Slightly OT - Good connector for high load car accessories?

iggie plug melted long ago and I wired up one of those 3/16" cannon shaped connectors used for low voltage home stuff like laptops, external HDs etc. It also gets very hot and is starting to melt. What's a good off-the-shelf solution which doesn't take up much room? The whole ciggie plug thing is th e dumbest convention ever, I must say. I can't believe it's still extant.

I would use appliance cord like an extension cord. Along with an inline fuse.

Andersens are great electrically but difficult to mount in a panel or connect by feel in the dark, and not sealed against dirt or liquids such as spray cleaner. Crimping the 45 Amp pins is difficult without the expensive special tool, so I use the 30A pins and solder them carefully at the front end, not allowing solder to wick all the way through which would create a brittle weak spot. If deformed by crimping they may not fully seat and then pull out of the housing when disconnected. As with all connectors they should be checked with a pull test. How hard to pull is something you learn on the job from the foreman.

A decent lighter plug shouldn't overheat from 4A, or 10A. The trick is fnding a good one. They do have the advantages of dust caps, no sharp protrusions, and being easy to connect by feel with one hand.

-jsw

I think I've got it. Something called AMP-SUPERSEAL, which I gather is wide ly used in cars and consequently super-cheap online. You can even get all k inds of rubber housings for it if you want to get extreme, but the basic 2- pole unit looks like enough for me. I know that the ciggie plug thing can b e made to work, but it's partly an aesthetic thing and partly size. We some times go tent camping on the Dutch coast in my little Alfa Romeo wagon, and we number five including the Au Pair. The glove box in that car is exactly what it says - just big enough for some gloves and a few maps! Get a bigge r car? Sure, but my parking spot in central Cologne is just big enough for the car I have, and I'd rather drive an Alfa than almost anything else with four doors.

I think I've got it. Something called AMP-SUPERSEAL, which I gather is widely used in cars and consequently super-cheap online. You can even get all kinds of rubber housings for it if you want to get extreme, but the basic 2-pole unit looks like enough for me. I know that the ciggie plug thing can be made to work, but it's partly an aesthetic thing and partly size. We sometimes go tent camping on the Dutch coast in my little Alfa Romeo wagon, and we number five including the Au Pair. The glove box in that car is exactly what it says - just big enough for some gloves and a few maps! Get a bigger car? Sure, but my parking spot in central Cologne is just big enough for the car I have, and I'd rather drive an Alfa than almost anything else with four doors.

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That looks like a very good solution for you.

A vehicle battery can be either the source or the load (for a charger) so I like genderless Andersons for connections I'd make with both hands while parked, such as a battery charger or winch. Then the charger's outlet mates with the portable cooler's inlet to precool it at home and either can connect to the battery. A DC power meter which reads current in only one direction can be plugged in between them either way, to measure charge or discharge.

I added a lighter outlet with a cover instead of an Anderson to the tractor to plug in the flasher because mowing fills everything with dust, and I plug in the flasher with one hand while driving. I have to be careful using the outlet to charge the battery because the male lighter plug would be hot on two exposed terminals if connected to the charger first.

-jsw

I have to

Yeah, and I don't know what kind of lighter plugs you use, but capacity mig ht also be an issue. Anyway, I maintain that ciggie plugs are just dumb. Th e only reason we have them is because the socket is already there, but it w asn't intended to supply juice to accessories, let alone accept it for char ging.

Yeah, and I don't know what kind of lighter plugs you use, but capacity might also be an issue. Anyway, I maintain that ciggie plugs are just dumb. The only reason we have them is because the socket is already there, but it wasn't intended to supply juice to accessories, let alone accept it for charging.

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The lighter outlet on the dash of my car is fused too small to operate a cigarette lighter anyway; it's -only- for accessories. There's also one in the back for a portable cooler I use for summer grocery shopping. The plug has never been hot when disconnected.

The other connector options require you to look at them to orient them correctly, which you can't do while driving at night. I can plug the flasher into the lighter outlet on my tractor with one gloved hand while bouncing around and watching where I'm going. I couldn't with any of the other choices of DC power connector such as the airplane outlet I'm fiddling with blindly. It has two wrong positions that feel like it might go in if pushed harder.

The two-pin trailer connector sees some use for 12V power. Be sure that +12V is on the insulated pin.

-jsw

Yeah, and I don't know what kind of lighter plugs you use, but capacity might also be an issue. Anyway, I maintain that ciggie plugs are just dumb. The only reason we have them is because the socket is already there, but it wasn't intended to supply juice to accessories, let alone accept it for charging.

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If you want to use a high quality German connector try these:

I've used (not by choice) them in electric cars. They are so tricky to assemble that the company contracted to make the wiring harnesses gave up and I had to do all of them myself. Viel Spass!

-jsw

Small "anderson" type plugs.. Use one rated for at least twice your anticipated current - IE - a 10 amp minimum to run the 4 amp cooler.

Forget connectors, use broadcast power!

"There were no connections between the rotors and stators, no sparking, lousy brushes."

Pay Queen Elsa to zap the cooler permanently cold.

:^)

David

Agrippinensium", which took up so much space on the maps that no one was permitted to live east of it.

Our modern equivalent is

We used to use a 12V fridge on road trips when I was a kid. My dad put a second battery in with a battery isolator, and some rather large gage wire (fused) directly from the second battery to the fridge. Never had an issue other than that the battery would run down if we were parked for a day or more.

I don't think those high performance fridges existed back in the 1970s. We just had a 12V refrigerator. I'm not even sure the 12V cool boxes (not really a fridge) existed back then either.

Starting to feel old here. On the way back from the river with a buddy one day I took a detour down a canal bank to show him some places he could fish without a boat. I pointed to one spot and told him I caught my first bass there in 1974. Made me feel like a dinosaur when he replied, "That's before I was born Bob."

I modified a similar 4 amp cooler to be both a cooler and a heater, using and Ardiuno micro controller. The problem you found is caused by the 4 amp fuse in the tip of the plug. It makes a very small contact on each end and heats up. If you can find a lighter plug without the fuse, get it. Then get a regular automotive fuse holder and put it in line with your cooler.

The newer auto fuses are designed to carry the full rated current and have very well designed sockets for the fuse blades.

Actually, there is really no reason for a fuse, anyway. The Peltier device only fails by opening. The little fan would die rather than cause a fire.

Paul

Before I lucked onto the free-for-the-fixing APC1400 UPS I was looking for a used 12V RV fridge for power outage backup. The dealers told me they had nothing and I wouldn't find one for under $500.

I agree with robobass, I cannot believe that this retardation is allowed to flourish in the 21st century.