Topic

If you use a smartphone or any device where adaptors from a USB cable can be used to provide power, this might be worth reading. If not, you probably will not even look at this thread, so no-one's time will be wasted!

I use an ancient (2009ish Vintage) Garmin SATNAV, and last year had problems with intermittent power going to that unit, using the original cable running to the Cigar-Lighter socket on the TF. I thought the problem was a poor contact at the Cig lighter socket, but it turned-out that the cable was frayed and one wire had actually fractured, near the plug at the Satnav end. So a replacement was essential. I had been meaning to tidy-up the cable route, to better avoid the gearlever and clean-up the cockpit area.
I had found an adaptor from microUSB to the larger connector on the back of my Garmin, and had successfully used a std. USB cable & charger to charge the battery in my Garmin, so decided that a standard, but 2m long USB-to-micro USB cable could probably be threaded through one of the demister air-ducts, to provide a neat power cable for my Garmin. Clearly any cable to suit your Smartphone/Satnav or whatever could use this route.

By removing the glove compartment (remove 2 screws visible once glovebox is open, and loosen 2 below glovebox), the hose from the heater to the LH demister vent is revealed:


This had a bad crush "injury" which was probably reduced demister airflow that side, and it had been bodge "connected" to the top vent with what looked like VERY old masking tape. The injury was cured/re-formed to full-bore with the help of a hair-dryer. Warming the plastic also allowed me to compress the hose lengthwise, which made it easier to put back into position. I used an electrical soldering iron to melt a hole just big enough for the Micro-USB connector to pass through, then fed most of the length of the cable trough the hose, then persuaded the smaller connector through the demister vent.

The end result is in the pics below:

Thats a very neat way to fit an accessory power cable.

I really enjoy looking at the way members overcome the installation of ancillary equipment, on more than the odd occasion I’ve been inspired to adopt the ideas of others.
I’m a great popper out of air vents, these are the entrances to an automotive Narnia, where there’s loads of space for routing cables & hiding ancillary’s
I hate the warts that plug into fag lighter sockets, more so when I see multi outlets bristling with masses of spaghetti issuing forth as if wire was being extruded from a die.
I have modified a “caddy” which slips down between the transmission tunnel & the seat, into which I’ve built a couple of supplementary instruments & a couple of USB sockets for charging our phones etc. The device has been further modified to snugly accept my phone.
My sat nav, a redundant refugee until pressed into service in the f, tucks neatly in the top right hand corner of the windscreen. A 12v to two USB sockets is fixed on the fuse box access flap & the cable runs up the A pillar, (access gained to the bottom of the pillar via the right hand Narnia vent).
There’ll be dozens of simple ideas around our community & goodness knows how many on other enthusiast forum & any one of these ideas if applied well could make the “”Driving Experience”” so much better (!!).
M