cig lighter question

[djomlas]

i have my radar plugged in there, and in tired of plugging it in and out every time i get in/out of the car.

how can i make it only have power when the car on, rite now it always has power.

thx

[KevinH90]

i have my radar plugged in there, and in tired of plugging it in and out every time i get in/out of the car.

how can i make it only have power when the car on, rite now it always has power.

thx

Check out this post on installing an iPod adapter: http://www.renntech.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=5190

It shows how to tap into the power conncector for the phone. You may be able to adapt the Becker power cable to power your radar detector. It can be set up so that it is only "hot" when the car is on.

Good luck.

Edited December 2, 2006 by KevinH90

[Glyn]

i have my radar plugged in there, and in tired of plugging it in and out every time i get in/out of the car.

how can i make it only have power when the car on, rite now it always has power.

thx

The cig lighter only has power when the key is in the ignition, i have a satnav system hard wired and a road angel hard wired directly to the connections on the back of the lighter socket, so i can still use the lighter socket as well

Glyn

[Tool Pants]

http://www.pca.org/tech/tech_qa_question.a...6-23E723CB9E4A}

[insite]

The cig lighter only has power when the key is in the ignition, i have a satnav system hard wired and a road angel hard wired directly to the connections on the back of the lighter socket, so i can still use the lighter socket as well

odd; i'm with djomlas. mine is always on, key or no. i wonder if it has to do with model years? at any rate, you could use the acc wire for the radio as a source. it's close to the cig lighter. if you wanted to be cautios with current draw, you could use a relay in line with the radio acc wire to trigger the cig lighter circuit.

[boggtown]

Mines always on too. (99 BTW). In my old car, I went and bought a cig lighter from walmart, and spliced it with the factory cig lighter (had 2 cig lighters) and kept this one inside the console and just plugged what I needed into it (iPod power at the time). I also set a switch inline so I could turn that cig lighter on and off due to power was always hot. This was an awesome setup and only cost like 5 bucks.

[Tool Pants]

On a US car the lighter is live all the time. Glyn must be from the UK.

In the UK some cars are live all the time and with others you have to turn on the key. They find this out when they plug in devices or try to use a battery maintainer that plugs into the lighter.

[Glyn]

On a US car the lighter is live all the time. Glyn must be from the UK.

In the UK some cars are live all the time and with others you have to turn on the key. They find this out when they plug in devices or try to use a battery maintainer that plugs into the lighter.

Spot on, i am in the UK, I didn't know there was a difference for something as innocuous as a cig lighter, why do they have so many specs?

Glyn

[Tool Pants]

In the UK you can get cd changer prep that we do not have in the US.

We have a cell phone connector that you do not have.

Our cars all have the outside temp sensor because air conditioning is standard, but not all UK cars do because air conditioning is an option on the base car.

You have a tilt sensor an alarm siren with a built-in battery for the alarm system that we do not have.

And so on.