Just about to take off for Palm Springs, I have a 12v cooler that plugs into the cig lighter.Yes a 12v system in the car. Yesterday upon unplugging it after driving to Ventura, I found it to be hot enough to burn my fingers! HUH? Do not remember this before, IS THIS SAFE and halfway normal? Typical of "high" draw like coolers, what about spotlights, phone chargers etc. I'd like to avoid burning up the car! I'm an electrical *****!
I would say your connection was not to good. Maybe clean both and make shure it is pushed in all the way. Gary
It was not drawing enough current to blow the fuse, probably. Having a poor connection adds resistance, and that will make heat.
l Bad connections start fires, "coolers" is a distraction from the issue. The inside of the plug could be messed up where the wires connect as well as corrosion inside the socket
If it's an old lighter socket used to light cigs back in the day, the socket is probably all corroded inside.
I would suggest replacing the lighter with a new one. Also make sure the ground is good. I used a new style lighter plug that has a ground spade connection as well as a hot plug. Sent from my iPad using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
I had a phone charger do the same thing in my daily driver....charger was shorted internally. I tossed it.
I'd much rather use ice for cooling then expect an automotive 12 volt system to provide enough power for an electric cooler. Whats the amperage rating on your alternator? You must of ran the **** out of it to produce enough heat to burn your hand. Lots of cars with new equipment such a electric fans, power windows, A/C, headlights, audio systems and the like have under powered alternators that are incapable keeping up with high electrical loads they were never designed for. Gary
The cigar lighter plugs are not really suited to a full-time high current draw, their contact area is pretty feeble. You could run some heavy gauge wire straight from your battery (through a suitable fuse) to an Anderson plug and socket. Those things are meant to supply high current, with minimal voltage drop. If stuff gets hot enough to burn fingers, it is not far from PVC insulation melting temperature. This is 34.7 degrees below "Oh ****, I have a wiring fire!" temperature.
If you are going to use this cooler much I would install a separate dedicated plug in with a wire and fuse approximately 10% over its rating. I would connect it directly to the starter solenoid. A #10 AWG wire is rated at 30 amp and will probably be what you need. I would use THHN Insulated wire extra flexible. Good luck.
And a 10 AWG wire is rated at 30 amps depending on the Length of the run........ Sent from my Z958 using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
As everyone said, the coolers are a heavy amp draw, and if you have ever held in a cigarette light in the socket to get it nice and glowing for that cigar light up, they got so hot it was almost too hot to hold,,, now that most people don't smoke, they have forgotten. And now that they are 'power ports' in the new cars the plugs are really made for low amp draw for phones and cameras, it is easy to ***ume they will handle the amp draw of a vehicle appliance. But no,, do as mentioned get a unique/specialized socket.
That's what the NEC rates it for in building use. It is actually rated up to 40A depending on the insulation used including automotive wiring.
The current rating of wire depends on how hot you want to let it get, and also how much voltage drop you can live with. A 10 AWG wire will handle a lot more than 30 amps, but it will get warm (or hot) doing so.
Gary, did you check your fuse to see if someone replaced it with a larger capacity? I've see that before also.
THANKS ALL! It seems obvious that I should toss the cooler and go with ICE! Ice never started a fire! Who knew?
Gary, great choice. Why load up your electric system for a $1-$2 bag of ice? Besides those 12V coolers are basically worthless when it comes to cooling. Gary
how well do you think the spring loaded plunger can create its contact? Chances are it's a cig lighter socket and not a power point Socket. They are different. Most cig lighters have a 25 amp fuse,
On some (all?) older cars the cig lighter is not fused and is wired direct with a 10 awg wire and is always hot . So you can pull a lot of amps through the original cig lighter sockets and you can burn up the wiring harness if you connect something with a really heavy electrical load.The socket was meant, originally, to get the cig lighter element hot (which pulled a fair amount of amps) but the cig lighter wasn't "on" for very long so it didn't matter. However, the socket wasn't meant to run with continuously high electrical loads like the cooler.
Plus your beverages will be much colder with lots of ice. Those electric coolers don't get that cold.
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