{"id":709,"date":"2012-01-09T06:06:31","date_gmt":"2012-01-09T12:06:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/?p=709"},"modified":"2012-01-09T06:06:31","modified_gmt":"2012-01-09T12:06:31","slug":"making-a-usb-power-cable-for-a-belkin-f8z492-p-bluetooth-music-receiver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/?p=709","title":{"rendered":"Making a USB power cable for a Belkin F8Z492-P Bluetooth Music Receiver"},"content":{"rendered":"

UPDATE 7\/1\/2012: Several people have emailed in and said that instead of making a cable, you can use an iGO Charger A00 Tip<\/a>\"\" with either the USB to iGo Charging Cable<\/a>\"\" if you already have a spare usb power port or the Mobility iGo Auto Charger<\/a>\"\" if you only need to power the receiver.<\/p>\n

UPDATE 1\/24\/2014: If you’re thinking<\/i> about buying the F8Z492-P for in-car use, I have two alternatives to suggest. First, this product<\/a>\"\" from Belkin appears to be their answer to folks that bought the F8Z492-P and got upset that it wasn’t really meant for in-car use. It’s a little pricey, so the other option I have for you is the Kinivo BTC450<\/a>\"\". I don’t have either because I’ve changed cars twice since originally writing this post and no longer have the need for a device such as this.<\/p>\n

ORIGINAL POST:<\/p>\n

As I mentioned in my Christmas Bounty post<\/a>, I got a Belkin F8Z492-P Bluetooth Music Receiver<\/a>\"\" as a gift.<\/p>\n

Now, seeing as this is the marketing photo:
\n\"\"<\/a>\"\"
\nI falsely assumed that it was rechargeable. Otherwise, how would the power light be on with only<\/em> the audio cable attached, like the picture shows? As it turns out, this device is designed to connect to a home stereo and get power from the included 5v 180ma power supply.<\/p>\n

That pretty much defeats the purpose of me getting this, since I don’t have\/want to run a power inverter just to run bluetooth audio. So I decided to get around that problem.<\/p>\n

At first I went into my box o’ junk and found an adjustable DC power converter. That device is kind of like this one<\/a>\"\", but older. It has a 6v and a 4.5v setting, but not a 5v setting. I tend to prefer to undervoltage by 10% rather than overvoltage by 20%, so I set it to 4.5v and plugged in the proper tip.<\/p>\n

ZAP! Blew the 1A fuse on the converter. Well, crap. Back to the drawing board.<\/p>\n

I thought about buying a 5V Voltage Regulator<\/a>\"\" and wiring that directly to a switched 12v source, like tapping in to the windshield wiper fuse or something. Then I remembered that I have two USB ports on my USB car charger (like this one<\/a>\"\"), and I’m only using one of them.<\/p>\n

USB spec is 5vdc @ 500ma. PERFECT! Now I just need a cable. Which I don’t have.<\/p>\n

So I made one. I took a standard USB cable and cut off the end. There are four wires, but we only need the power ones (Black = negative, Red = positive). So I took my stripped cable and my barrel connecter, along with some heat shrink tubing:<\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Soldered the wires to the connector, after slipping the heat shrink tubing onto the cable:
\n\"image\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And voila! I tested the cable and it worked! Then I slipped the heat shrink tubing over the exposed wires and got after it with a lighter. That should keep it from shorting. Works like a champ!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UPDATE 7\/1\/2012: Several people have emailed in and said that instead of making a cable, you can use an iGO Charger A00 Tip with either the USB to iGo Charging Cable if you already have a spare usb power port or the Mobility iGo Auto Charger if you only need to power the receiver. UPDATE […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-android","category-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}