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Cigarette Adapter, Is It Worthwhile?


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I have checked other forum posts for a while now, and couldn't find anything specific to my question. So I'll post it here. I was wondering if the Cigarette adapter was worth buying. Now, I'll be in the car for quite a while. Looking at maybe 12+ hours of driving, lets just say i'm driving a full 24, i'm still wondering if the adapter is the power supply route to go.

 

I have 2300mah rechargalbe batteries. I also have a thing (forget the name) that converts the cig port in my car into a normal "plug socket". So if I had my battery charger hooked up to that, charging 4 AA's while the 2 in the system were being used, would I be able to maintain constant power?

 

I guess the real question is: Lets say you're using your Garmin Legend Cx with the backlight turned on, on the map screen, in 'normal' mode. How long will those two batteries last? If they last 8 hours, it seems I would be in the clear. Now, the package claims 36 hours in "battery saver mode, with no backlight" so i'm just wondering what that crazy little thing can actually do when it has the power draining things turned on.

 

Thanks.

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I don't want to charge the batteries or change them unless I need to, every minute it is hooked up to the 12v is one more minute I have on the batteries. It is especially useful on road trips, I can leave the backlight on after dark for as long as needed, and not have to worry about changing out the batteries.

Edited by Airmapper
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I use 15-minute Energizer rechargeable batteries, which are very convenient, but I also have the cigarette-lighter adapter. At night it is nice to have the GPSr lit up all the time, not just before it tells me where to turn.

 

In short, I think it is well worth the cost. :lol:

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In agreement with Airmapper here. It definitely helps to improve battery life if you can take advantage of another powersource when it's available. I use a quick disconnect cradle from Magellan for my MeriPlat to make it more convenient. I can set the GPS in the cradle on the fly or remove it on the fly and it makes for a nice safe place to hold onto the GPS while driving. I don't have to worry about hard stops or turns making it slide all over the place. The photo below makes it look like it's in your face, but it really isn't. The horizon of the hood is barely broken from my perspective and the position gives it a clear view of the sky to catch as many satellites as possible.

 

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In agreement with Airmapper here. It definitely helps to improve battery life if you can take advantage of another powersource when it's available. I use a quick disconnect cradle from Magellan for my MeriPlat to make it more convenient. I can set the GPS in the cradle on the fly or remove it on the fly and it makes for a nice safe place to hold onto the GPS while driving. I don't have to worry about hard stops or turns making it slide all over the place. The photo below makes it look like it's in your face, but it really isn't. The horizon of the hood is barely broken from my perspective and the position gives it a clear view of the sky to catch as many satellites as possible.

 

IMAGE090.JPG

IMAGE086.JPG

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That looks like a 1994 Jeep dashboard and interior ... I should know, I drive a 1994 Jeep Grand Cherokee Larado. It has 254,000 miles on the engine and still purrs like a Siberian Saber-toothed Tiger.

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That looks like a 1994 Jeep dashboard and interior ... I should know, I drive a 1994 Jeep Grand Cherokee Larado. It has 254,000 miles on the engine and still purrs like a Siberian Saber-toothed Tiger.

It is a 94 GC Laredo. :lol: Until January, it was in good condition with a rebuilt drivetrain good for another 50K miles. A small impact bent the frame :lol: and I'm now in the market for a good shell to drop the drivetrain into. It's a great vehicle and has seen off-road and deep snow use with the standard M/S tires with no issues.

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If your going to be using the GPSr while your are driving, your going to be using up the batteries. Even though your inverter/charger setup will be charging batteries while you drive, you'll still have to change them. I bought an after market GPSr windshield mount/power cable on E-Bay for $25.00 and put it my Geomobile.

 

GEOMOBILE CROSSING A RIVER.

HillbillyFlyinMachine.jpg

 

Inside view

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Edited by Woodbutcher68
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the question was asked because I'm wondering how long the GPS will last with the backlight on the whole time. If it will maintain for 3 hours, then I can just keep switching the batteries that i'm charging, and always have a full charge for the field (plus an extra two), as well as a good cycle of constant power in the car.

 

if the GPSr will drain the two AA's in under three hours, then the charger may become neccisary.

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the question was asked because I'm wondering how long the GPS will last with the backlight on the whole time. If it will maintain for 3 hours, then I can just keep switching the batteries that i'm charging, and always have a full charge for the field (plus an extra two), as well as a good cycle of constant power in the car.

 

if the GPSr will drain the two AA's in under three hours, then the charger may become neccisary.

 

There are a few things you need to consider here. 1. you will not have constant power supply using batteries. You will have to take them out, change them, turn the GPS back on, let it re-acquire lock, and re-enter a destination (if you were using routing or destination). 2. Rechargeables can't be recharged an unlimited number of times. Granted, it might take a while to get to the max number, but if you drive as much as you say you do, you'll get there.

So, for that future cost of a new pair of rechargeables, just buy a DC adapter. The hassle of switching batteries alone would be enough to spur me into buying one.

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I bought a cable from www.pfranc.com that lets me power my Garmin etrex AND my iPaq PDA, and connects the GPS to the PDA so I can use my mapping/routing software on it. It's really sweet! Since the cable provides power, it saves the batteries in my GPSr and actually charges the PDA battery. The same cable will also connect to a serial port on a laptop (there's a little adapter for the PDA that disconnects to alow the serial port hookup). Why use battery power in your car if you don't need to?

 

I also have the Ray-O-Vac rechargeable battery system that charges 4 AA batts in 15 minutes, and that charger runs from the car's cig lighter as well as 120v AC, so I can charge my batteries while driving between caches. That's pretty handy too!

