I currently have about 6 neon tubes running through my 12v output at the cigarette lighter spliced...
today I bought a 7" lcd screen and am going to need to buy a power inverter within the next couple of days as welll, both of which will need a 12v power source. I'm wondering if there are any safety issues with running this all through the single 12v socket??? will this overload anything? or is it all realtive, is 6 things plugged into one 12v the same as 6 things pluged into 6 different 12v power sources??

its all fused at the beginning so I don't think its going to do any damage to anything... is it?

thanks for any help!

-Rocky

 

Uh, stop plugging crap into your lighter. Neon tubes have a low amperage draw, so they're fine... but you're starting to talk about some real draw with the inverter. Hardwire things, you'll be much happier.

(Hardwire = Run a wire out to the + of the batterey, then ground to the frame. USE A FUSE!)

 

yea I figured as much. I haven't plugged anything in yet as I haven't even bought the inverter yet, I'm planning on doing the whole LCD + PS2 install tonight.

Thanks for the info man
I apreciate it.

-Rocky

 

how do you know what size fuse to use?

 

Check the power fuse on the power inverter first, since it's the largest load. Then tack on the LCD (shouldn't be that much) and the neon's are .5a each. (Well... most are) Add these together, and round to the nearest fuse you can find. (I wouldn't expect it to be much more than 20a)

What the fuse is really for is to protect the rest of the car, not to protect the equipment on the other end. If your power wire happened to short to ground, it would very quickly become a glowing orange wire of fire. The fuse is really only to prevent this from happening.

 

wicked. thanks for the info.
I picked up my power inverter yesterday and went and got some advice on wiring. I installed my screen last night (althought it isn't very steady so I'm thinking about moving it). Hopefully I can install the rest tonight

 

just a suggestion...

when planning fuses, it's pretty much industry standard to use 1.25x as large a fuse as the constant load you will be drawing. so if you figure out that you're gonna draw a constant 10 amps, you should ideally use a 12.5amp fuse (good luck finding one of those, 12 amps should be good). this allows for some room in case the voltage spikes at the source or for a slight bit of interference. otherwise you are likely going to continue to blow fuses every time you power the system up.