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True true, but it would add a wow factor to your car Plus then if my passenger plugs into a center counseling usb charger they want to store their phone in my cubbie under the radio haha
True true, but it would add a wow factor to your car Plus then if my passenger plugs into a center counseling usb charger they want to store their phone in my cubbie under the radio haha
"Wow this guy has too much time on his hands and adds a bunch of stuff to his car"
functional yes, but sometimes reinventing the wheel is more trouble than it's worth.
If you really want something worth doing, get a 12V to 110V converter, you can even find some with 1 outlet plus 2x 2A USB ports, plug the converter under the arm rest, as for the cables, the best way to go is drill a hole from the arm rest compartment to under the handbrake, and pass a cable under the gear lever, under the steering wheel, then you'll have to find your way to the door and pass the cable up to the spot you want your port to be.
I mean, sure, if you've got time on your hands, why not, this will take you at least a good 5-6 hours, and cost about 50-70$ in USB cables and converters. But at this point, just buy two 20000mah powerpack and hide them in the door pocket and you'll have enough juice to recharge the phones with the biggest batteries at least 6 times.
Heck, talking about powerpacks, you can even go for that option. You can hide it behind the door panel and pass a much shorter, hassle free USB cable to where ever you want your port to be, and then when it gets empty, you just pass a cable from your console cigarette lighter to the door and charge it. Its MUCH less of a pain to setup, only thing is you'll have to charge it overnight once every couple days/weeks.
If you really want something worth doing, get a 12V to 110V converter, you can even find some with 1 outlet plus 2x 2A USB ports, plug the converter under the arm rest, as for the cables, the best way to go is drill a hole from the arm rest compartment to under the handbrake, and pass a cable under the gear lever, under the steering wheel, then you'll have to find your way to the door and pass the cable up to the spot you want your port to be.
I mean, sure, if you've got time on your hands, why not, this will take you at least a good 5-6 hours, and cost about 50-70$ in USB cables and converters. But at this point, just buy two 20000mah powerpack and hide them in the door pocket and you'll have enough juice to recharge the phones with the biggest batteries at least 6 times.
Heck, talking about powerpacks, you can even go for that option. You can hide it behind the door panel and pass a much shorter, hassle free USB cable to where ever you want your port to be, and then when it gets empty, you just pass a cable from your console cigarette lighter to the door and charge it. Its MUCH less of a pain to setup, only thing is you'll have to charge it overnight once every couple days/weeks.
Charge overnight? Cigarette lighter is off if car is off.
Anyway, it can be done in a clean way, flush mount USB port in door, go through door loom for front doors, connect to 12V whether always on/off is up to you and then enjoy your USB ports in doors. Back seats you can always have USB from the center console in a similar fashion.
Still wondering why you'd go to such an extent to add USB ports to charge a phone. How many people are going to use it, how often and for how long?
Lots of interesting discussion. I appreciate everyone's feedback. I'm gonna keep it simple and do my passenger door first. I'll post up pictures on the results
I would rather the phone die and people actually TALK to me rather than being on an electronic device. If they're more interested in their phone than me, I hope they get eaten by fireants.
Yesterday I did some re-wiring work for my GROM audio unit. I had a bunch of cables stuffed in the arm wrest box and others in the compartment where the gear select cigarette lighter is. I also remembered my grom unit can have 3 USB ports, one on the unit itself, and 2 others using the EXT1 and EXT2, which can be used to add a 3.5mm jack, USB female or BT module.
I then thought of your thread and figured, instead of a complicated wire re-routing, hassle of going all the way to the door, you have all the space you need within a 1 foot area, and it happens to be much more convenient to have a USB port there than in the door...the CENTER CONSOLE.
So I took out the cup holder and the part where the seat heater switches are with the gear selector and both compartments and saw that there is so much space that can be utilized to pass cables, and put other modules or power sources.
I'm really bummed out I didn't take pictures of the process, it would have been such a cool DIY project. But basically, I re-routed the cigarette port under armrest, connected a 12V to 110V converter which I placed in the empty space between the gear selector and wiring harness of the gear position switch, this places it right under the 2 compartments, also makes it easy to access just by pulling on the side panel between passenger seat and glove box. I also hid my GROM box under the cup holder and passed the cables from EXT1 and EXT2 to the same place as the 12V to 120V converter.
So now that my infrastructure for power is there, I need to think how am I going to cut the side panel. As of now, I have 5 USB power sources in the car, 2 are used permanently and 2 are available to plug anything and one is a micro usb cable that powers my wireless charger or phone directly.
I made a small diagram that shows how i wired everything. As mentionned, previously all wiring was hidden under cup holder and armrest but It was a hassle to access in case I needed something, like flash a new firmware on my GROM unit.
Here are the color codes:
Red is the remapped cigarette plug with the 12V to 110V. The output is a regular 3 pin power source that can power a mini fridge, recharge laptop, power tire compressor, and so on.
Yellow box next to handbrake is my 3 port grom unit and on top my wireless charger, and in between a micro USB cable. It has 1 fixed USB port and 2 external ports that look like those old PS2 ports that old mice and keyboards used, technically, you can add 4 USB ports by using a double USB Y cable per port, but in this case, I have 2 Y cables that have one female USB and one 3.5mm audio jack. The fixed USB port is used to charge my phone, it can output about 1100mah in perfect conditions, but it fluctuates too much in amperage depending on if music is played or not, the quality of the song (bitrate), they all influence the output, usually, I get between 500mah and 700mah, which is perfect to power my wireless charger
On EXT1 in dark blue, my audio jack connects to my bluetooth receiver that is in light blue, from that, I stream my music, make and receive calls, the source mode for that is "iPod". It also has a female USB port that currently sits in the compartment where my main cigarette charger is.
On EXT2 in orange, the jack is an AUX port where you can plug in any other device that outputs sound through 3.5mm. That also has a USB port that for now has no use.
Both EXT USB ports female are the ports i want to integrate somewhere in the center console, i want to cut and precisely fitthe female ports so we can plug in additional usb cables to charge other phones, tablets, external GPS units, and so on. I also want to find a way to cut out in the side passenger pannel so the power converter is available to power bigger electronics.
I'm still looking for solutions to make this job as professional looking as possible. If anybody has any suggestions, please feel free to share.
I have a future project in mind also, i want to take away that ugly phone holder that blocks half of my screen and that I modded into a wireless charger (just a proof on concept/prototype), and integrate the wireless charger in the cupholder directly a bit like the image below. The phone would lie there and since it would charge wirelessly, it could be easily picked up.
Last edited by polish_pat; 10-14-2015 at 10:54 PM.
I got one on eBay, they're pretty inexpensive, (under $10) it, and some USB extension cables should be everything you need to get the job done on the wiring side, The trick then will be to make it look like a clean install, and I'd love to see pictures of the result, sounds like a great way to solve the "Who needs to charge their phone the most?" question!
10-05-2015, 08:19 PM
Plus then if my passenger plugs into a center counseling usb charger they want to store their phone in my cubbie under the radio haha
