Nope, some Sat-Navs have a built in 5V regulator inside the cigarett lighter plug, so to directly wire 12V into a Sat-Nav requiring 5V with a 12V supply could damage it, the way to find out would be to measure the voltage at the little plug that you insert into the Sat Nav, physically measure what voltage you get at this terminal, if it is 12v then you are OK, if it is 5v then you must use that cigarette lighter adaptor.regulator somewhere and wire that permanently to 12v and use the 5v out from that to feed your sat nav.
Ok thanks msg, I don't have a ciggerette lighter for the sat nav so the why I thought about wiring it to the battery lol me thinks it may go pop if I do that though lol
I had a look at Garmin C510 specifications and nothings been mentioned of the operating voltage requirements, have a look at the socket where you would normally plug in the power cord plug,
Did it not come with a Cigarett lighter plug?
Mine is a Sony one and it clearly says on it 5V and the regulator is built inside the lighter plug.
I got the sat nav off eBay but it didn't come with car charger. I didn't read that in the description lol
It doesn't say any volts on the unit anywhere.
The chargers on eBay say from 3 - 15 volts but I bet it still has to be regulated on and off, wouldn't want to keep supllieing the sat navs battery with 14~ volts from the alternator.
Well one way you could work it out is by feeding it with a 5V supply and if it works happily then it would be assumed it is meant for a 5V externally regulated supply usually mounted inside the cigarette lighter adaptor, yes you would be taking a risk if you applied all 12-14v and find out it gets cooked.
Alternatively, call the makers and ask their technical desk to see if they coulod help you.
I picked up a car charger today for a moto v3 an am going to use that. I will be taking apart the sat mac and as the screen is small enough. I'll be fitting it in my air vent next to my hazard switch! Yum!
If you require a simple 5v regulator providing 1 amp current, one could be made quite simply from a a widely avialable 3 pin fixed voltage 1A regulator such as the geeric type 7805, these are quite simple to wire, looking at the regulator with its plastic surafce (front face that is marked) the left pin is the 12V in and the middloe pin is the ground pin, then the pin on tthe right is the 5Volts out regulated . This should provide up to 1 amp when adequately cooled witha small heat sink. Remember when you are using this type of regulator you have to work out power dissipation so for a maximum of 1amp load, you would be droopping 14v - 5v = 9 volts and at 1 amp load you would be dissipating 9 x 1 = (watts of heat) so this heat needs to be removed from the regulator using a heat sink of adequate size to keep the temperature down to no nmore than about 50 degrees celcius, allow for the summer heat in cars!
You shoulkd also use two small value capacitors for stability and supressing away any internal noise from the regulator to get out which could interfere with some sensitive equipment, so two capoacitors each approx 0.1uF 50V rated can be soldered beteen the earth and the input pin and and the other one earth and the out put pin. Usually a larger 100uF electrolytic type capacitor 16V rated can also be placed betwen earth pin (centre) and the output pin to provide a little reserve capacity for sudden demand by the equipment.
Lmao MSG you sound so clever but I bet google is all you can spell but can also 'highlight' 'copy' 'paste' lmao lmao just kidding thanks for that though!
Ya pardon me my spellings are absolutely notorious, sorry I mean notrotious!!lmao
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