I'd been thinking of ways of wiring in an auxiliary power socket for a while. Lots of good info on here especially about patching into the aux socket wiring behind the glove box but I just didn't want to access that - not least because my back is playing up and I can't do the contortions required

I also wanted to have room for 2 auxiliary power sockets 1 for an aftermarket satnav and 1 for my smartphone.

The obvious place seemed to be in or under the armrest. Having disconnected the connector to the inbuilt 'phone that seemed a likely candidate. Sure enough, yellow wire is switched +ve and the black and brown are earths.

Having tested the potential connections with a DVM and a 12v LED I set about patching into the yellow and black wires. I put an in-line fuse in the +ve patch wire (the main connector is fuse 5 (5 amp) in passenger dash fuse box and wired in 2 12v auxiliary female power sockets.

There is ample room for both sockets and additional wiring under the arm rest. The power cables exit under the passenger side arm rest and are hidden behind the centre console until they exit where I am mounting a dedicated Brodit Proclip mount on the side of the console.

A nice thing about patching into this cable is that the power is ignition switched but has a time delay power off (about 10 mins I think) so ideal for a satnav and smartphone.

Steve

 

Great idea!

 

Forgot to mention I also wired in a 12v LED to give a visual indicator of when the auxiliary sockets are powered up.

Seems the circuit is powered on for 5 minutes after ignition turned off and 1 minute after the ignition key is removed

Steve

 

The LED also serves as a night light in the arm rest console, nifty.

I'm working on direct wiring an adapter for an iPod into the tape deck circuit and this is a great source of power for the iPod.

Thanks for sharing

 

Nicely done.