Hardwiring to a cigarette outlet?
 

OK so I'm in the process of adding a bluetooth audio receiver to the aux input on the G and am almost finished except for the power. I'm going to have the adapter in the glove box and want to tap into the cigarette outlet in there. I don't want to use the outlet itself since I already use that for my phone charger. I've got the center console apart and want to tap it into the back side of the outlet but am not sure the best way of doing it.

The outlet is 12V if I'm not mistaking and the device takes 5V. What is the easiest way to do this? I want it to be hard wired like a radar detector is.

Are you sure the device is 5v? If so it won't work straight into 12v. I'd imagine if it is 5v it has a resistor in the original plug to reduce. I'd just get a cigarette lighter splitter so you can plug both in.

Yes I'm sure it's 5V. I found out the hard way. Tapped it straight into the cig outlet and I think fried it. It's only a $16 adapter from ebay though so not expensive to replace.

I don't want to take up the room with a splitter, the center console is already small enough as is. I don't ever plan on removing it and want it to be as clean of install as possible so that's why I want to hard wire it.

It charges with a simple mini-usb cable. Does anyone know if there is any 5V wire on the iPod connector? If so can I just tap it into there?

That looks nice, but I would still like to hardwire it if I can.

What do I need to reduce the power off the cig outlet down to 5v? Can I use some kind of inline resistor or regulator or something?

It's very easy to do. As someone mentioned, buy a cigarette to USB power adapter (smaller the better), since these circuits are designed to step down 12V to 5V.

First, take apart the USB power adapter on the side the plugs into the cigarette lighter, taking note of which is the positive and negative wire on the cigarette lighter end.

Second, from the back of of your center console power, figure out which is 12V+, and which one is GND. Wire these to the gutted USB power adapter. Now, the output from the USB power adapter should give you 5V+ and GND.


If your USB power adapter is a female USB connector, the pinout will be as follows:
http://jim.geek-republic.com/images/.../18/usbww6.jpg

OR - If you want it to be simpler, get a cigarette to USB phone connector (e.g. these are usually mini-usb or micro-usb), then you can cut off the USB end, and get the following wiring:
http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A...YZfX0cDoMU5uow

No guarantees on color though. You should use a multimeter to verify that you have the correct connections.

ORRR you could run some new wire or tap off an existing power run, and just buy a usb adapter like the griffin, and simply solder the tapped wire onto the proper positive and negative leads on the adapter that would normally be plugged into the cig lighter

If anyone wants to hardwire to the back of the cig lighter, the blue wire is positive, the black is negative, on a 2010 coupe at least.