How to power a USB hub - Page 2

MP3DUB · 01-01-2007, 02:12 AM

Odd are you could also simply find a suitable barrel connector at radio shack (or mouser, or digikey, or etc) instead of hacking up the power cord from the power brick.

You could also build/buy your own 5v (or what ever you need) regulator circuit.

That said I've run a 12v screen off the 12v from my psu, with the screen being in my dash and the psu in my trunk by using cat5 as the conductor.

And finally, the inelegant solution that I still use is an inverter. I used an inverter on old installs, so it was already wired in. All it powers now is the hub and the usb slim cdrw.

Edit: and the spec for usb is most certainly 500ma per port max.

tooby · 01-01-2007, 03:30 PM

i dont know why so many people are opposed to buying a converter, they are an easy install in the first place, and as long as you run a nice switch in line you'll never have to worry about ac dc anything again. I for example enjoy plugging a good xbox or nintendo into my outlet at any time, or any phone chargers, or anything you can imagine under 400 watts. i'm again, gonna vote for putting a nice converter under a seat or something, it means that in the future you can just plug anything in, have multiple outlets available at any time (i have 3 open), and it turns all future powering absolutely effortless

2k1Toaster · 01-01-2007, 04:47 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by tooby

i dont know why so many people are opposed to buying a converter, they are an easy install in the first place, and as long as you run a nice switch in line you'll never have to worry about ac dc anything again. I for example enjoy plugging a good xbox or nintendo into my outlet at any time, or any phone chargers, or anything you can imagine under 400 watts. i'm again, gonna vote for putting a nice converter under a seat or something, it means that in the future you can just plug anything in, have multiple outlets available at any time (i have 3 open), and it turns all future powering absolutely effortless

noise. i.e. static. Also not very efficient.

Curiosity · 01-01-2007, 05:17 PM

I agree. Waste of space. Efficiency of converting 12~18V DC to 120V square wave AC back down to 5V DC. AC noise after spending all that money on amps.

tooby · 01-01-2007, 05:51 PM

even if they arent super efficient, you can get a lot more out of them than you can get out of ANYTHING you plug into your cigarette lighter, depending upon your car the most you can get outta the cig lighter is around ish 250 watts, and ok, i agree, they arent efficient, but they still crank out more juice, and again, i'm gonna vote extremely convienent, i just went on a road trip, when i needed to charge two cell phones and one camera battery all at the same time, i couldnt have done that with one cig adaptor, and i could have even gone further and powered a nice big lcd tv at the same time as it runs an xbox 360 for entertainment along with all that other crap for the passenger, and to do all this, all i gotta do is plug it in, no extra wires except for the ones i'm plugging in, no mess, no problem, it looks like yer in a house

having something constantly ready to go and wired into your car battery is just absolutely convienent, and in the end if you want a clean install of all yoru stuff, you arent going to be plugging something into your cig lighter every time you need to charge or power something

and the 400 watt converter cost me like 30ish dollars about 4 years ago

2k1Toaster · 01-01-2007, 06:22 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by tooby

even if they arent super efficient, you can get a lot more out of them than you can get out of ANYTHING you plug into your cigarette lighter, depending upon your car the most you can get outta the cig lighter is around ish 250 watts, and ok, i agree, they arent efficient, but they still crank out more juice, and again, i'm gonna vote extremely convienent, i just went on a road trip, when i needed to charge two cell phones and one camera battery all at the same time, i couldnt have done that with one cig adaptor, and i could have even gone further and powered a nice big lcd tv at the same time as it runs an xbox 360 for entertainment along with all that other crap for the passenger, and to do all this, all i gotta do is plug it in, no extra wires except for the ones i'm plugging in, no mess, no problem, it looks like yer in a house

having something constantly ready to go and wired into your car battery is just absolutely convienent, and in the end if you want a clean install of all yoru stuff, you arent going to be plugging something into your cig lighter every time you need to charge or power something

and the 400 watt converter cost me like 30ish dollars about 4 years ago

The only reason you can onky get 250W out of a cig lighter, is because the wires are small. Not too many people plug hair dryers into their cig lighter as they are driving. If you wanted to, then you simply make a bigger wire from battery to cig lighter.

If you just wired your 5billion watt inverter to the wires in your cig lighter, then you still are only safely going to get 250W out of it.

And most people don't have crap plugged into the the lighter port. If they do it is just temporary. And I hope you realize that your nice fancy electronics you are plugging into a $40 cheapo not true sine wave inverter are being damaged everytime they have power leading to eventual failure of the device.

The reason why most people do not use an inverter, is because the reasons listed above, and they don't need to lug in a TV. For Xbox and everything, you just plug it in DC-DC.

Also, not all alternators are beefy enough to run all that crap either and then the added inefficiency.

Curiosity · 01-01-2007, 08:43 PM

Duct tape is useful and serves a purpose too. LOL

tooby · 01-02-2007, 01:32 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by 2k1Toaster

The only reason you can onky get 250W out of a cig lighter, is because the wires are small. Not too many people plug hair dryers into their cig lighter as they are driving. If you wanted to, then you simply make a bigger wire from battery to cig lighter.

If you just wired your 5billion watt inverter to the wires in your cig lighter, then you still are only safely going to get 250W out of it.

And most people don't have crap plugged into the the lighter port. If they do it is just temporary. And I hope you realize that your nice fancy electronics you are plugging into a $40 cheapo not true sine wave inverter are being damaged everytime they have power leading to eventual failure of the device.

