I am looking to put USB in my mini. Reason is because I'd like to charge my apple bluetooth headset, and the only charger for it I'm aware of is USB. Conveniently, It would also charge the iphone and appears to fit in my passthrough pro-clip mount.

So, does anyone have a howto?

 

Unless you get a new head unit with a usb port, you would have to get one of these.

http://www.eforcity.com/universal-us...5=dothusbccad1

 

I'm kinda trying to avoid those, because they tend to be very large.

There is a nice little 4 porter + cigarette lighter one out there, but I'm thinking built in would be better.

 

Just cut open a USB cable and wire it to a fused source.

Pin 1 is power, Pins 2+3 are data and Pin 4 is the ground. You will probably want to put a resistor in the power side.

 

You could wire in another cig lighter socket somewhere under the dash and plug the cig/usb into that and then run a usb extension cable out from there.

 

I have one of those and it works but is kinda intrusive. if you reall want to get all hightech get one of those and use it to permanently hardwire it into your car with the USB port someplace nice. There was a post from an R56 owner where he hardwired a USB port in place of his cigarrette lighter.

 

Here's an option.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ng-useful.html

 

that's very nice, actually. Probably could just split off another adapter then use that mechanism on the second, or get the 4 port+cigarette lighter and perform a similar modifucation

 

Funny, I was going to suggest that. It should work just as well on an R53 as it did on the R56. It would even be a little easier to install.

 

Just Saw this old post and I dont know if you ever figured out a plan, but I bought a Belkin iPod Charger that broke down into two parts. I ended up using it on a custom project. I wired in a Radio Shack 12V socket, but it was black plastic and very stealthy. For my needs it all worked out well. There's a pic of my project and the Belkin USB adaptor in there, but I think you'd have to buy the whole thing. I only got the carger for a road trip in the GF's car, but it worked here...

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...h-toggles.html

 

thanks. too much other stuff has kept me from getting this done

 

Yeah, just wiring a cable to 12v isn't such a good idea. I tried this (without researching first) and fried a Garmin. I ended up opening up a 12v cig to usb adapter and there was a lot more there than just a resistor.

In the end I pulled the board out of the cig to usb adapter and wired that directly to 12v.

 

I think the easier solution is this new charger from Belkin. I also saw the same design at Best Buy under the Rocketfish brand for $15 with no cables. These are supposed to fit flush in your lighter socket.

 

I ended up picking up one of these actually, after someone pointed it out earlier in the thread. they didn't have them at my local best buy at the time of suggestion, but I found one a couple weeks ago. Works amazingly well and is very discrete.