USB Power in a car...

[DeathWish]

I've got this USB portable hard drive:

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=261&language=en

It doesn't get enough power from the head unit so I need to connect it to something else to get more power.

I could get this cable:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/LINDY-USB-Cable-Dual-Power/dp/B000FKP7XA

and this http://sewelldirect.com/Zip-Linq-USB-Power-Cigarette-Lighter.asp

But I don't want anything sticking out of the cigarette lighter part. So i was thinking of something like cutting the 1 part of the usb cable off and maybe connecting it to some other place of power but im not sure what to do. Does anyone have any ideas or any other ideas?

Thanks lol might be abit of a mad post but oh well.

 

[Skyline]

If your going to do this, your going to be using too much power for the battery.... and could need to install a 2nd battery.

 

[Ragnar]

If your going to do this, your going to be using too much power for the battery.... and could need to install a 2nd battery.

A 2.5'' HDD uses around 2.5W at full load and about 0.6W in idle state. I doubt that having an external HDD will be much of a problem to feed for a car battery :P.

 

[JealY]

Yea, and unless you're gunna be running an os or something on it, I doubt it will need to be on all the time.

 

[Ragnar]

Yea, and unless you're gunna be running an os or something on it, I doubt it will need to be on all the time.

I'd assume hes using it for listening to music. Why else would you need a HDD in a car lol.

 

[mythonline]

I'd assume hes using it for listening to music. Why else would you need a HDD in a car lol.

Movies probably.
MP3 format takes about 1MB per min, which means that in 1GB you have about 1000 mins of music -> more then 16 hours of music, and i highly doubt his battery can hold that much, or his brain if he is listening to metal ^^

 

[Ragnar]

Movies probably.
MP3 format takes about 1MB per min, which means that in 1GB you have about 1000 mins of music -> more then 16 hours of music, and i highly doubt his battery can hold that much, or his brain if he is listening to metal ^^

I for one highly doubt anyone would want to be putting new tracks on the HDD every night. + i doubt he would sit in the car for 16 hours just listening to music without turning the car on. The battery charges whilst the car is running btw..

 

[mythonline]

I for one highly doubt anyone would want to be putting new tracks on the HDD every night. + i doubt he would sit in the car for 16 hours just listening to music without turning the car on. The battery charges whilst the car is running btw..

16 hours is not exactly every night ^^, more like every month because you hear songs more then 1 time.

 

[Atomicide]

What Skyline is refering to is that the drain on the battery may be too much. The car battery doesn't hold an enormous amount of power but continually recharges while the engine runs. However if you drain the power too quickly then you can run into problems.

As for messing with the wires, I wouldn't really recommend it, im not entirely sure what goes on, but there is probably something inside the USB thing that converts the current to be used correctly.

I would suggest you look inside the adaptor for the lighter socket, and see if you can cut the cables to that and the lighter socket itself, then use some additional cable to reroute and place the adaptor somewhere out of sight. The last thing you want is to hook the USB cable to a raw power source, have something go wrong and **** your Hardrive up and possibly a few other things.

 

[Skyline]

What Skyline is refering to is that the drain on the battery may be too much. The car battery doesn't hold an enourmous amount of power but continually recharges while the engine runs. However if you drain the power too quickly then you can run into problems.

As for messing with the wires, I wouldn't relaly recommend it, im not entirely sure what goes on, but there is probably something inside the USB thing that converts the current to be used correctly.

I would suggest you look inside the adaptor for the lighter socket, and see if you can cut the cables to that and the lighter socket itself, then use some additional cable to reroute and place the adaptor somewhere out of sight. The last thing you want is to hook the USB cable to a raw power source, have something go wrong and **** your Hardrive up and possibly a few other things.

Exactly.

Running it through a lighter would be OK, but if you star making wires for it, then it couls cause too much power out of the battery.

If you have too much running out of a standard altanator/battery, you could have quite a few problems, such as light dimming (Happens in my car because of sub/amp).

