Hard wire media device into car?

[paqman]

Hey, I apologize before hand, I dropped out of electronics engineering in college cause I couldn't wrap my mind around this magic, so I'm sorry if my questions show an enormous amount of ignorance.

We have a 2007 Toyota Sienna with an aftermarket DVD player hooked up on the ceiling powered by the old dome light power.  I've been running a western digital media player on it going to the AV inputs and using an AC inverter in the car.  But I'd love it if I could hard wire the media player into that same dome light power so I could attach the media player to the dvd player, and have no cables hanging down. 

The media player runs on a 12V, 1.5A AC Adapter.  Would it be possible to wire it directly to the dome light leads just like the DVD player or would I need to convert the power somehow? 

Again, apologize for my ignorance.  I'm just not sure what kind of power is running through that dome light power.  I do have multi-meter, but have not pulled down the DVD player to measure the output from the dome light power yet.

 

[Hero999]

It should be possible to wire the DVD player directly to the car without and other circuitry.

 

[paqman]

Thanks so much for your reply. I may have not been clear.  The dvd player is already installed. What I'dlike to do is wire the western digital media device to the same power the dvd player is hooked up to, which is the dome light power. So you think I could do that? I will get around to pulling the dvd playerdown and mmeasuring the voltage coming from the domelight power soon.

 

[paqman]

Just measured the dome light voltage.  Right around 9 volts.  Is that normal?  The DVD player seems to run on it fine.  However the media player requires 12 volts.  Will this work?

I've even thought about scouring ebay to find a broken roof mount DVD player where maybe the disc drive or something is broken but the screen still works.  Then tearing the sucker open and hard wiring the guts of the media player right into the case of the DVD player.  But I definitely do not have the elctronics background to do that.

 

[Hero999]

Is that with the engine running?

That's quite low and would indicate a flat battery.

Try it, a lower voltage shouldn't do any harm. It might just become unreliable.

 

[paqman]

Is that with the engine running?

That's quite low and would indicate a flat battery.

Try it, a lower voltage shouldn't do any harm. It might just become unreliable.

Lol I'm a dummy.  I didn't turn on the engine, but I had planned on at least having the power on, which now that I think about it, I might have overlooked.  You're probably right.  I'll measure again later with the engine on, I'm betting I'll get a solid 12 volts at that point.

If this works, I'm just starting to realize exactly what's going on here.  Again, I'm an electronics newbie, so bare with me as the lights come on in my head lol.  I measured the power coming off of the end of the cable for the western digital media player when it was plugged into my house.  Guess what.  12 volts DC.  So all this time I've been using it in my car with an inverter, the car supplies 12 volts DC, my inverter puts out AC for the media player, but the AC adapter on the media player is simply converting it back to 12 volts DC?  So this device runs on 12 volts DC, so in theory, all this time I've been running the sucker off an inverter in the car, I could have just purchase something like this for $5:

http://www.amazon.com/Generic-12-Volt-2-1mm-Cigarette-Lighter/dp/B00DVZYA20/ref=sr_1_42?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1385995189&sr=1-42&keywords=cigarette+lighter+cord

Am I correct?  If so, it seems like it should work just fine to wire the cable directly to the power cables from the dome light.  But what about amperage?  Do I need to be concerned about that at all?

 

[atlanticav]

A little late to the game but yes that is what you need if you haven't already purchased. Have a good one!