mx5cartalk.com

Has anyone with an NB8A added an additional 12v Socket?

I'm sick of changing gears and hitting my phone charger

I'm not particularly familiar with the NB dash... Zombie has one of those quadruple adaptors in the cubby hole.

Given you use your phone charger pretty often, have you considered hard-wiring it in?

Na I don't wanna hard wire it

What I'd do, piggy back another socket on the existing one and just run some cable so it hangs on the right or the left or even back to the centre console compartment.

Why do you charge your phone so often? As an easier fix than rewiring stuff, why not just charge it at home? The charger that gets given to you in the box is much more efficient at charging your phone than the el cheapo car chargers.

My advice would be to just keep the 12v car charger in the glove box in an emergency, and just do all your mobile charging through your regular mains power. That way you can also keep the look of your car interior much nicer without having the hunk of plastic sticking out of the console. Oh, and your shifts will be a lot easier too

marcusus wrote:Why do you charge your phone so often? As an easier fix than rewiring stuff, why not just charge it at home? The charger that gets given to you in the box is much more efficient at charging your phone than the el cheapo car chargers.

My advice would be to just keep the 12v car charger in the glove box in an emergency, and just do all your mobile charging through your regular mains power. That way you can also keep the look of your car interior much nicer without having the hunk of plastic sticking out of the console. Oh, and your shifts will be a lot easier too

Well lets say my phone is also a GPS unit which drains battery faster than ever so I need 12v to run it

Yes I always charge my phone at home but I pretty much drain the battery within 1 an half days LOL

AZNTieN wrote:Yes I always charge my phone at home but I pretty much drain the battery within 1 an half days LOL

Same here, but that's cos the battery's shagged.

A little off topic here... DID YOU KNOW...? Lithium Ion (unlike NmH) batteries are not designed to be (1) left on charging the whole time and (2) should not be drained. They last best with lots of ~50% charges. Leaving them on to charge too much apparently raises the temperature and can cook them.
Thank you Wikipedia.
Explains why my laptop battery had a life of 3.5hrs, now has around 35mins - I left the battery in and the powerpack on 24/7 for a year or two
And now you know! AND KNOWING IS HALF THE BATTLE!

Hey, don't tell people that. I make a good living outta selling new mobile batteries to all the dills who bugger their batteries!

To go back to the original topic, erm, a year later, I'm having the same problem with the gearlever knob or my fingers hitting the phone charger where it plugs into the 12v socket. Get a short shifter I hear some say. Or stiffer engine/gearbox mounts so the shifter isn't being moved about so much when it's running 14psi. Not bad ideas, but maybe there are cheaper options?

Not being an electrician, but either being prepared to have a go myself, or wanting to avoid looking too much of a fool if I seek professional help, where can I either re-site the existing 12v socket (and how to fill the original hole?) or fit an extra 12v socket, or should I just get something hard wired?

Whatever gets done need to suit a USB outlet to charge an iPhone and might need to have more than the normal output because said iPhone is usually used as satnav, mp3 player and phone, amongst other things, usually 2 or 3 of them at the same time and loses charge, along with gaining heat, very quickly. I may also want to use other items including a cool box, and a 240v inverter which plugs into a normal 12v outlet and would power things like my laptop.

Ideally I'd also like this setup to be a) permanently live and b) to have some way of both this setup and all the other electrics powering down if the battery loses so much charge that it would no longer start the car. a) is so the coolbox could keep running when I'm out of the car. b) is to avoid the flat battery I had last week when I left the sidelights on all day (doh! - I know there's a warning buzzer. It was disabled with masking tape over the sensor because I'd been working on the car the night before. Yes, I always carry a booster pack. I took it out the night before.)

Back when I spent many late nights driving and using a UHF hand held radio (with ciggy charge attachment) I had a double socket point that I got from a generic car parts supplier that I located between the seats, did the job well. Sorry I don't have any photos.

I did and I also have a Mobile with GPS (Nokia & Garmin Maps) - I had a dual outlet installed in my old NB8A console, wiring was easy, up through the console from the dash. I am now considering fitting an extra outlet in the small space to the right of the steering wheel just above the fuse box.

Another solution which I currently use is a car kit for ipods and iphones - "ALLTRAX" Brand $49.95, it has a bendy stalk with a holder, built in plug for charging iphones & ipods, radio transmitter which works great and a free USB port for charging anything USB.
I have an AUX input jack for my stereo, so I just plug it directly into the ipod touch.

I found if you zip tie the lead to the body of the charger , it won't interfere with the gear changes.

you can easily buy a power cord with dual outlet plug- simple cheap and effective.

I put a second cig lighter socket in the glove box. The cable was thin enough to run out through the glove box opening when it was shut and cig lighter in use, and then would just go back into the glove box when not in use. I just wired it from the back of the factory cig lighter, de-commissioned the factory lighter. The socket in the glove box was on the end of a longish cable so that I could run it out into the cabin. Worked well for me

Edit: just re-read this and it could be misleading The cig lighter was wired from the back of the factory one, and the lead then went around behind the console and into the glove box, where it connected to a new cig lighter socket.