Hi,
I've got a Road Angel GPS and would like to hardwire it into the car (MY00). I want to place it on the far right hand side of the dash.
Anyone got any ideas as to the best place to tap into some power, preferably only when ingnition comes on,
Thanks in advance, Cheers, Grahame.

Grahame,

I recently put a Road Angel (RA) and a Valentine 1 (V1) into my Sti. I made up a little harness for both the above at the same time. Spliced both live connections together, keeping both the proper fuse holder connections in line for the RA & V1 (different ratings), and then piggy backed the single live from them onto the live for the cigarette lighter, using a scotch grip connection. Spliced both the earths together, soldered to a fork type connection, and tied into where the stereo earth is on the back of the dash. This way I could "make up" the harness and only had one Scotch connection to fit in the back of the dash. This keeps all the "hot work" away from the car!

The RA sits on the centre dash and the V1 is above the rear view mirror with all the cables well out of site. In fact on the Prodrive Sti the rear view mirror is lower than on a standard car, due to the big rear wing, and you have a third mini sun visor in the middle. I modified this slightly so that it works in reverse; i.e. folds down from the rear, instead of the front. I can now pull it down to hide the V1 from cars that may come up from behind.

The kit comes on and off with the ignition and the cigarette lighter system can easily handle the relative piss ant requirement of this kind of gear, so I would go for there.

Jools

Thanks Jools,
Where can I get the scotch grip connections from? Halfords?
Cheers, Grahame.

Grahame,

Halfords would be a good bet, or try any high street DIY kind of place. They cost pennies so take a couple of sizes. I actulay got a real little neat one as part of the V1 kit.

Good luck!
Jools.

Make sure you close the scotchlocks tightly! I use a pair of pliers when i use scotchlocks. And a bit of insulation tape over the top of it. I always like to over-engineer things!

If you need a hand give me a call, I have a lovely ratchet crimper and a full connector set, my brother who now lives in Nice was a mechanic and he left me to look after all of his tools!