“always hot” iphone or other charging and Cigarette Plug Adapter for MacPro charging? (1 Viewer)

[landcruiser3DP]

anyone mind helping me with two issues?
1. is there a good reliable plug for charging a mac air in a 97 LX450 (80 series LC)
2. KEY ON gets power to the cigarette lighter i guess? i guess the Key On pulls more power (not sure how much) than just the iphone charging? is it worthwhile to try to wire some kind of always hot iphone charger and if so how would i do this?
3. i’ve got a cig plug “splitter”. is there a better way to get more outlets and/or any good threads on wiring up more “hot outlets”?
total noob so thanks for any intel.
- jon

 

[gregnash]

When you say "always hot" what are you exactly talking about??? To me this would seem that you are looking for that particular plug (or set of plugs in this case) to have power no matter if the key is in the ignition or not. Is that a correct assumption?

Main drawback with this is that if you leave something plugged in you run the risk of completely draining your battery.

For powering/charging your macbook you are looking for a power inverter I would assume. This provides much better power supply to your macbook and will also provide cleaner power. Lots of ways that guys do this, just depends on how many outlets are needed. You could easily mount something in or below the glovebox that would allow for the necessary power supply.

 

[landcruiser3DP]

When you say "always hot" what are you exactly talking about??? To me this would seem that you are looking for that particular plug (or set of plugs in this case) to have power no matter if the key is in the ignition or not. Is that a correct assumption?

Main drawback with this is that if you leave something plugged in you run the risk of completely draining your battery.

For powering/charging your macbook you are looking for a power inverter I would assume. This provides much better power supply to your macbook and will also provide cleaner power. Lots of ways that guys do this, just depends on how many outlets are needed. You could easily mount something in or below the glovebox that would allow for the necessary power supply.

hey man. thanks. yeah, so slowly trying to teach myself low voltage elektrikery. making some progress

just thinking out loud but yeah always hot would be live direct to the battery. switched hot i understand to be what i have now.

so some thoughts? i am thinking it would be a terribly long time for me to drain a battery with an iphone plugged in. i mean. i’d have to dig up numbers but in some ways i am thinking the always hot would be preferable to turning the key to ON and plugging s phone in there to charge it fully.

you know what i mean? i mean, i am guessing but the remount of time it would take to charge a phone to full with the key ON i would guess is more than having a phone plugged in to an”hot plug” that was always on for some number of days.

but i am just thinking out loud really.

maybe i need to keep an external battery always plugged in and when i need to fully charge a phone i pull out the battery and plug it in to the phone instead of turning the key on..?

anyone making a cigarette lighter with no need to invert power?

also - any recommendations on a quality power inverter?

THANKS

 

[Dharma Dude]

A simple solution, but maybe not as neat. I have a big lithium power pack charging from the lighter socket pretty much all the time. I charge my phone from the power pack when the car is off. My power pack can charge my phone a couple of times easily.

 

[landcruiser3DP]

thanks to everyone for the help. just as an update i checked back with this guy "mike gyver" who has been working on this issue for awhile. apparently the mac chargers are proprietary technology and they clamp down on anyone using it. and for some reason no DC chargers from mac. so mike apparently engineered his own solution and is now selling it. and he's reached a sort of production phase with it now.

if anyone is interested i can post more when i get it and start using it. but i can say the dude is a great guy and the products look pretty darn good.

plus side is you are not having to convert anything so it is more efficient. also you don't have to drag around another part in the form of a converted. and it is not made in china.

MCT: Macbook, Surface Pro, Surface Book, Dell, Battery and Car Adapters

i'll update if anyone is interested.

- jonathan

 

[ChaseTruck]

Back in the day when I ran a Mac PowerBook G4 (with a USB GPS antenna puck, and Mac GPS Pro software & maps) in my trail truck, I simply wired its 12V power adapter to connect directly to the battery... worked just fine. I'm now using an (old) iPad2 running Gaia software.