How-To: Lower dash console dual USB (Dual data)

Hello friends.

I put in a new Joying head unit recently, and it has two USB ports on the back. There didn't seem to be any off-the-shelf option to put two full USB ports in the lower dash of my 2nd gen, so I did the usual thing and cannibalized some stuff.

There are a couple of options for the lower dash inserts if you want two 5.0v charging ports, and one or two that will give you one charging-only and one USB. All have annoying LEDs.

I started with one of these:

Cllena High Speed Dual Port USB Car Charger with Audio Socket for Toyota Series,USB Charging for Mobile Phone, Samsung HTC and More (3.3A + Audio)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N12G8QY/

And one of these:

Mediabridge USB 3.0 - USB Cable (4 Feet) - SuperSpeed A Male to A Male

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00D8JFNO8/

1) Pop apart the housing. The faceplate is held on with a tab on either side:


2) Gut the thing, and pull out the populated PCBs. I'd recommend just cutting the wires, pulling the PCBs out of the front, and then popping the backplate out by poking it with a screwdriver or something from the front:


3) Depopulate the boards completely, except for the USB connectors. You can take your time and desolder everything carefully, OR you can just break everything off with the end of a small flathead screwdriver like I did. It doesn't matter at all if you ruin traces or have pins left in through-holes, we're going to be soldering directly to the pins on the connector. The PCBs will only be there to orient the ports in the housing; you should have noticed the little "rails" in the housing when you took the thing apart:



4) Cut your quality, shielded USB A Male-Male cable in half, strip the jacket, and separate out your Black/Green/White/Red and shielding. If you use the exact cable I did, you'll note some extra wires in there - you can safely cut them off flush with the outer jacket. I think this company must just use the same stock for multiple products for whatever logistical/manufacturing efficiency reason.

Carefully solder them to the pins on the connectors on each board. I also soldered the shielding to the attachment/shielding lug of the connector. My work here looks like crap, so it's a good thing nobody will ever see it except you:



5) At this point, I went the extra mile and used a multimeter to check that I had continuity from each pin in new female end to each corresponding pin in the male end, and also checked to make sure that there were no shorts between adjacent wires due to sloppy soldering or contact with traces on the boards.

6) No photo of step 6, it's just securing the wires to the PCB with hot glue!

7) Reassemble and install. I fed the Male ends through the switch hole, up through the dash, and into the back of the head unit.



Note: If you want to go the extra mile, before you reassemble the housing, scuff and paint the faceplate to remove the now-incorrect labels.

 

Nice writeup! For a minute I was wondering why you went through all this trouble until I actually READ what you're doing with DUAL charging. Awesome.

I did a single charging port on my Joying using a similar USB adapter but found it to be dog slow to charge. Do you have the same issues with the newer Joying units? I got mine in 2018 or so... ended up just extending the truck's inverter to inside the cab and use bluetooth for everything. Just wondering if charging a device got any faster.

 

I believe they are "High Power" spec (4.5W) and not the newer 3A/5A capable ports. I actually personally don't mind that, since charging at lower power does extend the life of Li-Ion batteries, and if I do need a fast charge I have a separate PD spec adapter that I can plug into my 12v power port opposite the lighter plug

I mostly wanted to be able to use a thumb drive in the dash while keeping my phone topped up or doing other nerd stuff with my head unit, which in my case is SDR and other RF stuff.