DIY - Structured Cabling for in-car Gadgets I am sure that many of you would have faced the problem of managing power cables for devices like dash cam, PND, bluetooth speaker-phone etc that are mounted on the windscreen or the visor.
I have three such devices in my car viz. a SJ4000 dash cam, a mapmyindia PND and a Jabra freeway bluetooth speaker-phone which are all USB powered from 12v to USB power adapters all of which are connected to a cigarette lighter port extender with three ports. Initially i had to route all the cables vertically from the power port to the rear-view mirror and then route it to the devices wherever they were placed, even though i did not like this arrangement this was the only option of making the cables reach the devices.
After thinking about it for a couple of days, i came across an idea, that why can't i use a USB hub powered from a high power 12V to USB adapter and place the hub either above the rear-view mirror or somewhere close to the devices such that there is only one cable from the power port to the USB hub and then one cable from each device but there were some issues :
1) Many of the USB hubs i came across in the market could only supply a max. of 900 ma output while i required about 1A for 2 of my devices.
2) Most of the USB hubs came with a fixed length short cable which i could not use as i wanted at-least 2m+ length of cable to make the USB hub reach the upper part of the windshield/roof.
While searching an IT market in KL for such a product, i came across a unbranded multi-port USB hub with an external power adapter and a USB B-type input port (2A input) and i felt that i could try this out as it was also not that expensive.
After buying the hub i thought about other items which will be required to complete the install such as USB type A to type B cable, 12V to USB adapter ( 2A+), rubber cable manager stick-ons which i did easily find at plaza low hat which is a very high IT market in KL and all the items put together (including the hub) costed me around INR 1500.
I faced one final hurdle, i.e. the 3m USB type A to type B cable which would serve as an input to the USB hub from the USB power adapter was dropping too much voltage and hence the hub was unable to supply the required power to the devices. The solution was to use a shorter one. Fortunately i had a cable lying around with me which had come with my printer and the length was about 1.5m but with this length i could not place the hub on the roof, near the sunglass holder but only make it reach mid-way.
I will shortly post details about phase II of the project.
The following are some pictures of the outcome of phase I of the 'project' : |