices it would draw 500mA each but never totaling more than 1A. Way below the limit for the circuit

 

Because he already answered that question....

 

just saw that.
better yet, he could wire the socket directly to the battery so he could charge the phone while the car is off.

 

There are tons of ways you could wire it and places you could put the plug. I'm not in my car while it's off and my phone stays with me so i didn't really need to make things any more complicated.

 

I just use the jack on the back of the center console, but I can see your point with having to shift.

 

Nice dude thats pretty cool.....but I would suggest a little cleaning maybe ay?

 

True, makes sense.

But I'm talking about the regular/stock/factory 12v accessory outlet (what you wired the adapter to); if you had something in that outlet in addition to your USB adapter. Fuses upstream from your adapter circuit (fuse box fuses) would pop if you exceed the limit (whatever it is & may not even be an issue - just throwing it out there).

In general, if you had two devices, they would draw the current they need...but the voltage would drop if your power supply can't sustain that amount of current at the power supply's spec voltage.

 

what happens when dirt and dust gets in there?

 

The slot still looks like you can just pop it out. Grab a q-tip & go to work.

 

THe little slot pops right out with a screwdriver or i bet a shop vac would pull most crap out of there

 

That little coin slot is right where my coffee ends up if I get a little excited.

 

was that necessary?
couldn't you have just mcgyvered the 12v to usb dongle itself in the little coin clot thing....eliminating the need for the male to female..

 

curious, how have u liked this mod after a month or so? im so sick of having bulky chargers plugged in for my phone and ipod.