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Flight distance : 165105 ft
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Inadvertently double posted, it’s removed thanks. ;-)
So anyways...
Most modern vehicles have the cigarette lighter socket only live when the ignition is on. It is very simple to change this to a constant fused feed, but make sure that no children could put a cigarette lighter in the socket and start a fire or burn themselves, as this was the primary reason that cigarette lighters in cars were changed to the accessory circuit quite a few years ago. A lot of cars have a ‘power’ socket which is compatible with the same plugs and these are often live all the time as they are great for inspection lamps, vacuum cleaners etc. . To use this method to charge the car battery is simply a matter of wiring your battery charger of whatever type to a cigarette lighter plug, but if your charging source is a high capacity (high current) source such as another car battery or high capacity charger it is essential that you have a fuse in the circuit of no more than 10 amps.
Bear in mind that the tip of the plug on your charging lead is now at 12v+ and you would short your charging circuit if you grounded it anywhere, including to the outer part of the socket - so only activate the charging side AFTER the plug is connected.
You can’t use this method for an immediate ‘jump start’, but 20 minutes of charge from a good source should enable enough charge to start a car if the battery was low. If you simply want a method of connecting a trickle charger, either mains or solar, there are OBD2 charging connectors available which go into the diagnostic port and in which case you don’t need to modify any wiring.
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