i have a garmin nuvi series. i was wondering if anyone has a diy on how to hard wire one of these in. i tried what i thought would work and ending up screwing up the charging system on the first one and had to take it back to best buy lol

 

I was told by a Circuit City guy to cut the end off of the DC adaptor and plug it into a spare fuse slot.... I think he's retarded but you could try that let me know how it works or possibly get a 3rd one from Best Buy.

 

thats what i tried doing before and from what ive read you need that piece to reduce the current. i think the only way to go is to wire in another accessory adapter into the fuse box under the steering wheel. i was wondering if anyone had pics of doing this?

 

note to everyone. you cant wire a garmin like you can do with a radar detector and just cut the end off and wire it in. the garmin will still turn on but you will no longer be able to charge it with either the dc car apater or the ac home charger as this destroys the charging system internally

 

circuit city is right for once.. You CAN hardwire, but you need a female socket extension.. You cut the female end off of the extrension and then plug the garmin cig adapter in it then hardwire the female end of the extension into power and you done.
The Garmin has a chip inside the cig adapter so you can also open the adapter and take the chip out which downconverts voltage and solder your red and black wires straight to the chip...

 

I hardwired mine in my civic and I just went to wal-mart and bought a cigarette lighter socket and wired that into the fuse box and put it under the dash. I plugged the garmin into that socket and it works great now and turns on and off with the ignition.

 

Thats what i did. Its still got the hardwired look but if i want to take it with me in another car i can do that. If you don't want to buy a socket (even though they're very cheap) you can actually just wrap a wire around the two metal tabs on the outside of the adapter and then solder another wire to the tip for the positive wire and plug it up, just wrap it really tight in elecrical tape and make sure the wires cant touch. it ruins your adapter if you ever want to use it later but its cheap.