Garmin Nuvi car charger going to a USB port

In the home, I use this:

http://www.batteryspace.com/ac-dcadaptor100-240vacto135vdc10...

In the car - well I use what comes with the Garmin Nuvi

Other places - I don't use it much, and when I do I use the Nuvi's built-in battery

Howard

Garmin uses standard USB port to charge.

The standard USB on the computer puts out only 500mA. Many USB chargers you see on the market for use on cell phones puts out somewhere between 300mA to 1A.

However, most Garmin units require about 2A, this is also Garmin's car charger puts out. So, if you want to charge the Garmin unit at home, you will have to find a USB charger capable of putting out 2A. And if you would like to a multi-USB car charger, you have to find a usb charger capable of putting out much more than 2A. Which, in my experience, is very difficult to find.

Here's a 500ma usb charger you can build for yourself, this person used an Altoids can.

http://www.ladyada.net/make/mintyboost/

The cable you are looking for is a Micro-USB. Go to just about any store that sells computer cables and you should be able to get a USB to Micro USB cable. I've got a couple because that is the cable that came with some external 3.5" hard drives. This is still a common cable.

You won't get a fast charge if at all because the standard USB car charger only puts out 500ma.

Perhaps the better plan would be an adapter that plugs into the 12v cigarette lighter (accessory power port) to give you 2 plugs in return, then you can use the garmin charger and the USB adapter in the vehicle.

I assume you mean that when you plug into Garmin usb cable it goes to data transfer mode and can't be use for navigation?

In this case you will need usb cable that isn't design to transfer data but only as power supply. Sometimes cables like this can be found in stores, but not too often.

To be honest I don't really understand why you need to power Nuvi from usb. Especially that 765t has traffic receiver built into power cable, so when you not plugging it through standard cigarette outlet adapter traffic info is not received. If you really need extra usb outlet try to use splitter with lighter outputs. In my opinion it's more convenient solution. But check splitter, as some of them are somehow weird and when you connect traffic receiver through them it will not work. I don't know why this happen, but this is a fact.

This is what I use to charge my nuvi 1490 at home:
http://www.dealextreme.com/p/ultra-mini-usb-power-adapter-ch...

I use this with a regular usb to micro-usb cable.
When establishing the connection, the unit goes into a data mode, same as when connected to a computer usb port, but after about 15 seconds, since there is no data line, it switches to regular GPS mode.
If I power-off the unit, it stays in charge mode.
In the car I use the regular Garmin charger

I have an older Cell phone that has the same connection to my garmin as the cell phone. It works to charge my 1490t and 205W and my 260 Garmin.

maybe you can help me understand just what you are asking.

I interpreted you to be wanting to use a multi-USB car charging device to both charge and operate your 765T Nuvi while driving - as opposed to using the cable which came packaged with your unit.

This would be different than my 765T setup which has a cord with a power socket plug to go into the car and a plug which connects to the side of a cradle containing a standard Garmin charging port on its bottom and into which the Nuvi snaps. (see page 2 of the manual)

It is my understanding that this cable contains an antenna which is required for me to get traffic information but I am not certain of that because there are no traffic reports in the town where I live.

Check the pin out on the Garmin USB cord. My guess is that on the Garmin cord pin 2 & 3 (normally data) are jumpered to each other. 1 & 4 are the power.

I doubt that any manufacturer would short the two data pins together on their mini plug.

The official specification for the numbering of the pins on a USB mini plug and the color of associated cable wires are:

1 VBUS Red
2 D- White
3 D+ Green
4 ID (not connected to a wire)
5 GND Black

VBUS is DC +
D are data
ID is a pin that originally was used to determine what Type of mini plug (A or B) was being inserted into a mini Type A-B socket.
GND is ground

Garmin apparently puts resistors of various sizes between the ID pin and ground (i.e. between pins 4 and 5)so that the GPSr units can determine what is being plugged into them.

Here are the resistor values my 295W reports when these Garmin vehicle charging cables are plugged into it:

Cable that came with 255W: 17.2 kohms
Cable that came with 295W: 17.2 kohms
Cable that came with 285WT: 26.4 kohms

Here's the deal. I wanted to be able to charge my mobile phone with it's USB cable connected to the car charger port. Obviously I can't do this -- if the Nuvi is in the charger as well (and my 765T lasts maybe a few hours at best). So, is there a cable that allows the Nuvi to be charged using its traditional charging port (that links to the car charger), but rather than having an auto charger plug -- it links to a USB cable so I can just plug it into a car charger that has multiple USB ports? Please note that I am interested in keeping the traffic transceiver working so I do NOT want to power it through the micro-USB. Based on the responses I've gotten up to this point, it looks like there is no such cord available. Thanks for all the responses.

Why not just get a multi-port 12V adapter and plug that into your car?

And then just plug the GPS plug and the cell phone plug into that?

All you need is a cigarette lighter expander thingie

Should be low cost and available anywhere

Maybe this one:

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Bell-12V-Twin-Splitter-with-USB-Po...

Thats what I would suggest also. You can buy vehicle DC power splitters that will take 1 outlet and make it 2. It is easy and inexpensive.

You're making this WAY to complicated. If you want the traffic feature to work you MUST use the cable that came with it. I use this little device: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00198GE8Y

$15 and sits in your cup holder. Splits your single cigarette lighter into two lighter plugs and two USB plugs. You can run your GPS, cell, and iPod all at once. NOTE - It can run your battery down over a long weekend. I've got one in each of 4 cars. Kids have got more crap than you can imagine to plug in on "road trips".

I didn't know they had these. Just what I need for my van. My van has just an acc plug that goes off when the engine is turned off so I guess this will work on that. Thanks!!

What an incredible device .. went ahead and got the latest one from Amazon for only $12.62 (http://www.amazon.com/Wagan-EL2537-5-Holder-Power-Adapter/dp...). The 2 USB ports provide 2A which is perfect for the iPads and as a bonus this thing has a battery level indicator.

It comes in handy.Picked one up at Walmart.Use for gps and radar detector

Thanks guys -- I'm ordering mine ASAP.