Power Mad
Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: Satellite, radio, installation | Themes: Digital Entertainment
4. Power Mad
Unless you want to plug the radio into an outlet to recharge it at home every time the battery goes dead, you’ll need to power it from the car. The easiest set-up uses the cigarette lighter adapter that came in the car installation kit. Plug it into the closest cigarette lighter outlet and plug the other end into the dock. This is a quick-and-easy way.
Alternatively, you can tap into the car’s power directly but it’s a little more complicated. Get a Littelfuse Add-A-Circuit, which should cost about $10 at a car parts store. It comes with its own fuse and, once you plug it in, it adds an electrical circuit to your car for the radio.
Take a fuse out of the fuse box and plug Add-A-Fuse in, using a circuit that turns off when the car is off so the charging radio doesn’t drain the car’s battery. The wire coming out of Add-A-Circuit is the positive lead for your sat radio and a grounding wire to the frame of the car is the negative one.
The first thing to do is to figure out the polarity of the power that we need. Take the car installation kit’s cigarette lighter adapter and put it in a working cigarette lighter. Using your multi-meter to measure voltage, touch the probes to the inner and outer sections of the plug that powers the dock to see which is positive and negative. You might need to use a short piece of wire to get to the inner part of the plug. Write down which section is which, since you'll need to know later.
Don’t be intimidated by the meter. All it does is measure voltage so you just need to make sure that the two probes make good contact with the wires you’re measuring. The typical car’s electrical system uses between 12 and 14 volts and the cigarette lighter adapter that we’re using delivers roughly 5.5 volts to the radio.
1. Get a cigarette lighter extension cord (it should cost a few dollars at a car-parts store) and cut the wire roughly in the middle;
2. Strip and twist one of the leads from the female end of the cigarette lighter extension cord onto the Add-A-Circuit wire and insulate it with electrical tape;
3. Look around the fuse box for access to the car’s frame to ground the circuit. I like to use a bolt in the door frame. Loosen the bolt with a wrench;
4. Strip about 2" of the insulation from the other wire of the female cigarette lighter extension cord and wrap it around the grounding bolt before tightening it;
5. Plug the car kit’s cigarette lighter adapter into the female end of the extension cord that you just wired into the fuse box.
We’re ready to try it out. With everything connected, start the car and touch the multi-meter’s probes to the dock’s power plug exactly the way you did it earlier. It should read about 5.4 volts. If it doesn’t match the polarity that you wrote down earlier, remove the tape from one of the connections and reverse the wires. Tape it up and try again.
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This article over complicates a rather simple easy and straight forward task.
Simply put, Anyone in the market for a newer Sattelite radio will easily be able to purchase an "all in one" kit that will come with mounts and the wires necessary to do this, with easy instructions (that all fit on one page! imagine that!)
Most will come with suction based mounts that easily clip on to your dash / windshield just like any standard GPS. No need for complicated mounts. The wires can all be easily routed within the cars pre exiting body panels. just get a flat head screwdriver to lift them slightly and push the wires in (carefull, don't crimp / fray em)
If there is any concern with needing a 2nd power outlet. I recommend buying a splitter. they exist. They are cheap and they do not modify your car electronics in any form and therefore won't possibly void warranties.
And ALL the modern car / mobile based radios should come with a built in FM transmitter. Just set the station, set your radio to it, and voila.
Cut Brian some slack. He didn't go the "simple, easy, straight forward" installation because, frankly, that way looks like crap.
Suction cup mounts and random cigarette lighter adapters clutter up an interior and generally look lame, nevermind the crap sound quality you get from an FM modulator.
I'm with Brian. Buy a vehicle specific mount, wire up an extra power source and tuck it out of sight, use the audio jack provided by the factory for the best sound quality, and keep the unsightly pimple antenna on the inside. Ta-da... probably the least intrusive install you can expect from an add-on piece of audio equipment.
Then again, that looks like a pretty pricey German car. Why didn't it just come as standard equipment? Hell, every new Hyundai comes standard with satellite radio.
Gotta put in a plug for the Jason Ellis Show. 3:00 PM ET on Faction - Sirus 28/XM 52. Red Dragons!
If you can't install an XM radio in your car without this kind of help, you probably shouldn't be driving in the first place, it's far more complicated.
Also, just to rant, having a radio in each vehicle is down right stupid, and a waste of money; likewise paying for integrated radio's. Unless you only have one vehicle and NEVER intend to use it elsewhere, why throw your money away? I've got a mount in all three of my vehicles that I've wired the antenna's, power, and audio cable to. Takes about 10 seconds to drop my radio into any of the vehicles and it's a nice clean install. Aftermarket stereo's with a 3.5mm input certainly help.
I then have a "portable" antenna with FM transmitter for taking the radio in friends cars or running it off my battery powered inverters when camping.
why don't just use FM radio?
I never heard of satellite radio lol :| sounds kind of pointless... maybe someone will clear this out for me..
anyway for $1000 and more $140 a year that's a lot. wouldn't be easier and a lot cheaper to use internet to hear those radios? mobile broadband = win? :\
What I don't get is the $400 and up dollars dealers charge for some of these radios. I wish I had the option to just not have a radio in my car when I buy it. I do not know about other people, but I always replace the factory radio and speakers for ones that are better anyway.
satellite radio to me is only good where there is not many (or good) radio stations. i felt the same way before i tried it and never looked back. i like it because you get to listen to any music genre at any time you want. and you can't do that with FM radio. and the talk radio is good for sports and comedy (hoard stern & O&A as examples)
anyway i like a clean integrated look so i got a kenwood deck and installed the tuner from Sirius. if i want to listen to it in my house i just use my internet account
Parrdacc i too replace the stock radio when i get a new car but even if you do not have a factory radio you still would have to pay for a wiring harness (maybe) and dash kit anyway. its getting bad in cars today as they integrate the stock radio in other functions of the car Mazda and Ford are example's of this.
@mpasternak It all depends on the look & feel you want. I would NEVER do what you suggest for anything more than a temp mount job....It looks horrible!My units are always hard wired in with an extra fuse (similar to how Brian did this) and wires completely hidden.
Otherwise, what's the point? Honestly.
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Satellite radio plays pretty much any type of music you'd want with no commercials. They also get paid by your dollar, so they don't just play the crap that the MPAA wants radio stations to play, the DJs get to make choices play stuff a radio station wouldn't (uncut music for one....LONG songs for another). For example, I've heard NOFX - Please Play This Song on the Radio which would NEVER get played on FM!
More importantly than that though, the music stays the same wherever you go. For me, if I go more than 30 miles, most of my stations are gone. Sucks!
Okay, so I've been doing car install professionally for about 7 years now, and that SureConnect is a pile of garbage. It works on maybe half the cars out there, and on those few, it works like crap. As far as the satellite antenna on the dash board; unless it's a Sirius unit, good luck keeping a decent signal. Running it out of the window or sunroof is just a bad idea because you're just asking to have the wire crimped or cut, and poof, there goes your antenna and $30 to $40 for a replacement. The suction cups that come with the units are a waste of time if you live anywhere north of Missouri because once they get cold, plop goes your radio, hopefully not cracking the screen on the shifter or dash. The vent clips work, I've used them, but they're not pretty and they're not that stable. Usually the unit has quite a bit of play and bounces around while you drive. I understand the point of this article.... just my .02...
Naturally, the more thought out and intricate the installation, the more attractive the final product. I think Brian did a great job of describing a nice, clean install that doesn't require fabrication and lots of cutting and permanent interior damage.