Chris_O

Hi All,
i recently bought a car cradle for my PDA to be used along with a Blutooth GPS unit. Anyway, the power supluy for the cradle is the type that plugs into the cigarrete lighter. While i was trying to neatly run the cable round unter the dashboard to the PDA cradle location i stupidly pulled the wire out of the adapter that plugs into the *** lighter.
Now i have 2 issues.
1, i'd prefer to connect this directly to the car power supply rather than the *** lighter, but i have no idea how
2. If i can;t suss out how to do that, i'm not sure how to put the *** lighter connector back together.

I've been having a 'mare breaking stuff recently so i could do with some advice.

Chris

Nick100

Chris
I took power off the back the *** lighter for my PDA/Origin and hard wired it in with an in line fuse. It's a bit of a work up and not a short job !

You start by opening the boot, remove the rear seats and work your way forward from there Only joking off course.

Depends on your model, but the ICE section has some good instructions for taking the dash apart. For MY01 (?) or later, this is normally starting with the central air vent and then taking the air con control panel out. Eventually you can get to the back of the lighter socket and I used snap lock connectors, which crimp on to the existing cables and allow you to attach other wires. Note : This power source is only on when the ignition is on, the same as the lighter. If you want a permanent supply, you need to find somewhere that is permanently powered (or possible just make another earth connection - though I've not tried this, others have said it's switched earth).

I even fed the power cable up the back of the dashboard, made a small hole in the feed to the air vent and fed the cable out of the airvent directly in to the back of the PDA cradle, which was mounted on the vent.

If you end up trying to put the lighter adapter back together, the cable should be two wires - red and black. You will need to take the adapter apart and the red wire needs to connect to the pin in the centre, with the black wire connected to the clips around the outside.

Cheers
Nick

Chris_O

Hi There,

i think i'll start with putting the *** lighter adapter back together as my current knack or breaking stuff is putting me off removing any of the dash in case i can't put it back together.
With teh *** lighter wiring, i've actually got a red wire and a clear wire. So, can i assume that the red one is going to the pin/spring in the middle and the clear one goes to the other springy bit on the side?

Cheers

Chris