Wiring auxillary cigarette adapter

[koonl]

Hi all,

After being chuffed with myself wiring in my snooper to the fuse box (and saving £50 from Hellfords to do it for me), I'm ready to "hardwire" my TomTom Go. What I want to do is keep using the supplied 5v ciggy adapter that came with the TTG, plugging it into a 3-way ciggy adapter which will be hidden under the dash. Then, this 3-way adapter will tap into the wires of the existing ciggy lighter in the ashtray.

So far, what I have done is cut off the ciggy adapter from the 3-way adapter, and stuck a 10amp in-line fuse on the positive. Now can I just use Scotch-lock the positive of the 3-way to the positive of the original ciggy lighter? And do I earth the other lead to the chassis or can I also tap into the other cable of the original? I think there is a third cable in the original so I would appreciate if someone could confirm what this is and the colour of the wire.

Finally, is the postive of the original switched or permanantly live?

Thanks all

 

[Amit]

cig lighters are normaly live.

You can find the +ve wire by looking to see which wire goes to the centre pin of the socket. The other two wires are most likely the illumination as the lighter is usualy grounded to the chassis via its mounting. (depends on car)

personaly, I would take the snooper adapter apart and solder in fly leads conneted to the centre pin (+ve) and the outer wings (-ve) and connect them up behind the stereo where you will be more likely to find a switched live.

Amit

 

[Eeef]

On my golf (might be similar) there was a panel on the drivers side right under the steering wheel (parallel to the floor) Once removed there was a power terminal with 3 different connection points using nut and bolt post connections. Got some wire, soldered a circular connector onto it, undid bolt, put ring connector on, did bolt up. The other end had a spade connector on it which slid straight on to the aftermarket cigarette lighter socket that i bought. Plugged the normal TomTom lead into it and covered it in vast amounts of eletrical tape to stop them seperating.

Job done.

 

[koonl]

Yeah, that's the relays. I'm not comfortable with touching that. I managed to tap into the cigar lighter wire going to the fusebox, using the scotch-locks, and earthed to the chassis. The 3-way ciggy adapter is now under the dash and my TTG and phone charger plug into that without using the existing viggy lighter.