Hard Drive Added
10-25-2007, 05:12 PM
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Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
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Hard Drive Added
My Pioneer HU can read up to a 250GB Hard Drive but I found that the HU did not provide enough power to the drive. It ran small thumb drives fine but a hard drive was just to much. I found a small power inverter at Microcenter that had a USB output. So I mounted it the glove box but I found a problem. I was going to wire the inverter into a circuit that was only on when the the ignition was on but the inverter has a soft power button. I wired the inverter in to my 12V dash outlet instead. Then I found another problem. If I left the inverter on with the drive attatched, the HU had trouble reading the drive after the HU was turned off for long periods of time(30 minutes). So I would have to reach in the glove box and turn the inverter on and off every time which was a pain and so was having to go in the glove box to remove the drive so I decided to create a dock in the storage space below the HU. I had a piece of 3/8" ABS so I cut two strips and stacked them together then drilled to holes for the connectors and set them in and bolted the pieces together( so I can adjust them or remove them if needed) I cut a small section out of the back of the storage bin from the radio's install kit, but soon realized that I needed a bigger opening to allow air flow for the hard drive. I mounted the dock to the back of the storage bin. Now I leave the inverter on( it does not draw much when the drive is off and it does not get hot) and all I have to do is push the drive in to the dock and pull it out a little when I leave the truck. Its still a step I have to do but much easier than reaching into the glove box everytime and very convienent to have my entire music collection ready to go. Just one small 200 GB hard drive and no bulky CD binder. Pics are in my gallery.
