As some of you already know, many Garmin GPS's need a 'special' cord for power so the unit does not think it is connected to your computer. Of course the unit that I have for the TR is one of these models. That is fine and dandy if you have a cigarette lighter installed, or the special hardwire cable that connects to 12V. But we have the infamous 5V connector at our disposal. Wouldn't it be great if we could run our Garmin on that? Yeah, it would be. If we could. I haven't figured it out yet. Anyone else? P.S. A standard usb cable has 4 wires. And 5 pins. It is that 5th pin that doesn't have a wire that needs to be grounded for a Garmin to recognize it as a power/charge cable.
The cigarette lighter version can be modified to be a hard wire option. Or you can get/modify a cigarette lighter adaptor to plug it in to, but that style connector is weak. It tends to wiggle loose and shorts out on the frame easily.
mnb said: The cigarette lighter version can be modified to be a hard wire option. Or you can get/modify a cigarette lighter adaptor to plug it in to, but that style connector is weak. It tends to wiggle loose and shorts out on the frame easily. I just ordered a cheap cigarette lighter adapter. Do I just cut the wires, find a red and a black, and wire them to the 5V connector? I would have to assume this means that the 5 pin is already grounded properly???
I simply buy a Garmin hard wire for every bike and hook it up to the battery or other 12V source. IMO they are not that much $$ and they have been reliable. I have screwed around with cig lighters in the past and they failed a lot. http://www.gpscity.com/garmin-usb-power-cable.html FWIW I have found in my truck that if use a standard USB cable to power my Garmin Nuvi 550 after a few minutes it no longer treats it as a "computer" connection and starts working as a regular power cable.
The Garmin hard wire would be the easy way to go... if we didn't already have a 5V connector. And I have better uses for the battery posts than a garmin cable. I will try the 'wait a few minutes' trick and see if that works.
What model Garmin are you using? I'm guessing its one of the cheap generic models and not a motorcycle specific unit? I have a Garmin 660, and it comes with bike and car docks. It knows whether it's in the car or on the bike just by the dock it's plugged into.
Switched 12v is conveniently available up front, see http://www.cafehusky.com/threads/the-gps-thead.31638/page-3#post-329493. I'd just wire your hardwire harness to that.
Nev, it is an 'inexpensive' 755 model. I have a more expensive bike specific Garmin, but it is too big for this bike in my opinion. This one doesn't really care if it is docked to a bike or a car. It just needs to know it isn't docked to a computer. Krussle: the switched 12V kind of defeats the purpose of have a switched 5V that is perfect for a GPS. And the switched 12V could be used for things that must run on 12V instead of 5V. And I would have to purchase another cable that is meant to be hardwired into 12V.
Just modify your USB cable to short the +data and -data pins so that it acts as a "smart" cable. I did this with some conductive ink and it worked fine for my phone, which would only charge at .5A without a "smart" cable.
