Powering Satnav From The Cigar Lighter

January 31, 2006

Hi all,

I bought a Garmin Streetpilot i3 at Christmas, and all is well except for the power lead that plugs into the cigar lighter. The adaptor is quite chunky ( http://shop.garmin.com/accessory.jsp?sku=010%2D10723%2D06 ) and the gear knob gets in the way of it in 1st/3rd/5th. It's not so close that I can't engage gear, but close enough for me to get irritated at continually banging my hand into it.

Has anyone on the forum had similar probs? I'm wondering if there's maybe a different adaptor out there, without that bulbous plastic housing...

TIA

Tarby

January 31, 2006

Hi,

I have a garmin street pilot 2620 and it has a large ciggy lighter speaker but has the ability to angle the speaker up towards to heater controls so I do not get this problem quite as bad as you.

The only other thing I can recommend would be to buy an adapter which allows you to plug the adapter in to the lighter socket then plug the garmin into the adapter, I am sure this will sort the problem. Ether that dismatle the adapter with speaker and hard wire it to the Battery. Whatever you do, you will need to do something a bit DIY to get round it.

Good luck!

January 31, 2006

buy one of these:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Additional-Car-Cigar...1QQcmdZViewItem

then solder the wires to the back of the cigarette lighter socket

January 31, 2006

Exactly right Sotal. DIY it, it's the only way!

January 31, 2006

buy one of these:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Additional-Car-Cigar...1QQcmdZViewItem
then solder the wires to the back of the cigarette lighter socket

We did this. The cradle for a PDA based system suckers to the screen by the door and the cable runs down the jamb and under the dash. I then connected an extention to the back of the lighter and ran it forward exiting under the dash. Plug the two together and it look hardwired in, but can be removed in seconds without damage. Either by me of the !Removed! who decides it would look better on a pub table :( :)