The first step was to ascertain the best place to get power from. I scoured the forums for how people have done it before and the common theme I found was to take power from behind the headlight switch. I presume that this is because that many people mount the sat nav on the right side of the vehicle, not where I wanted mine.... I have always been keen on a centre mounted sat nav, I guess because I normally need my co-driver Mrs Bertha to help input our destination or to adjust things while I'm carefully piloting the beast! In addition to this I think that it looks better and more symmetrical!
I decided to do some exploratory work and started by removing the tray that is on top of the centre of the dashboard. This is pretty straightforward to do, you just pull up and slightly towards you from the edge nearest the front of the vehicle. Only pull up 20-30mm or so and then slide towards the front of the vehicle to free the lip nearest to you.
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| You will see that I have fitted the circular pad for mounting the suction cup already. |
I then set about hacking apart the cigarette charger adaptor that came with the GPS. The reason for this is that the unit is powered by mini USB which is at 5V suggesting that there must be a transformer within the adaptor.
I was right there was a simple transformer built into the adaptor. I decided to solder wires to little circuit board inside so that I could easily splice them into the power source I found behind the radio.
Finally I drilled a suitably sized hole in the tray to pass through the mini USB and put it all back together. Hey Presto, a nice a neat installation of my Sat Nav that stills allow for it all to the packed away when your parked up in a un-safe area!
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| hole for power source |
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| Garmin Nuvi 1690 installed |
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