03/13/2019
Are you getting tired of waiting for your Garmin GPS to bring up the map when in your vehicle and using a standard USB power cable? Make your own modified USB charging cable and eliminate the wait. Garman designed their GPS units to “look” for a computer connection when using a standard USB cable. However when you are powering your GPS from your vehicles power we know there is no data link to be made, we just want the maps to come up so we can start/continue navigating. For me this constant wait is annoying when I’m off roading in my ATV or RZR. For me I can be one quarter mile down the road before the GPS finally shows my map. Not good. But with a correctly wired USB cable the GPS will by-pass “looking” for a data connection and go straight to loading the maps.
So inside the mini B USB connector there are 5 pins. Normally only 4 of them are used in most devices but Garmin uses the extra pin to control the GPS and tell it yes or no to look for a data connection. This modification I’m showing here will tell the Garmin GPS not to look for a computer and just load the maps. Now you could just go to the Garmin web site and buy a $15 cable but not me. I refuse to be held hostage by a 5 cent part.
So here is how you do it. You are going to open up the mini B USB connector with an x-acto knife, cut off only the molded plastic covering to expose pins 4 & 5. Pin 4 should have nothing connected to it. You are going to solder a small 10K ohm resistor to pins 4 & 5 and then neatly RTV or epoxy it back together. That is it. Now when you turn on the ignition of your vehicle the GPS maps will load right away, no more waiting while it looks for a computer connection in your car’s ashtray.
Parts needed:
Standard 3-foot USB-A to 5-pin USB mini B computer cable
Sharp x-acto knife
Solder iron & solder
Magnifying glasses
10 k-ohm resistor (chip or mini leaded resistor)
RTV or epoxy
Cheers.
