TomTom Car Kit - hard wiring

GregB · Occasional Visitor Joined: Sep 09, 2004 Posts: 6

I've recently purches the TomTom Car Kit only to find it comes with a cigarrete lighter cable, not the hard wiring cable that I expected. Am I right in believing that TomTom used to sell this kit with both cables?

Where can I get a cable to hard wire this into my car?

Thanks in anticipation.

HandyMac · Occasional Visitor Joined: Aug 23, 2004 Posts: 52

You could cut the cigarette lighter plug off the supplied wire and do it that way. However if you do so make absolutely sure you put a fuse in series with the incoming (there may be a fuse in the cigarette lighter plug).

Car batteries can produce a significant number of amps if shortcircuited, more than enough to start a fire.

The feed you take power off of will most likely go thru the cars fusebox anyway, but the last thing you want is for your lights or some other necessary part of the wiring to stop working because your lashed-in cable was shorted.

Andrew

GregB · Occasional Visitor Joined: Sep 09, 2004 Posts: 6

HandyMac

Thanks for your suggestion. However, the cigarette lighter cable is coiled. I was after a straight cable to trail down the back of the windscreen for a more permanent, discreet fitting.

Have you any idea where I can get such a cable? Is the connector on the TomTom end a standard size?

Thanks

MrT · Posted: Sat Sep 18, 2004 7:10 pm Post subject:

Check your plug before cutting and hard wiring with the cable. Other TomTom GPS receivers have had 12V to 5V regulators built into the cigar lighter plug. The TomTom Bluetooth unit that had a hard wiring option had the 12V to 5v convertor in the cradle.

Basically I don't know if the Go does the 12V to 5V conversion internally or in the lead/lighter plug and if you get it wrong, fried Go.

MrT · Posted: Sat Sep 18, 2004 7:12 pm Post subject:

Don't know where I got the "Go" bit from, reading too many threads. But do check there is no regulation in the cigar lighter plug and it is done in the car kit.

Mongoose · Occasional Visitor Joined: Aug 17, 2004 Posts: 10

Made the mistake in haste of hard wiring the supplied 'car kit' and chopped the cigar adapter off - forgetting that it contains the 5v reducer. My uiit cost a small fortune to get repaired. Can someone tell me where the hard wire car kits are available from, I presure they have the car audio interface as well as the remote GPS interface (just installed a roof mounted antenna using the remote TomTom antenna base plate)

Thanks

spile · Regular Visitor Joined: May 08, 2004 Posts: 163

I would recommend doing as I've done...
But a 99p cigar lighter socket from Maplin.
Hard wire this into your 12v switched loom.
Connect your TT cable to this.
Done!

MrT · Posted: Mon Sep 20, 2004 5:56 am Post subject:

If you use the additional socket behind the dash route for hard wiring, I suggest you tape the plug into the socket as they have a tendency to work loose after a while.

OZ · Regular Visitor Joined: Mar 17, 2004 Posts: 165

Thanks for the info on this everybody, i was going to cut the cord and just connect it up, but thought i would wait whilst i sent an e-mail to TomTom asking if i could purchase another charger lead With or without the cigarette adapter. They did reply, with an e-mail saying sorry for the delay in answering we will try to answer you soon. Well 3 days later they did saying that as yet i couldn't buy a replacement but maybe in the future i may be able to. I explained fully that i wanted to Hardwire the Go unit by chopping off the cigarette lighter so could they supply a cord with just the jack on the end, and not once did they tell me that this would be a terminal error as Mongoose found out, perhaps they are not aware, but i would seriously doubt that.
Anyway read this thread in the nick of time, thanks guys you saved me a lot of grief.

GregB · Occasional Visitor Joined: Sep 09, 2004 Posts: 6

So what do I need to hardwire TomTom into my car?

- a cigarette lighter plug
- some cable
- an inline fuse
- a regulator?

Where is the easiest point to wire this to? I wired a radar detector into the fuse-box of a previous car (using one of those blade fuse type connectors).

Does no one sell a pre-wired straight cable?

Thanks.

BrowningC · Occasional Visitor Joined: Apr 06, 2004 Posts: 26

I had the same problem, though it was a couple of months ago.

I e-mailed TomTom and they sent me a hard-wire cable, exactly what you are after. It certainly didn't contain any fuses though, and I'm pretty sure it si just a straight wire and has no voltage control.

Works, though!

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