Bigpeetee
Guest
The built in Cigarette lighters can cause a number of problems:
1. I bought a GPS, charged up at home to play with and all was well, plugged into ciggy lighter, charge light came on and left overnight the GPS was fully charged, however, the next day when I used it the internal battery went flat although the charging light was on. It's got to be the charger I thought, so on getting a replacement charger, the same happened. I measured the voltage output of the charger and it was 5 volts as it should. I was puzzled, I was just about to send it back when I had an inspitation, I connected a scrap length of wire to the outer ring of ciggy lighter and lo and behold it charged. A bad earth was the culprit!! The voltages were off load and the LED in the charger was across the 12v input. A LED will light with a very much reduced voltage.
I ultimately (after about 2 months of having a temporary earth) added an additional earth, but what a bugger it was getting the ciggy lighter out to attach the wire and I couldn't get into the loom either. Problem solved.
2. While sorting out a cable for Patricia (rottytara2004) I was mentioning this problem, "Ours does that too" She'd tried to get her inverter, all 3 of them to work from ciggy lighter, by the sound of it, it fired up at first then after a while the undervoltage alarm came on. There is probably a poor connection to the lighter socket causing a resistance, therefore losing voltage, as the battery voltage goes down through use, the voltage at the inverter gets to critical and it shuts off.
So what can be done?
You need to ascertain if it's the feed to, or the return from the ciggy lighter that's the problem.
First, find out which fuse feeds the socket, if you've got a digital volt meter (as every motorhomer should) set to the 20 volt DC range, read the voltage at the socket if you can, it should be about the same as the starter battery. Take the fuse out, clean the contacts and replace, do the fuse in out operation a few times to clean the metal face of the fuse holder. If that improves the operation then OK
Secondly, take a length of old cable, strip both ends about 2 inches. One end feed through one of the lugs at the side of the plug, twist wire and plug into socket, the other end you need to touch on a clean metal piece of the bodywork or preferably on the battery negative (-) make sure it is the negative and not the positive (+) otherwise you will short out the battery!! Not good!!.
If this works, then you have resolved the problem and a more permanent solution sought ( this is what I had for a while, it was winter in my defense) I just terminated the cable under a nut in the cab area.
As has been said, ciggy lighters are not really good connectors from an engineering point of view, but they are useful. If they've been used for their proper purpose, they've got hot and all kinds of muck from the ciggy ash is deposited on the terminals, leading to poor connections.
I have bought a 4 way bank of ciggy lighters that I've fixed behind the drivers seat and on to one of my leisure batts, via a fuse. In my case it's close to the dinette, so I can charge the laptop (s), daughters I'Phone our mobiles etc. One outlet is suitable for bigger power and the others for phones etc.
We did buy a travel electric blanket as there were complaints that it's cold in the back in winter whilst driving, this plugs into the "Power" outlet of the bank and is about 80watts. It gets slightly warm and I'm convinced that it's psychological but if daughter is warmer, who am I to complain!! (She hasn't got an ounce of fat to keep her warm, not like me)!!
1. I bought a GPS, charged up at home to play with and all was well, plugged into ciggy lighter, charge light came on and left overnight the GPS was fully charged, however, the next day when I used it the internal battery went flat although the charging light was on. It's got to be the charger I thought, so on getting a replacement charger, the same happened. I measured the voltage output of the charger and it was 5 volts as it should. I was puzzled, I was just about to send it back when I had an inspitation, I connected a scrap length of wire to the outer ring of ciggy lighter and lo and behold it charged. A bad earth was the culprit!! The voltages were off load and the LED in the charger was across the 12v input. A LED will light with a very much reduced voltage.
I ultimately (after about 2 months of having a temporary earth) added an additional earth, but what a bugger it was getting the ciggy lighter out to attach the wire and I couldn't get into the loom either. Problem solved.
2. While sorting out a cable for Patricia (rottytara2004) I was mentioning this problem, "Ours does that too" She'd tried to get her inverter, all 3 of them to work from ciggy lighter, by the sound of it, it fired up at first then after a while the undervoltage alarm came on. There is probably a poor connection to the lighter socket causing a resistance, therefore losing voltage, as the battery voltage goes down through use, the voltage at the inverter gets to critical and it shuts off.
So what can be done?
You need to ascertain if it's the feed to, or the return from the ciggy lighter that's the problem.
First, find out which fuse feeds the socket, if you've got a digital volt meter (as every motorhomer should) set to the 20 volt DC range, read the voltage at the socket if you can, it should be about the same as the starter battery. Take the fuse out, clean the contacts and replace, do the fuse in out operation a few times to clean the metal face of the fuse holder. If that improves the operation then OK
Secondly, take a length of old cable, strip both ends about 2 inches. One end feed through one of the lugs at the side of the plug, twist wire and plug into socket, the other end you need to touch on a clean metal piece of the bodywork or preferably on the battery negative (-) make sure it is the negative and not the positive (+) otherwise you will short out the battery!! Not good!!.
If this works, then you have resolved the problem and a more permanent solution sought ( this is what I had for a while, it was winter in my defense) I just terminated the cable under a nut in the cab area.
As has been said, ciggy lighters are not really good connectors from an engineering point of view, but they are useful. If they've been used for their proper purpose, they've got hot and all kinds of muck from the ciggy ash is deposited on the terminals, leading to poor connections.
I have bought a 4 way bank of ciggy lighters that I've fixed behind the drivers seat and on to one of my leisure batts, via a fuse. In my case it's close to the dinette, so I can charge the laptop (s), daughters I'Phone our mobiles etc. One outlet is suitable for bigger power and the others for phones etc.
We did buy a travel electric blanket as there were complaints that it's cold in the back in winter whilst driving, this plugs into the "Power" outlet of the bank and is about 80watts. It gets slightly warm and I'm convinced that it's psychological but if daughter is warmer, who am I to complain!! (She hasn't got an ounce of fat to keep her warm, not like me)!!
