[Carnivore]

I've decided to try building an iPhone charging dock on the left side of the steering wheel using a 3d printer.

So I purchased a pre-made iPhone dock from Ebay below
http://www.ebay.com/itm/361365931122...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
It is a stand that plugs into a cigarette tray and includes 2x USB 5v 3.0a ports.
The reason why I bought this was because the dock is already pre-designed to fit my phone and has padding on the mount.

This is it below




Next I removed the driver-side vent.


I noticed there's a wire harness for the headlight controls here




First attempt at printing the mount.


I tried to mimic the stand that the original iPhone mount had.






Here it is attached to the original arm

[Carnivore]

Minor scraping of the plastic can be hidden with permanent marker.

[Carnivore]

I decided to route the power wires from the left vent to the center console by going through the bottom side of the steering wheel.


I removed the casing for a 12v to 5v car adapter then hardwired a very long power line and short ground line to it.


I fed the power line through an opening to the bottom side of the steering wheel then fed it through a small opening to the center console.


Better picture of the bottom side of the steering wheel.


Better picture of the bottom side of the steering wheel.


Better picture of the bottom side of the steering wheel.


Simple splice to the cigarette line for the power wire.


So I thought I would just ground it to an all black wire. Turns out it wasn't the ground. There's a chassis in the back which I grounded to later.




Everything back together with an apple charger plugged into the 5v converter.

[Carnivore]

Some final pictures of the Apple lightning cable glued to the iPhone mount.
















Done! I jailbroke my phone and installed the tweak 'Activator' to automate certain events. The phone loads the navigation app 'Waze' every time I turn the car on.

[Carnivore]

Does anyone have any idea if I can tap into a 12v accessory line from the headlight harness?

[LocDawgg]

Originally Posted by Carnivore

Does anyone have any idea if I can tap into a 12v accessory line from the headlight harness?

Yes you can, it might be easier to tap it from your ECU box. or your cigg lighter from the ecu box.

[Carnivore]

I've actually never wired anything from the ECU. I believe it has to go through a firewall which I don't want to do.

UPDATE: I can't seem to find a wiring diagram for the headlight wiring harness. When I try removing the headlight switch, it would turn on my lights if the switch is removed- is that normal?

[Carnivore]

I just 3d printed and glued my mount to the driver-side vent. After adjusting it to the correct viewing angle then tightening the bolt I was off for my first test drive. The mount doesn't bounce or jiggle when going over bumps.

[Carnivore]

Update: New pictures. I ended up just routing a power line from the center console to the left vent through the bottom side of the steering wheel.

I grounded the 5v converter to a chassis point right next to the vent.

For now I have an original Apple lightning cable that is just sandwiched through the trim. I think the original lightening cable is just a tad too thick so I ordered this

http://www.ebay.com/itm/191610800870...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

(a ribbon lightening cable) which should make the wiring easier. Also I plan on 3d printing and gluing a mount for the lightning cable at the bottom of the iPhone mount so I don't have to manually plug in the phone to charge it.

[scanboy]

I'm having a hard time understanding why your PLA won't soften in the cabin under the sun. I've also tried doing something similar, only to find that all my PLA prints would deform on a sunny day even infill is 100% (I've read your other thread: cigarette dock), which makes sense, considering PLA would become soft when temp is around 50-60c

I'm thinking maybe the PLA we use differs in some way?
I've since switched to ABS for any in-vehicle parts, but ABS is not so easy to print.

[Carnivore]

I use this PLA.

http://www.amazon.com/Hatchbox-1-75m...0_SR160%2C160_

PLA differs quite a bit between vendors. I printed this vent dock with 20 % infill and it hasn't warped.

[bimmette]

Fascinating stuff! I love seeing your step by step process. Thanks for sharing! I wish I could do stuff like this.

[Carnivore]

I uploaded final pictures of my project. It turned out really well. I ended up jailbreaking my iPhone and loading the tweak called Activator which automates certain events. So every time I turn on the car, it would load the naviation app 'Waze'

[dragazn]

More on how to get a hold of the mount and adapater

[Carnivore]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/361365931122...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Purchased this and modified it to fit.