Power for RoadMate

I want to mount my RoadMate on my dash. It will fit just perfectly between
two of the air vents.

So I ordered the piece from Magellan that the thing snaps into that is on
the end of the windshield mount. I'm going to fasten that to the dash.

About power... I want to mount a small coaxial plug underneath the lip out
of sight and make up a small cable from there to the RoadMate. Since the
RoadMate is USB, it's 5v.

Does anything special have to be done other than to just feed the 5v to the
Mini-USB connector?

Mike

On Thu, 23 Jul 2009 19:34:11 -0400, Mike Y wrote:


You might have to use the Magellan charger cable, since their cable seems
to require a secret[1] internal connection to make it work.

This is at least true of my Maestro 4350; it is also not unique to
Magellan:

1. If I use a standard USB cable from a charger, my unit says it's USB
connected & doesn't charge.

2. If I use a Garmin USB charger, the Magellan charges.

[1] It's a secret to me :-)

--
Gene E. Bloch letters0x40blochg0x2Ecom

between
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Yes, I noticed that. A standard cable makes the Magellan know it's
'connected' and then it appears as multiple drives to the PC. But that
implies I can leave off all the data lines and just put power and ground.
Strictly speaking, the PC might power down the USB port if it doesn't see
something there, but in this case, I think it might not matter, since it's
nothing on the 'host' end.

Mike

On Fri, 24 Jul 2009 06:00:18 -0400, Mike Y wrote:


Please note that I said a "standard USB cable from a charger", not from a
computer, so the device thinks it's connected to a computer, but it's
wrong.

I have tried several times to figure out your last sentence. Would you be
kind enough to reword "I think it might not matter, since it's nothing on
the 'host' end"? Thanks.

I never thought about the computer turning the power off to the USB port.
I'm not sure I believe it :-)

BUT WAIT! Maybe I just made some progress! Suddenly I think I do understand
the above - and it makes both of my first two paragraphs null & void :-)

I now think you are saying that maybe a computer turns the USB power off
when there's no device connected, but that doesn't apply to the wall-wart
power supply, since there's no computer there.

--
Gene E. Bloch letters0x40blochg0x2Ecom

understand

I seem to recall that hooking my GPS to the computer will charge it. But
while hooked the GPS will not operate as a GPS, it just appears as hard
drives to the computer and the GPS screen indicates it is connected.

But the charger doesn't do that, so I suspect it just provides power without
doing the USB enumeration.

Oh, and computers can and do shut off USB in the power management. I had a
weather station that was always being shut off at the wrong time until I
went in and configured it to stay on in the power management.