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Hey everyone, does anybody have any experience installing a permanent-internal usb charging wire for something like a GPS? I have a windshield-mountable Tom Tom which has a good old usb car charger but I'd like to hook up a permanent internal wire for it.

Where should I get supplies? Any words of caution (i.e. fuses, voltage, etc)?

Thanks!

 
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holy crap a 2001 member. someone help this man.

 
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*waiting for electric to chime in*

 
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in other words you want your cig lighter back. Just pull apart the charger you have take the two wires inside and tap em into your cig lighter from behind the panel As far as fuses go just see what the rating is on the fuse inside the charger and purchase accordingly. that way the wire will not be live with the car off and it'll be the same concept as pluggin it into the cig wire but you wont have to actually lok at the wires or have a big *** charger stickin out and blocking one of your cup holders,(assuming you got a 7th gen) i did the same thing and it worked flawlessly

 
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The voltage required by USB devices is around 5 volts. If you use your accessory outlet, some devices may not be able to accept the 12 volts. Here's the pin out for a USB. Ignore the two middle pins as they are not used for power.

 
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LMAO comedy at its finest

 
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The way I did the on my RX8 was to use a 5 volt regulator. It's a transistor that has an input of anything from 5V up to around 20V(depending on the regulator you get). It will output a consistent 5V and can usually source a pretty high amount of current. I would suggest using this sort of setup. something like this http://www.onsemi.com/pub_link/Collateral/NCV4274-D.PDF