Tapping too much power from cigarette lighter?

[simple]

Hello electrical experts,

I'm a little concerned about overloading or burning something on my 4runner. I used an 'add a circuit' fuse tap on my cig lighter fuse on my kickpanel fusebox. It's a 10a fuse and I placed another 10a fuse in the empty circuit. My concern is that I have a dash cam, a forward facing cam, and now a QI phone charger off that 'add a circuit'. I'm also concerned about say simultaneously charging something off my cigarette lighter.

Am I overthinking this, or is there something else I can, or should tap, to spread the load, so to speak.

Thanks

 

[wcjeep]

Why not home run a fused power wire from the batery? If you want it to turn on/off with the key you could include a relay with keyed power as the relay trigger.

 

[cloud]

The fuse will probably protect you unless you are subject to Murphy's law frequently. Pretty sure the power runs through the main fuse first so as long as you don't exceed the original circuit draw you should be fine.

I'd check the draw on that wireless charger, I bet it's crazy high amperage.

At this point, a bus bar and some inline fuses might be best for your accessories. Better would be an additional fuse box like people install with dual battery setups. Blue sea systems makes good stuff.

Sent from my XT1710-02 using Tapatalk

 

[woodman60]

Hello electrical experts,

I'm a little concerned about overloading or burning something on my 4runner. I used an 'add a circuit' fuse tap on my cig lighter fuse on my kickpanel fusebox. It's a 10a fuse and I placed another 10a fuse in the empty circuit. My concern is that I have a dash cam, a forward facing cam, and now a QI phone charger off that 'add a circuit'. I'm also concerned about say simultaneously charging something off my cigarette lighter.

Am I overthinking this, or is there something else I can, or should tap, to spread the load, so to speak.

Thanks

Not an electrical expert, but I plugged an add a fuse into an unused slot (seat heater I think). Seemed better than jumping off of the lighter.

 

[unevolved]

This doesn't need to be a "guesstimate." You can look up the power consumption of your particular devices, and add them up to figure out how close you are to the original power draw.

If it makes you feel any better, resistive heaters like in cigarette lighters draw a ton of amperage, so the total power consumption of all your devices is probably just fine.

 

[kevinpt]

i agree with above. i used an add a circuit not to long ago on a motorcycle project with fuse panel and ended up using it as a trigger wire for a relay off the battery to be safe. still ended up being a nice compact setup in the end

 

[ZiaMan]

My wife blew the cigarette plug fuse when she tried to use the viair pump the the lighter instead of the battery so as long as your factory fuse will blow if overloaded you should be fine. I run a bunch of emergency lights through my lighter now and it’s fine. As long as your not adding the fuse capacities together (don’t remember serial vs parallel circuits atm) you should be fine. Also doesn’t seem like a ton of stuff to me either.

 

[simple]

Gents, I really appreciate all the responses. Because I'm weird, I don't like the idea of having a switched wire off the battery..

However, I have found several live blanks on my kick panel fuse box. Is there any reason why I can't tap into one of those live fuses? They give me 12v, and non of them are always hot, which I like. Spreading the love so to speak onto some of those blanks would be nice.

One other thing I recently learned was that the add a fuse circuit actually matters what side you install it on. No idea there was a draw and load side. I always just used the same size fuse for both ports, too, and plugged it in whichever way obstructed less fuses. Lol, the more you know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8b9CvUMcNQo