bought a garmin 3590lmt for my 2007 ultra and am running into a bit of a problem, possibly a wiring problem. i hard wired it to the cigarette lighter but it won't charge. double checked the wire hook up{ 2 wires}. i put spade connectors on the two wire leed from the gps and a female plug on the lighter. thought this would be an easy hookup but no such luck. i cut off the cigarette lighter plug from the harness, dressed up the wires for the connectors, wired it to the lighter inside the fairing and i have no power to recharge the gps which is mounted on a ram mount....am i missing something? i thought if i wired it to the lighter the gps would be powered only when the bike was started and not drain the battery when the bike was off. i certainly would entertain those of you that know about such things for suggesting a fix.....thanks

 

Isn't the gps only 5 volts? Since you cut off the plug are you now suppling straight 12 volts to the GPS? Did you smoke the GPS.

 

I agree with 'The Dude'. Your cigarette lighter plug had a step-down transformer inside to supply the required 5V DC to the GPS. Hopefully you didn't fry the unit!

 

The plug you cut off contains a voltage step-down to the 5 volts for the gps....
You need to get a gps hardwire kit...

http://www.thegpsstore.com/Garmin-12...FdOHMgodvDMAsA

 

I have had several GPS' and they come with 2 plugs. Least wise mine did. A 12 volt wiring with no plug and one for a cigarette lighter plug.
If he did not cut the wiring, I don't, he should be safe. I just roll the extra wiring up and wire tie it out of the way.
I always use the accessory plug under the seat. This way it is operated by the switch and I can turn it of manually if I want.

 

^^ This.

Get a cord from 3BRPowersports.com which plugs into the accessory switch and run it under the tank console.

 

If you are using a mounting attached to the bike, it is easy to wire it in to the bike's electrics, leaving the accessory sockets free, and so that power to the gps comes on with the ignition.

 

The lighter is only powered when the ignition is on, so it won't charge the GPS battery unless the bike is on & running. If the GPS comes on & works when you start the bike everything is ok. You don't actually need to charge the GPS battery other than the charge it gets while in use.

 

go to mountguys.com and get a hard wire kit then I wired both my Garmin and my sirius radio to the spare wires in the headlight both work when the ignition is on and the GPS charges

 

Polarity could be wrong. But like others have said you could have fried the by hooking it direct.