Probs With Cigarette Power Adapters

[+GOT GPS?]

My Cigarette plug end came unscrewed shorting out the 12 electrical in my car, big blue sparking last nite in my car.

 

Has anybody ever had this problem with adaptor cables falling apart at the cigarette adaptor end?

 

Please check your cables, are they loose?

Both my GPS 315 and GPS V cables had come apart, but it was my V's cable that shorted my car.

 

Thanks Geoff

Edited April 12, 2004 by GOT GPS?

[+fivegallon]

A big blue spark eh? hehehehe

 

Last night i saw a big blue flash when the 69,000volt lines in the sub-station i'm working at drew an arc and a blue "sheet" ran along the lines for about 70-100metres......now that's a spark!

 

only took me about a half hour to stop shaking...

[+Criminal]

Never had that problem with my V cable. I constantly lose power though when using a shadiorack splitter. That is the fault of the splitter though.

[Neo_Geo]

My Cigarette plug end came unscrewed shorting out the 12 electrical in my car, big blue sparking last nite in my car.

 

Has anybody ever had this problem with adaptor cables falling apart at the cigarette adaptor end?

 

Please check your cables, are they loose?

Both my GPS 315 and GPS V cables had come apart, but it was my V's cable that shorted my car.

 

Thanks Geoff

Is yours a Garmin cable, GPSGeek, or other manufacturer?

[+Deckyon]

One of the reasons I stick with OEM equipment, especially on items that supply POWER.

 

Cannot answer for the garmin cables, but the OEM cable I bought for my GPSr is in perfect working order after almost a year.

[+SunshineGang]

My Cigarette plug end came unscrewed shorting out the 12 electrical in my car, big blue sparking last nite in my car.

 

Has anybody ever had this problem with adaptor cables falling apart at the cigarette adaptor end?

 

Please check your cables, are they loose?

Both my GPS 315 and GPS V cables had come apart, but it was my V's cable that shorted my car.

 

Thanks Geoff

I have had trouble with cigartte plugs for other devices like cell phone chargers coming apart in the plug but not my Garmin GPS cable... Does it say garmin on it or is it just an aftermarket cable?

 

You might be able to get a replace plug from radio shack and splice it on your cable

Edited April 12, 2004 by SunshineGang

[+Learned Gerbil]

I bought a second hand GPS 320 that came with a lead. The metal ring fell of the end of the cigarette adaptor after a couple of weeks, and the internals fell out. I fortunatly had not tried to use it.

[CacheMonkeez]

My Cigarette plug end came unscrewed shorting out the 12 electrical in my car, big blue sparking last nite in my car.

 

Has anybody ever had this problem with adaptor cables falling apart at the cigarette adaptor end?

 

Please check your cables, are they loose?

Both my GPS 315 and GPS V cables had come apart, but it was my V's cable that shorted my car.

 

Thanks Geoff

Yes. I had my cigarette adapter cable come unscrewed and expose the in-line fuse. Just had to put it back together again. No sparks.

[+Learned Gerbil]

On mine nothing came unscrewed. The metal ring that surrounds the spring loaded spigot on the end came away. i have no idea what was meant ot hold it but it was nto screwed in. Whe i found the ring loose the spring loaded plunger parts were all missing so I guess they sprang off and are lost.

[+JohnnyVegas]

I had the end of my Magellan cable fail. I called them and they sent me a new one N/C. They didn't even want to old one back

[+Lone Duck]

That's one reason to not twist them when inserting or removing them. Live and learn, I guess. They are usually designed that way because the fuse for those things is in the plug.

 

If you find yourself twisting one of those after plugging it in so that you get power, then you can do what I have done in the past: Get a two socket adaptor and plug into that. The plugs and sockets don't always match up to each other very well.

[+GeckoGeek]

You might be able to get a replace plug from radio shack and splice it on your cable

The cigarette lighter end usually hold the electronics to drop the voltage. Simply replacing it with a generic plug will fry your GPS.

[+ariha]

I have had my fuse burst once when I unplugged it scared me to death, kind of welded the cigarette plug to the socket

[+Ertman110]

You might be able to get a replace plug from radio shack and splice it on your cable 

The cigarette lighter end usually hold the electronics to drop the voltage. Simply replacing it with a generic plug will fry your GPS.

Thanks for the heads up, I was about to replace the plug, glad I didn't

[+GeckoGeek]

Thanks for the heads up, I was about to replace the plug, glad I didn't

Dissect the old plug to see what all it contained and if it can be transplanted into a new home.

[+Ertman110]

If I applied 12 VDC to the led, it would light up, but nothing else seems to work, so I trashed it.

[+Couparangus]

I've never had any trouble with mine. Mind you, its a home-brewed one. I used the pFranc connector to connect to the GPS. For the cigar-lighter adapter I used a NOS (new old stock) cellular telephone adapter and modified the buck-convertor to put out 3.15Vdc instead of the 8.2Vdc. In so doing I noticed something interesting about my eMap. Although it will work merrily at 2Vdc, its important to have the output a very steady 3.15Vdc. Why? Well, it would appear the unit will draw its current from the supply with highest voltage. That's right, if the batteries are fresh & new it will drain these to the same voltage as the external input before taking its current from there. The external power icon will be on alright, but its misleading in this case. I'm not sure if other Garmin units are the same. Also noticed that the eMap doesn't like a fast rise-time when the external power is applied and will do a factory reset, which is both alarming and annoying. This was resolved by strapping a small capacitor across the Vref in the regulator circuit. I hope this information was of use to someone. I'm keen on getting a schematic of this unit as I'm confident I could affect some useful modifications.

 

Cheers!

Coupar-Angus