Cig socket work around?

[harvey]

Hey guys,

A day into our trip and the cig lighter socket went kaput. We only run our sat nav off it that needs 5v/500ma.

I had this bright idea to remove the lamp above our glove box (it's on the same circuit as the cig lighter) and come off the two leads there to one of those cig lighter multi jacks... the ones that have a male cig plug that goes to two or more female cig plugs. I removed the male plug and just ran the two leads from the plug to the connectors from the glove box light. All's good and getting 12.6vDC at the multi female cig plugs. Thinking I'm pretty clever I go to plug my sat nav in and the cig adapter to the sat nav begins to smoke and then blows the fuse - what's up with that?

Sure could use some help - now having to charge the sat nav's battery using a mains adapter and would like to have it working as before. Thanks.

[1_eyed_jim]

Cig lighters like most circuits on cars have 1 live wire going in from the fuse box and 1 ground wire coming out that is wired to the body at a suitable location. Not sure where you've gone wrong.

[Wychall]

Hi Bruce.
I would suspect that the ciggy adaptor was chinese made by Hu Flung Dung and is incorrectly wired internally. This may be the reason for the demise of your original ciggy lighter socket. I have had one which actually reversed the polarity due to duff wiring.

Two possible solutions. Firstly check the orig ciggy socket and see if that can be made to work using the feed from the glovebox light. If not, plan B. Gut the adaptor and use just one socket, wired to the glovebox light, positive to the central contact and negative to the casing.

The smoking 'may' have been due to a poor connection generating heat.

Otherwise, come back to England and I'll fix it for you.

[harvey]

Hi Bruce.
I would suspect that the ciggy adaptor was chinese made by Hu Flung Dung and is incorrectly wired internally. This may be the reason for the demise of your original ciggy lighter socket. I have had one which actually reversed the polarity due to duff wiring.

Two possible solutions. Firstly check the orig ciggy socket and see if that can be made to work using the feed from the glovebox light. If not, plan B. Gut the adaptor and use just one socket, wired to the glovebox light, positive to the central contact and negative to the casing.

The smoking 'may' have been due to a poor connection generating heat.

Otherwise, come back to England and I'll fix it for you.

Hey Bri! Who is that Hu Flung Dung guy anyway?

Thanks for the tips. I'll get back on it this after.

Sure wish you were here to fix it... now in our third week touring and it's really beginning to be fun. Stuck in Amsterdam by choice... got museum passes and just want to see it all. Campground here is lovely.

[Krugerbaydesign]

I bought one of the Cheepy chinese adapters and ended up pulling it apart and rewiring it with decent gauge wire and connected it directly to my leisure battery fuse box, works a treat now

[AdrianC]

As others have said, my money's on the adapter having curled its toes up.

I just can't think of any way in which a fault in the ciggy sockets themselves would kill the adapter. At worst, you'll short something in the socket and blow the van's fuse. Or it's wired wrong way round, so the adapter might not work.

Have you tried the sockets with something else in?

Bear in mind, though, that a lot of chargers have electronics in the plug itself to reduce the voltage - in this case, from 12v to 5v. I'd just go with a USB cable and a generic ciggy-to-USB adapter. Dead easy to replace wherever you might be.

[harvey]

Well, I feel pretty silly - I had the polarity wrong. Took me a while to find a fuse to replace the blown one in the adapter but works like a champ now. The small red light on the new cig plug unit is on all the time - any big deal?

I appreciate everyones help.

[harvey]

I'd just go with a USB cable and a generic ciggy-to-USB adapter. Dead easy to replace wherever you might be.

Thanks for that Adrian - I'll start to look for one as a back-up

[AdrianC]

The small red light on the new cig plug unit is on all the time - any big deal?

It's just telling you it's got power. You might want to put a switch in the live wire to it, so it's only on when you need it.