 

[Ragnar]

What Skyline is refering to is that the drain on the battery may be too much. The car battery doesn't hold an enourmous amount of power but continually recharges while the engine runs.

It might not hold an enormous amount of power, but still, a HDD will hardly have any impact on a car battery...

 

[Atomicide]

It might not hold an enormous amount of power, but still, a HDD will hardly have any impact on a car battery...

How about you **** off, unless you want me to trundle around correcting every typo you make.

Like I, and everyone else thats smart has said is that there is a limited capacity, there will probably be no impact, but if he's running a sub, amp, neon light then there could be issues.

Also if you use "..." it implies a pause before you carry on, so ending a sentence with it and not continuing is quite moronic. What little respect I had for you as a person is now gone, seeing as your obviously in the "pussy patrol" that comb these forums looking for any miniscule reason they can use to get one over on me.

 

[mythonline]

I understood from what he is saying, that he don't want anything in the cigarette lighter because he either use it to light cigarette or he is using it for some other stuff, so the whole argument is just not needed...

What you need is one of those emergency batteries that work when there is power off at home, should be enough.

 

[DeathWish]

hmm i need to work some things out, how would you stop it from drawing too much power anyway?

Would this take alot of power from the battery?

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=97788&&source=14&doy=Search


all i basically want is all my music on the hd so i can listen to it thru my head unit in my car but the head unit dont produce enough power to power the hd cuz it clicks abit which apparently means not enough power. so i need to draw a little extra power from sum where.

 

[mythonline]

hmm i need to work some things out, how would you stop it from drawing too much power anyway?

Would this take alot of power from the battery?

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=97788&&source=14&doy=Search


all i basically want is all my music on the hd so i can listen to it thru my head unit in my car but the head unit dont produce enough power to power the hd cuz it clicks abit which apparently means not enough power. so i need to draw a little extra power from sum where.

You should buy DVD reader head unit and then burn all your songs instead of putting HD.
4.7 GB per DVD = 4700 mins of music = 78 hours and 20 mins of music. And you can burn any amount of DVDs you want.

 

[Dataforce]

but he already has the hdd, so lets focus on that.

That maplin thing should do pretty much the same as the smaller one you posted a pic of before.

 

[mythonline]

I am just trying to bring all the options.

Anyway, what amount of songs are we talking about? If your head unit is able to read MP3, i am pretty sure that u can just burn all on CDs, and since you can put 700 MB per CD, thats 11hours and 40 mins of music, there is no real need for more then that on each CD, if you want that several songs will play every day, just pick different CD..

If your head unit cannot read mp3, the price of mp3 head unit is not much higher then those batteries, and you don't have to recharge it every night.

 

[Demonic]

Well my Mate had a Car Stereo which has a USB Port for plugging in I guess Flash Drives. He was interested in trying my USB 60GIG Drive (2.5") to see if it would work. It Indeed picked it up, no clicking as you mention but refused to read the drive at all.

I had a idea, the drive been 60GIG was formatted as NTFS, Had for make a 32GIG Partition (max space FAT32 can Use) and indeed it now played no problems at all. Unless the Head Unit can read NTFS Formatted drives, your stuck anyhow.

 

[LeoCrasher]

I had a idea, the drive been 60GIG was formatted as NTFS, Had for make a 32GIG Partition (max space FAT32 can Use).

Nonono. 32GB is only the limit the windows utilities give.

I'm sure 98/ME's FDISK can create them much bigger. If not, then PartitionMagic will do it (as will mkdosfs).

/Leo

 

[mythonline]

Nonono. 32GB is only the limit the windows utilities give.

I'm sure 98/ME's FDISK can create them much bigger. If not, then PartitionMagic will do it (as will mkdosfs).

/Leo

Wish i could check, but its not easy when you got only 20 GB HD and 8GB HD on the computer ^^