[Supras] MkIII: Something screwy with cigarette lighter socket?

[Sean Cavanaugh]

I blew the thermal fuse on it running a dinky small space heater that was rated to only 30 watts. shows what kind of resistance they have after so many years. I replaced it with wire that's thicker gauge than what the car feeds it with. Pain in the ass to solder it though.

-Sean


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Jim Wooden 
  To: Jeff Mohler 
  Cc: supras at supras.com ; Millenia2000 at hotmail.com 
  Sent: Monday, July 23, 2007 9:11 PM
  Subject: Re: [Supras] MkIII: Something screwy with cigarette lighter socket?


  Could be... but at only 40Watt draw that's a lot less than the lighter... granted the lighter really doesn't care about voltage levels, but it sure seems to be able to pull plenty of power .... and the inverter is rated to work down to 10.5V

  It could be that the chopper circuit of the inverter doesn't like the impedance it is seeing in the "old school" wiring & thermal fuse... 
  I'm sure that in 86 most folks were not thinking of running laptops & DVDs off the lighter circuit  :-P

  Thanks for the enlightenment!
  JIm


  At 02:25 PM 7/23/2007, Jeff Mohler wrote:

    As for the 03 working better...better newer wiring, perhaps even a larger guage..will feed it better than older wiring.

    Wire loses efficiency over time...its just undersupplied when the car isnt running.

    On 7/23/07, Jim Wooden <Jim at woodenu.com> wrote:

      Sean:


      Thermal fuse ... right ... those engineers in Japan  ;-)

      I suspect you are correct finecky inverter... the lighter has the

      correct open circuit voltage and also gets the lighter good and hot,

      but I'll bet somehow the thermal fuse is confusing the inverter.... 


      I guess the newer Toyotas use something different as our 2003

      Highlander runs the thing just fine!!!


      Thanks,

      Jim





      >the cigaret lighter has a smal thermal fuse in the back of it (I blew mine 

      >once, pain to replace) that may be somewhat dated and the lower voltage is

      >causing some unwanted resistance.  I think yer inverter is just too finecky.

      >

      >_Sean




      _______________________________________________ 

      Supras mailing list

      Supras at supras.com

      http://supras.com/mailman/listinfo/supras_supras.com