The reason why most people do not use an inverter, is because the reasons listed above, and they don't need to lug in a TV. For Xbox and everything, you just plug it in DC-DC.

Also, not all alternators are beefy enough to run all that crap either and then the added inefficiency.

they are being damaged every time you plug them into the inverter? how much are they shortening the lifespan, even though i've never heard of this before, though i'm willing to believe it because i'm sure its extremely dirty power, what is it gonna do, take a whopping 3 years off of the 10 year lifespan of it? when was the last time you kept an electronic like cell phone charger or pretty much anything for its whole lifespan? or even for more than 2 or 3 years or so. and about the efficiency, what does it matter? when you are driving your alternator, as i'm sure you know, constantly generates more power, so using it wholly ineffeciently still isnt gonna kill your car, unless you are running like 2000 watts worth of subs on the same stock alternator it wont matter at all

as for the cig lighter, of course its the wires that resist flow, i was thinking it was more along the lines of a half cell flux capacitor run in parallel with the 3rd dimension that was limiting the power, but your explanation makes much more sense, lol. Keep in mind running new thicker gauge wires to the back of the cig lighter in the dash is gonna be a much bigger pain that routing wires to your trunk or under a seat, cause in the latter you don't have to take apart a dash

i don't know why this debate has gotten so heated. i guess for some people doing an install job of an inverter would be more work than they would ever take use of. I on the other hand use things often enough to have been UBER thankful that i have it. I use my car on a ton of road trips with other people, so having a outlet to plug into is extremely useful and certainly gets used enough to make it worth while. for other people it'd be a drop in cash and time that i guess it isn't worth it at all.

it just seemed like a bunch of people were talking about splicing enough wires to do this that i figured an inverter would do the trick as well.

even with everything stated, even if my converter were dead and broke, i would still have it so that i had those outlets in the back wall of my car, cause there is no denying that almost anybody that gets in the car and notices it, as well as the air freshner that i have plugged into it, are definetely 'wowed'

--
as for the duct tape comment
i love duct tape, enough said

2k1Toaster · 01-02-2007, 01:48 AM

It is not the lifespan of the charger, it is the thing that is being charged. The charger will pass along a dirty signal for most cheap transformers (like cell phones and most other ones these days because the signal is supposed to be clean). Most things such as a cell phone that can be plugged into the car with a cig lighter adapter, usually filter out that sort of thing because they are used to power shorts and such from the car going from on/off/crank at all different times and with no warning.

You say you were using an XBOX and Nintendo which contain lots of circuits. These circuits need to be fed a nice clean signal to output a nice clean digital signal. Basically these will be shortened in their lifespan, but the life of a system like that is so short anyways it won't really matter. If you are planning on keeping that stuff for a long time, then I suggest not plugging it in to a non true sine wave inverter.

If you will be using devices that output a video signal of sorts like a TV or something, it might be highly distorted if digital (flat screens) or a hue or two off if a tube tv.

If you are just using a regular car with regular components, the outlet may be fine. If you have good speakers/subs, then the outlet is definately out. If you are an audiophile, then again no good. Works for some I guess, but defineatley not the best solution to the problem of power a USB hub which will just be taking 5v anyways. So why have 2 indepent stations making 5v when you could just run 2 little wires to the hub.

0-0-7 · 01-02-2007, 12:01 PM

I got a cig lighter cell charger(5V DC out) from a 99C store which is a SANYO brand. open it up and there is a small circuit about the size of a quorter. feed the 12V from ignition or acc line to it and you have 5V dc for 99C. put appropriate barrel connector on the other end to connect it to hub. I did same thing to make a cell charger for my nokia also.

ZX2fst · 01-03-2007, 03:08 PM

So does the 5v connector need a ground with it also. or does the hub just need the 5v?

spoonraker · 01-03-2007, 03:17 PM

Few things :

-I have a 3000W stereo system, the strain on my alternator and battery is already quite high, I don't have any plans to add anything else to my car any time soon.

-My cigarette lighter is already in use, permanetly

-I enjoy the lack of noise in my speakers

-I don't want to do any running of wires or disassembly of anything

This is why I have decided to use the 12v wire and ground that I already have accessible. I will just cut the end of the AC adapter when I purchase a hub and attach it to these.

Curiosity · 01-03-2007, 03:30 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by ZX2fst

So does the 5v connector need a ground with it also. or does the hub just need the 5v?

Negative is ground with DC like the car. In the car, ground is most of the metal. All the computer components and audio ground will be connected together one way or another. House ground goes into the ground for lightning and faults. With an inverter, the ground is the car ground, but not negative ground. It doesn't smoke anything if you connect the negative of something on the inverter to car ground I don't think, but can cause ground loop hum.

Curiosity · 01-03-2007, 03:34 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by spoonraker

Few things :

-I have a 3000W stereo system, the strain on my alternator and battery is already quite high, I don't have any plans to add anything else to my car any time soon.

-My cigarette lighter is already in use, permanetly

-I enjoy the lack of noise in my speakers

-I don't want to do any running of wires or disassembly of anything

This is why I have decided to use the 12v wire and ground that I already have accessible. I will just cut the end of the AC adapter when I purchase a hub and attach it to these.

12v from the PSU or 12v from the car? The car puts out 14.4v on average and can go up to 18 or so. Just make sure it can handle it.