What’s up with my power port? (1 Viewer)

[TeCKis300]

I charge mine using the 6mm ac adapter plugged into the inverter in the hatch. Reliably puts > 100w back in. Not sure if it matters but I have the non-lithium 400.

Hah, I tried this today with my GZ 1000. And what would you know, the power adapter is a pig and wants to draw 160W from the 100W inverter output. It cuts in and out. No worky.

Time to install a cig lighter output. Anyone got pics of where they located theirs?

 

[Itsky]

I don’t have a pic but I installed mine near the right wheel well area of my KISS drawers. I attached it the wood wing. I found it easy to run the wire along the passenger side floor.

 

[Markuson]

Real world testing strikes again...

Don’t know what’s going on with the weird readings...but even if the mystery is solved, I’d consider adding your own heavier-gauge, fused positive wire from the battery, larger grounded negative...and a larger-contact style 12V connector rather than the super-tiny contact allowed by standard cigarette-lighter style 12V outlets. Voltage drops, wire-heat and overloaded fuses will thank you for the relief.

Maybe choose an outlet that can be manually switched on/off, since it won’t be ignition-dependent without a bit more fiddling...

Similar example from my truck...
I ended up going to the Grand headache of squeezing TWO 1 gauge wires (both +&-) all the way back the the driver-side door panels (no small feat!). Ran the negative because relying on normal grounds resulted in crummy neg. tesistance and the advantage of +/- together. Tough to fit...but definitely paid off in less voltage drop to my large inverter in back.

 

[tbisaacs]

I don’t have a pic but I installed mine near the right wheel well area of my KISS drawers. I attached it the wood wing. I found it easy to run the wire along the passenger side floor.

Hah, I tried this today with my GZ 1000. And what would you know, the power adapter is a pig and wants to draw 160W from the 100W inverter output. It cuts in and out. No worky.

Time to install a cig lighter output. Anyone got pics of where they located theirs?

I have one of the blue sea panels. There isn’t a lot of room behind the plastic. This was the deepest spot. Only thing I don’t like is that the panel prevent me from plugging in my camera charger.

If I were to do again I’d use passenger side.

 

[TeCKis300]

Here's where I located mine. I believe this panel is occupied on the LC by the manual seat release levers. It is a nice spot with deep clearance behind, to minimize modding of the interior. Now I can't complain that I don't have cig lighter or USB ports in the trunk space.

 

[RET2]

I mounted mine in the same place but also continued across the rear and located another set on the jack cubby as well.

 

[supercarrera]

When wiring up an outlet for a fridge at the back of the truck, is it better to run a wire for negative back to the battery, or is tapping into a nearby ground point good enough?

 

[RET2]

Personally I would run both wires thereby isolating that circuit, but that's just my $.02. Way to many electrical issues are caused or compounded by cobbing things together. Would that way work, sure but a much higher rate of failure.

 

[TeCKis300]

Modern car architectures all use the unibody as a common ground path. There's junction points in the wiring harnesses that usually come together and again, are grounded to the unibody. This is standard practice for OEMs, and also typical for aftermarket part installs.
Find a good 10 or 12mm bolt head on the unibody nearby wherever you're installing and ground there. Make sure to actually grind and expose the metal of the unibody to ensure good ground contact.

 

[RET2]

[QUOTE="TeCKis300, post: 12509779, member: 64575" Make sure to actually grind and expose the metal of the unibody to ensure good ground contact.
[/QUOTE]
Grinding and exposing is not high on my list. To each his own I guess.

 

[KLF]

Personally I would run both wires thereby isolating that circuit, but that's just my $.02. Way to many electrical issues are caused or compounded by cobbing things together. Would that way work, sure but a much higher rate of failure.

Yeah Toyota really cobbed that factory harness together, using all those dozens of grounding points all over the chassis. Good point.

 

[TeCKis300]

Grinding and exposing is not high on my list. To each his own I guess.

There's good reasons for why they use the unibody. Less weight and cost as running a ground for everything would literally double the amount of copper wires needed. Less overall circuit resistance as the giant hunk of metal that is the unibody conducts power better than smaller gauge wires. Better common ground reference for sensors that read a voltage delta. I'm sure there's more I'm not thinking about at the moment.

 

[RET2]

Thanks for making my point ... it's all about the $$$. I'm back to each his own approach.