Looking For A Ignition Hot Wire

[adamant]

so its turns on and off with the ignition.

[Jnk]

Have you thought about hooking it up from the rear view mirror like a radar detector, invisicord style?

[adamant]

Have you thought about hooking it up from the rear view mirror like a radar detector, invisicord style?

 

thanks .. have the rador detector up there...

looking to mount the gps on the dash...

[Ranger]

Test probe or multimeter...Start touching wires.

[Jnk]

You already have your detector hooked up to the mirror? If you do I would be worried about drawing to much current from the mirror by adding gps also.

[adamant]

dont want to use the mirror location ...you are right.. too much draw..

[dlewis1111]

Where are you thinking of adding it on your dash. (I am assuming you have the actual truck dash, not the SUV version) Behind the cubby hole on the right hand side below the radio are a couple of connectors that are used for stuff like accessory seat heaters and some other junk. There has got to be a hot wire and a good ground in there somewhere. Multimeter, or wiring schematic time.

[ghstface38]

I tapped into the pink wire from my BCM. Here is where I mounted the GPS.

[bill190]

The right way to do this to prevent fuse blowing problems in the future would be to use a factory wiring diagram and an amp meter.

 

Get an amp meter with 50 amps capacity (auto parts stores only sell 10 amp meters for some weird reason when most cars have 15, 20, and 30 amp circuits???).

 

First connect the GPS to the battery with the amp meter in series on one wire and see how much amperage the GPS uses when on.

 

Then use the factory wiring diagram to find a wire nearby.

 

Then remove the fuse for the circuit for that wire. Turn on everything which is powered by that circuit. Then place the amp meter leads in place of the fuse and measure how much amperage is being used by that circuit. If it is a 20 amp fuse, the circuit draws 18 amps, and the GPS draws 3 amps, then adding the GPS to that circuit would overload it and you would have fuse blowing problems.

 

So you would want to find a circuit with enough spare amperage to power the GPS without blowing the fuse.

[mfennema]

Here are a couple of options for you:

Download the file found here and look on page A-67 it explains where you can find accessory power.

 

Before I found this one, I actually did what this person did here in a way. I ran the switched power to a relay and ran constant power from one of the cigarette outlets to the same relay and then the output went to a cigarette outlet that I installed up under the dash. This way, I didn't have to cut any of my wires and I could just plug right in. Also, I was installing a satellite radio which only ran on 5V so the conversion from 12V to 5V was in the cigarette plug that came with the radio so I didn't want to lose that and overpower the radio. (Don't forget to run anything you do through a fuse!!)

 

If you have any questions on any of this feel free to ask.

 

-Mitch

[adamant]

thank you for all your help. i will post what i did.

ant