Questions on Hardwiring a GPS

There's some big road trips coming up soon, so I decided to upgrade to a Garmin nuvicam, which should arrive next week.

The biggest pain with my old GPS is the annoying cable sticking out from the 12V cigarette lighter plug directly in front of the shift knob, so I want to hardwire the nuvicam into one of the accessory power sources in the driver's kick panel fuse box. I'm not very tech-oriented but this seems simple enough to do.

After some reading, here is my understanding so far:

• The accessory power in the kick panel is 12V
• The OEM Garmin cable steps the 12V down to 5V before sending it to the unit
• The OEM Garmin cable has an integrated antenna to allow for real-time traffic updates
• So...I will need to use the Garmin cable to maintain traffic updates and not fry the unit

To hardwire the unit but still use the Garmin cable it seems that I need to buy a cable that has a Female spade connector with a 12V female socket on the other end. I'll then connect this to the OEM Garmin cable which will be fished to my intended GPS mounting location.

My questions:
-Am I understanding everything right? If so, where is a reputable place to source a cable like this? I don't want to go installing cheap ebay stuff into the NSX.
-Isn't there a more elegant solution than this? It just seems clunky.

Thanks for the help!

No personal experience but this may help
http://www.nsxprime.com/forum/showt...armin-GPS-with-Wireless-Backup-Camera-Project

My guess is that your GPS uses either a Mini USB or Micro USB input. In that case, one of these should solve your problem (Mini USB model shown as example):

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mini-USB-14...864186?hash=item25ba3596fa:g:L-sAAOSw0QFXBc6t

Just snatch up a female cigarette cable;

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61FFiwlpPOL._SY355_.jpg

Plug the garmin cable into that, hardwire the female cigarette lighter cable with a ring terminal on a bolt for ground and a female spade onto the acc port of the fusebox for power, secure it all under the dash and then run the cable to the garmin and you'll be set!

^^^ What Clutch1 said. Simple, direct, easily removable.

clutch1 said:

Just snatch up a female cigarette cable;

Plug the garmin cable into that, hardwire the female cigarette lighter cable with a ring terminal on a bolt for ground and a female spade onto the acc port of the fusebox for power, secure it all under the dash and then run the cable to the garmin and you'll be set!

Click to expand...

Thanks for the great advice folks! I'm going ahead with what clutch1 details above. It was a little time-consuming to source quality electrical components but I think everything will turn out great!

Fuji