Adding a new Ciggy lighter.

[groucho]

Has anybody ever added a second ciggy lighter in their Griff? somewhere in the transmission tunnel would be a convenient place.
I'm thinking of getting Sat Nav this year to aid me in finding the various meets, as I was definitely not a homing pigeon in a previous life.
Would this be an easy job, and are there things to avoid in certain places of the transmission tunnel?

I'm bured if I'm going to trail leads all over the car this year, does me box in.

[catretriever]

Or you could get a sat nav that runs off rechargeable batteries...e.g. TOM TOM GO

[groucho]

catretriever said:

Or you could get a sat nav that runs off rechargeable batteries...e.g. TOM TOM GO

I did consider this and not a bad idea, but I would still like the convenience of an accessible lighter to run such things as my RA.

[spend]

I have 2 cig lighter sockets in the footwell area, all power / earth off the footwell courtesy light wiring. For convenience a relay triggered by the stereo switches them on and off, they have their own fuse, I used 10A. Just cable tied the trailing sockets to the harness / heater pipes, fine for phone charger / lap top.... Dead cheap at VWP, but you have to solder the cables.

I also have fused power direct to the battery, with connector blocks in the footwell & boot, so I can connect a charger or cig lighter socket for charging battery or leaving accessories charging or blowing up air beds...

Dave

[nztrev]

I have two cigar lighters,
I find it alot easier when I have a mate in the car and we want to light up two cigerettes at the same time with the top down.

[steve-v8s]

If you want to fit a socket to run auxiliary devices like Sat Nav I would suggest you choose a better type of connector. The Cigarette lighter is a horrible connector which is prone to overheating when used as a power socket. If you do stick with the Ciggy type then take care to use the appropriate fuse and grade of wire, just in case someone actually plugs a lighter into the socket as they draw a lot more current than your Sat Nav will. When using a lighter socket for power take off (or charging) always use a fused plug. The in car fuse will have a high rating compared to most accessory applications which represents a fire risk unless they are properly protected.

[spend]

Does anybody actually use the car lighter to light up?

Being an ardent smoker, have never taken to using car cig lighters anyway.. Even if I could reach it without dislocating my shoulder, dont like waiting for the thing to pop up, burning weed sticking to the element, dropping the thing on the carpet, hot ash flying down the road... Real smokers have proper lighters :-) I thought it was only there for the benefit of Leven.

Dave