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I have a product that takes an OBD 2 plug for power and I don't want to use my standard OBD port. I need to create an OBD 2 port for power purposes only, how could I do this and does the port run at 12 volts always?

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  • Your product might also need OBD data in some unexpected way. We could help head off surprises like that if we knew what it was.
    – Harper - Reinstate Monica
    Sep 10, 2019 at 22:14

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The port runs at battery/system power, which is usually anywhere from ~12-15vdc, depending on the specific system (manufacturer) and how fast the engine is running (voltage a little bit higher when revving higher). If the device is designed to plug into the OBDII port for power, then it is designed to handle these variances, because the power going to the port is going to vary.

To power the device, there should be two pins you are worried about: ground/earth (-) and the power (+). You can find them here in the port:

enter image description here

The pins you are looking at are 4 & 16. Your device should be the opposite of this, but hopefully you can figure out which is which. All you need to do is apply the power to pin 16 and provide a ground/earth at 4 and your device is powered. You can pull power from the fuse panel or design something from the cigarette lighter (or power) socket. If you are looking to use a Data Link Connector (DLC) to connect your device to (so it would be just like under the dash), you can find one easily at a junk yard for cheap ... just ensure you've got a long enough pig tail attached to provide for your wired connection. Almost all cars (at least here in the States) which are 96 and newer will have one.

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  • i think that just about covers what I'm looking for. by using the fuse box to run the power, if there was any kind of overload that the fuse box couldn't handle, it would just blow the main fuse like normal. does that sound right?
    – user51456
    Sep 10, 2019 at 13:02
  • @user51456 - Yes ... or you could also tap off the power side of a fuse (versus the fused side) and then put an inline fuse on your secondary line as well.
    – Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 ♦
    Sep 10, 2019 at 20:24

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