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why use battery power? Because my car only has one cig adapter, and I need to run a bunch of things all at once (mp3 player, digital camera, memory card cd burner, gps, and some other hideous things... it's a road trip so all electronics need to be powered through that port). If I use the GPS cig adapter then that blocks my only power source, however if I use the thing that turns the adapter into a regular outlet, i hook a powerbar up to that, and can run all of them (while constantly cycling through the battery charging/replacing for my GPSr)

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You need to be cautious with using inverters to charge re-chargeable batteries.

 

For my inverter, that converts 12v dc to 110 ac, the manufacturer has cautioned that some battery operated device recharges may be damaged if plugged into the AC outlet of the inverter. In particular they suggested contacting the equipment manufacturer to "determine the rechargeable appliance's compatibility with the modified sine wave (non-sinusoidal) AC waveform.

 

I was advised by my equipment manufacturer that it requires a clean sine wave and not to use the battery charger through the inverter.

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I have the best of both worlds. I use the standard cigarette power plug when in my vehicle to save on batteries. However, I also have the Energizer 15 minute charger with not only the standard wall plug but also the cigarette lighter adapter. This adapter is made for the charger (I bought it as a package) and it will charge my batteries in 15 minutes from the cigarette lighter. When I took a trip from CA to OR to ID to MT to WY to NV and back to CA I used the regular cigarette adapter most of the time while in the vehicle. When I was caching outside of the vehicle I didn't worry about my batteries because I always had a spare set of fully charged batteries with me - and I could recharge them in 15 minutes from the cigarette lighter when I ran them down. To get the charger and batteries with the additional cigarette lighter adapter was only about $10 more than the same unit with only the wall plug. Having both types of charge ability has been great and well worth the minimal price difference.

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why use battery power? Because my car only has one cig adapter, and I need to run a bunch of things all at once (mp3 player, digital camera, memory card cd burner, gps, and some other hideous things... it's a road trip so all electronics need to be powered through that port). If I use the GPS cig adapter then that blocks my only power source, however if I use the thing that turns the adapter into a regular outlet, i hook a powerbar up to that, and can run all of them (while constantly cycling through the battery charging/replacing for my GPSr)

 

There are multi-ports power strips you can plug into the single cigar lighter. I have a triple port plugged into mine and use it to run my GPS, cellphone, and my PDA. Any one of those can be unplugged to run something else if need be, such as a battery charger that has a cigar lighter adapter. These mult-ports run about $20.

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The Energizer 15-minute charger comes with the cigarette-lighter adapter as well as the AC plug with four 2500 Energizer batteries for about $40.00 at Target. Maybe less on sale.

 

I got the regular 15-minute charger for about $25.00, with four batteries, and have used it with my inverter, but only a few times.

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why use battery power? Because my car only has one cig adapter, and I need to run a bunch of things all at once (mp3 player, digital camera, memory card cd burner, gps, and some other hideous things... it's a road trip so all electronics need to be powered through that port). If I use the GPS cig adapter then that blocks my only power source, however if I use the thing that turns the adapter into a regular outlet, i hook a powerbar up to that, and can run all of them (while constantly cycling through the battery charging/replacing for my GPSr)

 

Kiss your alternator goodbye. Maybe they've beefed up systems in the last couple of years to deal with the amount of electronics people plug in, but older (I'm going to say even pre-2000) vehicles just weren't made to run a small office off the dc port/cigarette lighter. The added draw on your car's electrical system, above what it was designed and intended to do---run your car. It'll run fine for a while, but you'll be haulin down the road someday and that little 'battery' idiot light is gonna light up. Guess what? Your alternator just threw in the towel. My advice at this point...unlplug/turn off EVERYTHING you don't need, because your car is only going to run as long as you've got juice in your battery. Just giving you the heads-up; I've helped 4 or 5 friends back to town by playing the "hook jumper cables up, charge their battery, drive 5 miles until they run outta juice again, wash, rinse, repeat until you're back to town."

 

Keep it in mind..

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The biggest advantage to using external power over battery is that the backlight will (at least it does on mine) stay on. With battery power the backlight will shut off after a few moments.

 

I think this is a setting on the Garmin V, you can select the backlight remain on indefinitely with external power.

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Kiss your alternator goodbye. Maybe they've beefed up systems in the last couple of years to deal with the amount of electronics people plug in, but older (I'm going to say even pre-2000) vehicles just weren't made to run a small office off the dc port/cigarette lighter. The added draw on your car's electrical system, above what it was designed and intended to do---run your car. It'll run fine for a while, but you'll be haulin down the road someday and that little 'battery' idiot light is gonna light up. Guess what? Your alternator just threw in the towel. My advice at this point...unlplug/turn off EVERYTHING you don't need, because your car is only going to run as long as you've got juice in your battery. Just giving you the heads-up; I've helped 4 or 5 friends back to town by playing the "hook jumper cables up, charge their battery, drive 5 miles until they run outta juice again, wash, rinse, repeat until you're back to town."

 

Keep it in mind..

For short runs and frankly, even on an all day run, my '94 hasn't had any issues. The voltage meter isn't showing any appreciable load for small items like the GPS, PDA and cell phone. Now when you start talking about power hogs like laptop long term use, then you will start seeing a problem.

 

You need to keep in perspective too, this warning is effective only when you have all the electronics the automaker has installed at the sametime you're running the other add-ons (e.g. lights, installed radio/CD Player, AC/Heater, etc.)

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Kiss your alternator goodbye. Maybe they've beefed up systems in the last couple of years to deal with the amount of electronics people plug in, but older (I'm going to say even pre-2000) vehicles just weren't made to run a small office off the dc port/cigarette lighter. The added draw on your car's electrical system, above what it was designed and intended to do---

 

---Will just blow a fuse. As long as you don't overload the cig circuit or drain your battery down too far (with the engine off) you will be just fine. I've been doing this for years.

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