Meridian external power power supply.

Wook

Hi all,
I am thinking of rigging up an external power supply for my Meridian, and as the cheapskate that I am I can't be bothered to buy the 12 volt power adaptor, especially as I already have a spare data cable which I hope will be easy to convert into a power cable. I have 2 question?

1) Does anyone know is the data cable also includes the power wire, i.e. if I cut the insulation off will there be four wires there - data in, data out, ground, and power. But only the three wires will be connected to the end serial connector?

2) What is I the little black power supply box on the power cable you can buy. I assume its some kind of mechanism to reduce the voltage down to 3 volt.

I don't hold out much hope that anyone will randomly know the answers to this, but you can but ask!

Cheers, Wook

GPS_Chan · Occasional Visitor Joined: Oct 21, 2003 Posts: 9

for question 1 I dont' think so it included power cables.

for question 2 I believe u guessed right.

just to add, u need total 4 for power, and data. power need to be ground.

Let us know how it turned out. Smile

Mika73 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 25, 2004 Posts: 4

2) What is I the little black power supply box on the power cable you can buy. I assume its some kind of mechanism to reduce the voltage down to 3 volt.

You need that black box. One time something 'funny' happend on my car and voltage did get as high as 32 volts.. I guess that black box can save your GPS. Atleast manual says that if you remove it your Meridian will damage.

fanatix · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 27, 2006 Posts: 1

did you tried it? to cut the ropes? I'm also planning doing it, but i'm not sure about the power cable in the data cable....

else I would damage the two cables...

yearnslow · Posted: Sun Jul 02, 2006 2:42 pm Post subject:

hope you got all that wook? :D

arthurking83 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Nov 27, 2005 Posts: 3

Yellow wire = data in
Orange wire = data out
Red wire = power +ve
Black wire = ground/power -ve

Data cable will only have the two wires,

There is no reason not to run a second cable along the data cable and modify the connector (GPSr end) to accept power.

you could somehow modify that connector to have two protruding metal power contacts. (the connector itself may be impossible to modify without cutting/drilling.

I purchased two 'dead' power/data leads off ebay, just for the connectors and wires, and bypassed the black-box that magellan used (the dead component)
I just run a good quality power supply, just make sure that it supplies a good regulated 3.6volt output!! Mine runs at about 3.5v, for over a year without any problems now :D

there is more info at the Meridian Yahoo group

	PocketGPS
	Web