One of the complaints that I have on both my Honda's (Accord and Odyssey) is that none of the outlets stay on when car is off.

Is there an easy way of making these always hot?

 

You'd have to rewire the power supply into something that's always on, like the clock, and pray you don't start blowing fuses. Depends on your defintion of 'easy'.

 

Or just run it from the battery directly, but be sure to add an inline fuse in your wiring. It wouldn't be hard if you wanted to do it.

 

How do you wire things to your battery 'directly'? Actually connect it to the terminals themselves?

 

If you have an amp in your car, tap into the amp's "12V power in". You'll always run a live wire then.

 

Yeah, but only the positive terminal, then ground it with the car itself. I have two additional wires coming off my positive terminal, one for my amp, one for my two front power seats that I swapped in and powered up. For my power seats, I used 20w inline fuses, same as the oem wiring. Then I ended up tapping to my power seat wiring to run power to my installed ipod dock.

For both my amp and my power seat wiring, it's all covered with wire loom, the wires all go through the factory grommet in the firewall, and in-line fuses for my seats are in the passenger side fuse access door. So it doesn't look too messy imo.

Here's an old pic I posted when I did a DIY for my seats:

 

Hey guys,

I've worked with car audio and electronics for almost 10 years, so I've got some advice that will make it easy and safe:

Since the 12v socket is located close to if not right next to the radio, locate the wiring harness for the head unit. You can either get a wiring diagram from Cruchfield (and the like), or, if you have a volt meter, check for the wire to the radio that carries a 12 volt constant (or "memory"). This is a low current line that provides 12 volts to your radio at all times to keep the memory of your preset radio stations, CD track info, and clock always on. Just cut the 12v switched line running to your accessory socket and tap in to the 12v constant line to the radio.

I should provide a word of caution: the reason Honda makes their accessory sockets swtiched is to prevent you from accidentally leaving your cell phone, radar dectector, or laptop on for a period of time after you shut the car off. Please make sure you turn everything off, and don't run things for a long period of time without the engine running.

Unless you have jumper cables in your trunk.