• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

USB

Share this page

Todd78d

Todd78d

Member
Country flag
Offline
Have any of you installed a USB outlet in your positive ground car?
can you provide instructions on how to do it?
Thanks
 
Have one in my TF now, works fine. wired directly from the battery Post to the POS wire and Ground post to the negative wire, isolating everything from the car's chassis and body. Easy to do! Just be a little creative with where you put the wires. Actually, it's a 12-volt socket. Yes an inline fuse is warranted! PJ
 
We've added a cigarette lighter/power take off to our positive ground Austin-Healey 3000, and the same approach could be used for our BugEye: remove the grab handle on the passenger side and replace the piece of wood on the backing side of the instrument panel with a larger chunk of plywood. Then mount your USB/Power Take-Off/Cigarette Lighter onto the wood.
Wire it in as you choose to do so (and follow the earlier advice and ensure that you've included a fuse). And (to be traditional British), Bob's Your Uncle.
The wooden mounting eliminates concerns about positive/negative, and the fuse protects everything.
On our BJ7 Healey, we have a Garmin GPS unit held onto the heater box with rare earth magnets (bought ours from Lee Valley Tool, the Garmin is primarily to provide a GPS based speed.). But we can unplug it and use it to charge phones etc. Get yourself something that provides dual USB connectors. And Bob will Definitely be Your Uncle. Doug
 
twas_brillig said:
We've added a cigarette lighter/power take off to our positive ground Austin-Healey 3000, and the same approach could be used for our BugEye: remove the grab handle on the passenger side and replace the piece of wood on the backing side of the instrument panel with a larger chunk of plywood. Then mount your USB/Power Take-Off/Cigarette Lighter onto the wood.
Wire it in as you choose to do so (and follow the earlier advice and ensure that you've included a fuse). And (to be traditional British), Bob's Your Uncle.
The wooden mounting eliminates concerns about positive/negative, and the fuse protects everything.
On our BJ7 Healey, we have a Garmin GPS unit held onto the heater box with rare earth magnets (bought ours from Lee Valley Tool, the Garmin is primarily to provide a GPS based speed.). But we can unplug it and use it to charge phones etc. Get yourself something that provides dual USB connectors. And Bob will Definitely be Your Uncle. Doug
Click to expand...
Thanks for the idea.
 
I wanted to add a lighter outlet to my plus ground Sprite for a trickle charger. The original post prompted me to start looking and I found on Amazon a waterproof one (several actually) with a fully plastic case and spade connectors for both wires for $7. With that, any kind of mount will work. They also have similar USB outlets too. Sorry I'm slow in posting this.
 
for a trickle charger/battery maintainer, consider just getting one of the flat pin connectors that you install as part of your battery clamps. Doug
 
twas_brillig said:
for a trickle charger/battery maintainer, consider just getting one of the flat pin connectors that you install as part of your battery clamps. Doug
Click to expand...
Mine (Battery Minder I believe) came with a couple different set of leads. One had ring terminals that mounted to the battery cable clamps. As the leads can be removed from the battery maintainer, just left in place. The disconnected end has a rubber boot that fits over the connector.
 
You're both right, of course, on the dual leads on Battery Tenders and probably most. But for that, I have to raise the bonnet to hook up or have some leads accessible to connect to. I have done both on other cars but the socket is just simple and quick. Different strokes,...
 
Back
Top