hardwire ac adapter?

[HoustinoJillian]

i'd like to wire in an AC plug into my car. the cig lighter is already taken up/ needs to saty free, so i can't just get one that plugs into there. my new idea is to get an ac/ dc adapter, and then hardwire it into the electrical supply for the cigarette lighter. any idea on how/ if this oculd be done? obviously i'd disconnect the battery first, but i'm just wondering if this is possible, and if so, how, thanks

 

[Slo-Sho]

DC/AC converters that hardwire directly to the battery can be bought at just about any large hardware store, sears, Home Depot, etc...

 

[NiNeTy Fo SHO]

yes it would be easily possible...

I have my radar detector hard wired so when the key is in the 'run' position, it turns on..just takes a little know how about wiring and a bit of time for hooking it up...

 

[olympic]

A couple things to remember:

-you want the inverter to turn off with the ignition switch. I'm not sure how the lighter socket in a SHO works.

-200 watts is about the max current draw for the lighter circuit.

 

[SHO92]

The best way to wire it would be directly to the battery, and use a relay to turn it on/off with the ignition. The cig lighter is tied into other things in the car and I think its a 20amp fuse. Its not a good idea to add something big like an inverter onto an existing circuit. Its also not a good idea to change out the original fuse for something larger, the wires may burn up first before the fuse burns up(ask me how I know this...)
The SHO lighter socket, it 12+ constant, it doesn't turn on/off with the key.

 

[HoustinoJillian]

ok, how would i wire directly to a better source? am i going to need to run wire through the firewall, etc (like when installing an amp and wiring straight to the battery?) or is there some other place inside the car i can hook up to. it doesn't need to be on/off with the car, but that would be convenient. i'm a little bit of a n00b when it comes to this, but i have enough general sense/knowhow to figure it out with a bit more direction. NiNeTy Fo SHO, if you could go into a bit more detail about what you did with your radar detector, i'd be very thankful, either here or in a PM, thanks again, Justin
edit-
also, now that you mention it, i'm interested in wiring in a radar detector (probably instead of the ac dc converter) so, any help would be very appreciated, thanks

 

[NiNeTy Fo SHO]

ok, how would i wire directly to a better source? am i going to need to run wire through the firewall, etc (like when installing an amp and wiring straight to the battery?) or is there some other place inside the car i can hook up to. it doesn't need to be on/off with the car, but that would be convenient. i'm a little bit of a n00b when it comes to this, but i have enough general sense/knowhow to figure it out with a bit more direction. NiNeTy Fo SHO, if you could go into a bit more detail about what you did with your radar detector, i'd be very thankful, either here or in a PM, thanks again, Justin
edit-
also, now that you mention it, i'm interested in wiring in a radar detector (probably instead of the ac dc converter) so, any help would be very appreciated, thanks

First off, my radar detector is small compared to a dc to ac converter, with that, I would run the converter directly from your battery with a relay so it turns on/off with the key. (prevent from leaving it on and your battery dieing).
You can get a relay at like autozone for like 3 bucks...and it tells you exactly how to wire it. It will be like 12+ source here (battery), ground here (car somewhere), connect to source you want to power (from the relay to your converter), and connect to a remote on/off (aka your fuse box). Then just ground the converter out on the car somewhere.

Since a radar dont need much juice, I cut the cigg. lighter end off of it and stripped the wires, the ground (usually plain black wire) I just found a screw in the glove box, loosened it, wrapped the wire around it, and tightened it back down. Now for the positive, I looked in my manual...found a fuse that powered other things that came on with the key (the radio fuse in my case). I pulled the fuse out, wrapped the wire around ONE of the metal spades, and then put the fuse back in. Do NOT wrap it around both and make sure the wire only touches one of the metal spades coming out of the fuse, or you are basically bypassing the fuse. Now, whenever you turn your key on, just as the radio turns on, the radar detector turns on.

I know some people will say, dont wrap wires around your fuses...on and on. Personally, I have been doing it for over 7 years and not one problem. The only thing is, the device you hooked up could get power after the fuse or before it...that I dont know and really doesnt matter...if something were to happen, my radar may get fried....key word being may, and that is only if something majorly wrong happened to the car in my opinion.

You can run a wire from your fuse to the remote wire on the relay and then your converter would turn on with the car.

Any more questions/comments, feel free to ask...sometimes I think I explained it, but I just confuse people.

Oh, and all amps have relays (that I have seen)....so hooking up this relay is just like hooking up an amp.

Hope that helped someone...

 

[SHOZ123]

Run a #10 fused wire into the cabin from the stud on the engine compartment fuse box. I have a lighter socket attached to mine and run a small 70w AC adapter for my laptop and recharging NiMH batteries.

This is too small to run the laptop as the laptop battery will give up after 6 hours or so. I have a gutted small UPS that I will put in the trunk, feed 12V+ to and run things off of that.