USB plug hard wired to glovebox

**sky_lennard** · 09-23-2007, 01:10 PM

I am planning a new car stereo setup, and need some advice.

I will shortly be buying a new head unit with a USB plug (wire out the back, not a plug in the front), and I want to use my external USB-powered hard drive to take my music collection with me. The hard drive has 2 USB plugs, one that powers the drive and the other does the data throughput.

I am not interested in a CLA adapter, because I want to be able to put the drive in my glovebox. Ideally, I'd have a couple of USB plugs installed in the wall of the glovebox to plug it into.

For the plug to the HU, that's simple enough, but I need some help finding the right solution for the USB power, where I can end up with a mountable female USB plug, and hard wire it into my car's accessory power loop. All I seem to be able to find is a USB charger for the CLA, which won't work for me. I am reasonably electronically savvy and I figure that I'll probably need to solder something together to make this work.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!!!

-Nate

**DarquePervert** · 09-23-2007, 01:41 PM

Before progressing on this project...
Are you 100% certain that the headunit will support a USB hard drive? There are very few of them that do.

There are devices that allow you to power a USB device through the cigarette lighter/12v power port. They're pretty cheap, and I think would serve you well in this endeavor.

**sky_lennard** · 09-26-2007, 01:06 AM

Thanks, but like I said in my post -- I am not interested in a CLA adapter (aka cigarette light adapter / 12v power port). This needs to be hardwired into the car's electrical system because I don't need even more competition for my 1 port between my phone and ipod chargers.

Really, I think I'm either looking for a good schematic to use and build my own or a bare circuit to buy that's pre-configured for this type of power conversion (12v to whatever USB needs).

"Are you 100% certain that the headunit will support a USB hard drive? There are very few of them that do."

-- I am not 100% sure, so i'll have to find out when I go to buy a HU, which I haven't decided on yet. I was not under the impression that these had limits to the size of the USB storage device -- I thought they just read the file structure on the device plugged into it. Am I wrong? Do you know which HU's would support it?

Thanks!!

-Nate

**sky_lennard** · 09-29-2007, 12:25 PM

Does anyone have a schematic for a circuit to step 12v car power down to USB-levels?

**Uraijit** · 09-29-2007, 08:24 PM

usb runs off 5v DC. Get a voltage regulator. Or but the cigarette lighter adapter, cut the adapter off, and wire it into your fuse panel. This ain't rocket science...

**Uraijit** · 09-29-2007, 11:52 PM

just make sure that there aren't any important components inside the CLA plug, or you will need to wire those inline. alternatively you could wire it to the 5v leg or your computer's PSU...