Hardwiring a phone charger for in the car?

JustAnotherSaver

An idea I had the other week that I want to throw out there to more intelligent folk than I so that I don't fall foul of anything that I hadn't thought of, or even better ways to achieve this that I hadn't thought of.

So I'm going to stick a windscreen suction mounted phone holder in the car. For the most part the phone wont need charging in the car but there's always that one time that it does & that's when you're caught out. Also if i'm going on a long drive such as in a few weeks time then I'll want Google Maps running and also the phone being charged while it's running.

However what I hate is cables on show, getting in the way. The way I have to do it now is in a 12v USB thing that goes in the 12v socket, trail the USB cable up trying not to get it in the way of anything important and then over to the phone holder which will be situated to the bottom right corner of the windscreen.

My theory was to hard wire a 12v female in to the fuse box behind the glovebox. In the 12v female would be a 12v USB adapter such as so. From this would be a USB cable which I would have to pull through behind the radio, take the clocks out and pull it behind there, out of the side & up the door rubber and across so only a bit is poking out.

Another option would be a wireless charging phone holder. I don't know how these work but I imagine they have a cable running off them which needs to go in to the adapter that I linked as it'll need to draw power somehow.

Which will leave my 12v socket free which is another thing that I want.

Also in to the mix is I will eventually be getting my dash cam (VIOFO A119v3) hardwired in which has 3 connections for parking mode - earth, live & whatever you call that yellow cable. I don't know if this will affect anything behind there or affect where you connect in the phone charger.

Over to you guys for your wisdom.

Norman_Castle

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/353652130033?hash=item52574f40f1:g:PAsAAOSwVtVhLsEQ

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/125079151851?hash=item1d1f4c64eb:g:uesAAOSweYZh0BtC

These have various usb connectors, choose to suit. Use a fuse tap to supply power.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2334524.m570.l1311&_nkw=car+fuse+tap&_sacat=0&LH_TitleDesc=0&_odkw=12v+to+5v+usb+converter&_osacat=0

JustAnotherSaver

Thanks for the response.

Can you tell me then, as i'm an electrical dummy, why sticking the product i linked to in my 12v socket & then putting a USB cable in it is perfectly fine to charge my phone

But if i'm to make it permanent then it's no good and I need something else entirely?

I don't really know much about electronics so I don't know why the above is the case.

Thanks.

Norman_Castle

Its fine but you wanted everything out of sight and an empty lighter socket.

jimjames

JustAnotherSaver said:

Thanks for the response.

But if i'm to make it permanent then it's no good and I need something else entirely?

Who said it's no good? I can't see any replies that say so? If you want to use the existing one then you can do that.

born_again

JustAnotherSaver said:

Thanks for the response.

Can you tell me then, as i'm an electrical dummy, why sticking the product i linked to in my 12v socket & then putting a USB cable in it is perfectly fine to charge my phone

But if i'm to make it permanent then it's no good and I need something else entirely?

I don't really know much about electronics so I don't know why the above is the case.

Thanks.

The Anker product you link to, takes the 12V from car & steps it down to the USB voltage 5V. 
So you can not just hard wire to 12 V without something to step down to 5 V.

Search Amazon for "dashcam hard wiring kit"  That is what you need.

But make sure you checkout the instruction & some u-tube video's on installing. As get the piggyback fuse installed wrong way round. And the supply is not fused.

Or better still as a "electrical dummy" get a auto electrician to do it, as at least they will be able to hide the cables without breaking all the fittings that need to be pulled off to hide the wires 👍

Bigphil1474

OP, just an alternative suggestion, which is the set up I have - get a dash mounted phone holder sucker thing, stick that on your dash, and when you use it the usb cable just drops down to the power socket, not particularly in the way. When you aren't using it, the cable can obviously be put away. 

Jenni_D

Bigphil1474 said:

OP, just an alternative suggestion, which is the set up I have - get a dash mounted phone holder sucker thing, stick that on your dash, and when you use it the usb cable just drops down to the power socket, not particularly in the way. When you aren't using it, the cable can obviously be put away. 

But in the OP's case they want the phone holder to be in the right hand corner of the windscreen, not the bottom-middle of the windscreen, thus the cable would have to run across the dash and then down to the lighter socket (or alternatively under the steering column rather than along the dash, but that might get snagged by your knees when driving).

JustAnotherSaver

jimjames said:

JustAnotherSaver said:

Thanks for the response.

But if i'm to make it permanent then it's no good and I need something else entirely?

Who said it's no good? I can't see any replies that say so? If you want to use the existing one then you can do that.

My take from the responses was that it was no good. If it was good then the response would've been yes go ahead with that setup but the response wasn't, it was do this setup instead.

Though (probably due to my lack of electrical knowledge) I don't see why.

Right now if i want to power my phone then i put one of these in to the 12v female socket in my car by the handbrake and in to that I put one of these (although admittedly longer) and plug it in to my phone.

So in my infinite lack of wisdom, I see no difference to getting one of these and sticking fuse taps on the end, connecting that to the fuse box behind the glovebox, sticking the adapter from the first link in to it and running the cable from the second link through the dash out to the relevant point and in to the phone.

But i'm told I need these gizmos to drop down to 5v instead. I'm not saying these people are wrong. They must be right because I don't know this stuff and I take that these people do. I just don't see why my suggestion is no good or inferior.

As for Norman Castle's response - that would also keep everything out of sight and the ciggy socket free.

And for BigPhil - as Jenni said, I want it bottom right of windscreen but also I'm not a fan of those dash sucker mounts. I don't particularly trust them is why. I have a vent mount in place at the moment and it's fallen off twice. One of the times I was using it for Google Maps as my normal route got blocked off so I ended up driving somewhere I wasn't familiar with so not a great time for it to do that.

My windscreen sucker mount has never dropped off.

"So why don't you have it on the windscreen then"

Because I did in my old car. Then I got rid. Got a new (same) mount but as it was up in the air whether I was keeping this car or not I was just waiting to see whether I would & simply haven't got round to putting it on yet.

Norman_Castle

JustAnotherSaver said:

jimjames said:

JustAnotherSaver said:

Thanks for the response.

But if i'm to make it permanent then it's no good and I need something else entirely?

Who said it's no good? I can't see any replies that say so? If you want to use the existing one then you can do that.

So in my infinite lack of wisdom, I see no difference to getting one of these and sticking fuse taps on the end, connecting that to the fuse box behind the glovebox,

On the end of a lighter socket charger? Thats a bodge. If you insist on using that charger buy a lighter socket for it to go in and connect that to the fuse tap.
The lighter socket is designed as it is to accommodate a cigarette lighter. As an electrical connector its poor.

born_again

Norman_Castle said:

The lighter socket is designed as it is to accommodate a cigarette lighter. As an electrical connector its poor.

They call them 12V sockets now. Not seen a new car with a cigarette lighter in for years.