anyone out there got a setup for multiple cigarette lighter powered devices?

ive recently noticed ill be needing up to 5 cig powered devices, so i was looking into options.

sure supacheap have a 4 barrel adapter, but surely the average cig lighter curcuit was never intended to put multiple devices hanging out of it.

i do have a mainline from the battery into the shifter console to power my uhf, i was thinking of having that tweaked/tapped to provide alternate power for these devices.

and before you ask;

1 portable car fridge
1 satnav
1 phone charger
2 baby bottle warmers

i currently have a twin pot adatptor, running the fridge/satnav, but ina weeks time il be needing to jam in the dual bottle warmers. :)

im considering having some install work done soon for a stereo's amp n sub, so might see if whoevers doing that can jack me in some cig power mods :-)

so yer, any u guys got anything like that?

I had the 4 port ciggy adaptor from SuperCheap, I ran a 7" touch screen, a 20V laptop adaptor (to power a computer), two neons and two washer lights. Just don't exceed the adaptor's recommended specifications and you'll be right.

all of your gear running through your cigerette lighter?
any1 corect me if im wrong,im sure the socket can only hold so much power,too much power running through it and it may blow up or wires will melt or sometin.
for the stuff you have menchined i would highly recomend running some of that either straight from the batery or through the acessories port above the foot pedals.

errr no...

my car has 2 12v sockets, i use neither of them

easy sloution #1 you can buy multiple adaptor i have seen a 4 outlet one... like you mentioned

easy solution #2

buy an esky
use a street directory
make sure your fone is already charged & carry back up battery (charged)

that leaves one spare socket and im sure the baby milk isnt being warmed 24/7

i hate sh it in the car everywhere, clean and clutter free and it's much more plesant to drive

Satnav - honestly you dont need this all the time.

Phone charger - charge ur phone when you go to bed.

Fridge - WTF? Stop at a servo if ur thirsty, if its for babies drinks, get a cooler bag/esky.

Bottle Warmers - a servo will heat up a bottle 4 u no worries.

And if you do need to use these things whilst driving, I seriously doubt they all need to run at once. If more than one, then grab the adapter, and unplug when not needed.

ciggy lighter plug will normaly have a 15amp fuse im thinking if you hook all this up it going to blow it.

I think it's a 10 amp. A little blue one anyway, I've blown a few. Messing witht eh electrics I even set myself on fire before the fuse melted. It was co funny.

Anyway.
I tapped in to my ciggy socket and wired a 3 port adaptor in to it behind the console. I then ran the lead under the centre gear sfit surround and up and in to the pointless litte cavity behind the gear selector. I then ran laptop, phone etc ... this was all whilst a regional consultant and was doing solo road surveys in some pretty remote areas.

For my Dad I ran a long lead from his boot, under the carpet, up to the ciggy socket, and mounted a 3 port in his boot to be accessed via the ski port. He runs his fridge and poers a laptop from there for long trips.

As I said I've blown the ciggy fuse a few times. When the laptop, phone and a few other things were plugged in, all would be sweet, then something would decide to take a massive suck of power, and it would blow.

Friends of ours had several ciggy sockets wired in to the car professionally. One in each back passenger door so the kiddies could play their mobile DVD things (what happened to Eyespy), one in the boot of the wagon for the fridge (fishing trip) and a couple up the front coz he's a geek and couldn't leave home without his toys. The install is very neat.

A sparky will do a real neat job, make sure it's properly fused, and won't jeapordise the safety of you, your wife or your child.

10 amps is a lot of current.

What you should do, is run a fused (15 amp) wire from the battery to a relay, have it switched ignition and power the 4x adapter. Doing this allows you to isolate the adapter so you can run a suitable fuse without damaging anything else. It is also a lot better because you can run the cable to the adapter anywhere, even in to the boot and then through the rear seat arm rest. It also then allows you to have a single plug in your dash still for the satnav gear which obviously needs to be on the dash.

See legit mspaint

http://www.dairally.net/jason/files/temp-images/legit.GIF

Double in case of hosting problems

PS: Electric motors draw ~7 times their average usage on start up. So spec the fuse for that.

For instance, a 40w laptop inverter has the ability to use 40w. P=VI, so 40/12 = 3.3 amps. Car phone chargers use next to nothing, so maybe 1 amp peak. Your fridges will used a good 5 or 6 amps, and up to 42 amps peak when turning on, but this is usually not long enough to cause enough heat in the fuse to burn it out. Either way, a 15 amp RCD with an overload would be the ideal setup, as they have head delay ect especially for electric motors and peak loads.

Stick with a 15 amp fuse, and keep replacements on hand. 15 amp is a hell of a lot.

lol, thanks guys :-) perhaps i should put the equipment in perspective;

lol, most of that is for a brisbane to adelaide run, wheres its damn hot and 12hours-ish driving 2 days ina row :-)

i expect my coke to be cold when im 200kms from any town, the bubs will need pre-heated bottles, and while ive done this run a few times, im running in the new satnav :-) and phone charger is only incase it gets used/flattened during the day, as it can also bluetooth the satnav/etc which mashes the battery life, if theres any gprs/3g signal out in the middle of nowhere :-) and id rather not carry a thousand cords in and out of hotels charging phones/etc.

but yer, normally, the satnav n fridge arnt in the car, nor the dual bottle warmers, and the phones is usually always charged :-) so the only other use for multiple cig lighter ports could be if i went n got neonz, but thats not gonna happen :-)

having said that, i hope no one ever puts a powered usb port in the dash, cause then itd just get silly lol.

having said that, i hope no one ever puts a powered usb port in the dash, cause then itd just get silly lol.


I really was actually just about to ask that. It will be awesome cause I've seen a beer/coke bottle (no drink driving remember) cooler that runs on usb and keeps one drink cool, which is perfect for me, plus the added advantage of Ipod charger, and a host of other once off usb devices that i could plug in (im a computer nerd, live with it).

Does anyone happen to have an easy way of doing this? Maybe using a 4-port powered hub? I have no idea, I just wanna do it at some stage for its various uses.


Zedd

it can be done, there are cig-lighter powered usb devices out there, ive seen usb ported mem sticks that hop into the ciglighter port that transmit FM band of your stick loaded mp3's, nifty toy, cheap too, jaycar has em.

ive also seen ethernet hubs/switches on a car once, hehe, everyone loves 100mb ethernet backbone front to back haha. :-) (back when 100mb was el three three seven)

im planning a bit of a geek feature next year hehe, hopefully it comes off neatly, itll be awesome for qmd cruzin lol.

errr no...

my car has 2 12v sockets, i use neither of them

easy sloution #1 you can buy multiple adaptor i have seen a 4 outlet one... like you mentioned

easy solution #2

buy an esky
use a street directory
make sure your fone is already charged & carry back up battery (charged)

that leaves one spare socket and im sure the baby milk isnt being warmed 24/7

i hate sh it in the car everywhere, clean and clutter free and it's much more plesant to drive

haha.

but no.

im upset my car doesnt have a 12v plug in the glove box. and i cant work out when they actually kicked in, coz some TJ's have them, some dont.