Whats A Car Cigarette Lighter
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A car cigarette lighter is a device that is used to heat up an object so that it can create a fire. The object that is being heated up is usually a piece of metal or glass. The heat from the object will then cause the lighter fluid to ignite and produce a flame.
Over the years, the design of the car cigarette lighter has changed very little. However, the materials that are used to make it have changed considerably.
The original metals that were used to make the lighters were quite dangerous and could cause fires if they were not used properly. Today, there are much safer materials that are used to make the lighters.
The car cigarette lighter is a very useful tool for many people. It can be used to light cigarettes, cigars, and pipes. It can also be used to light campfires and grills. If you are ever in a situation where you need to start a fire, a car cigarette lighter can be a lifesaver.
Replace With A New Fuse
The fuse box, as previously stated, contains fuses for a variety of other functions in the vehicle. Each fuse has a unique color and number allocated to it.
It is possible to discover an existing replacement or purchase a new one once you have located the blown fuse.
Its not as difficult as you may think to replace the fuse, but you must be careful and make sure its properly aligned. Its important to move slowly, as a rapid movement could crack the replacement.
Check The Device You Want To Power From The Cigarette Lighter
There is a hard limit on the current that you can draw from a cigarette lighter socket or any 12-volt accessory socket. If the device that you want to power up via your cigarette lighter draws more amperage, then its a simple fact that the fuse will blow every time you plug it in.
In most cases, cigarette lighter circuits use 15 amp fuses, but you can check the fuse box in your vehicle to be sure. Youll then want to check the device youre trying to plug in to see how much amperage it draws. Cell phone chargers are usually designed to work with cigarette lighter sockets without blowing a fuse, but other devices, like cigarette lighter inverters, can easily overload the circuit.
Even if your 12-volt device, charger, adapter, or inverter is designed to draw less than 15 amps, its still worth inspecting the plug. If the plug is broken, worn out, or has something stuck on it, plugging it in may cause a direct short between power and ground inside the cigarette lighter socket.
If youve only ever tried to plug one thing into your cigarette lighter, it may even be worth trying a different 12-volt charger or adapter just to rule out a problem with the one that you have been using. Or you could also use an ohmmeter to check for an internal short in your adapter.
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How Long Can You Charge Your Phone In Your Car
A fully charged 200 amp-hour battery will, in theory, deliver 20 amps for 10 hours or 2 amps for 100 hours. The charger draws 0.3 amps, so the battery will run the charger for a maximum of 666 hours amps * 10 hours). Due to inefficiencies in batteries, the actual time will be about 2/3 of this: 444 hours.
Check The Other Electric Outlets In The Car
As indicated earlier, the most recent generation of cars is almost entirely electric and electronic. This means they have several electric outlets that serve other functions. These outlets are located at different locations within the car.
In addition to the main car cigarette lighter socket located on the drivers dashboard, there may be other additional electric outlets on the passenger dashboard, the center console as well as the rear console depending on the size of your car.
If the main car cigarette lighter is not working, to confirm whether it is faulty, you can try to plug the cords into other sockets to see if there is power in them. If there is power flowing in the other extra sockets, then for sure you have a blown fuse in your car cigarette lighter.
But if you find other sockets also lacking power supply, then the job shall have become a little more complex because you have to do a little more check-up. You may even find that all the sockets are having blown fuses simultaneously.
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How To Fix A Cigarette Lighter In Your Car: Quick And Easy Repairs
Ever wonder how to fix a cigarette lighter in your car?
Its funny that we still call them cigarette lighters.
Nowadays the people who use cigarette lighters to power their GPSs, phone chargers, dash cams, and other crazy gadgets far outnumber the people who use the ports to light cigarettes.
Anyway, if your cigarette lighter port in your car has stopped functioning, Im going to teach you how to fix it today!
This shouldnt be a hard project even if you arent a car-savvy person.
What Does A Broken Fuse Look Like
A broken fuse will have a broken metal loop from being overloaded. To get a better idea of what a broken fuse looks like and some common locations of the fuse boxes on different models, check out the video below. To find other repair videos specific to your year, make, and model, check out 1A Autos how-to video library.
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Troubleshooting A Dead Car Cigarette Lighter
In this age of electronic portable devices, having a malfunctioning electric outlet in your car is one of the issues you can easily identify. A malfunctioning electric socket will most likely cause frustrations. This may tempt you to have your car checked by a mechanic to fix the electric outlet. Fixing a car cigarette lighter should not be such a complex job.
You can do it at home without going through the hassles and expenses of taking your vehicle to a mechanic to help fix it. The likely cause of a dead car cigarette lighter can be traced from a blown fuse. Fixing this is not a difficult task. But before you can embark on this duty, you have to ensure a couple of things are considered first.
Clean The Inside The Socket
All the time, contaminants and debris find their way into the socket. Coins can fall into the socket and create a short circuit if they arent seen.
Despite the fact that nonmetal debris does not cause a short, it can hinder the plugs from contacting the socket.
Disconnect the accessory from the socket and remove any debris that has become lodged within.
Before removing them, you must be careful since the circuit may still be hot and short out. Metal objects should not be used to clean the sockets.
Vacuum the tough particles away with a toothpick first. If you know how to remove the socket, you can remove it and thoroughly clean it.
If the socket still doesnt function after going through all of these processes, you should look at the socket itself for problems.
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Can You Replace The Cigarette Lighter In Your Car
To start, shut off the car and fuse to stop power from reaching the lighter. Then, you can get a socket out of the dashboard or the lower half of your vehicle by removing interior panels. Remove a lighter socket to replace it with a new one or an alternative to charge any device you need while driving.
Which Causes A Car Cigarette Lighter To Stop Working
A car cigarette lighter may stop working due to several reasons. One opportunity is that the more delicate is not obtaining energy. It could be due to a malfunction in the autos electrical technique or an issue with the lighter itself. Another reason the lighter might not work is if it blocks by something, such as a piece of paper or a coin. If the flint is more delicate worn down, it might also stop working.
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Dealing With A Blown Cigarette Lighter Fuse
In many cases, you will find that the cigarette lighter fuse is blown, which can be the result of a number of different issues. If you found a coin in the socket, then that is probably the end of it. If you didnt, then you may have a short elsewhere, or you may have plugged something in, like a cigarette lighter inverter, that simply draws more amperage than the circuit is designed to handle.
Cigarette lighter circuits are often fused at 10 or 15A, which isnt a whole lot in the grand scheme of things. So if your cigarette lighter inverter isn’t specifically designed to keep current demands below that level, plugging in any number of electronics could theoretically blow your fuse and keep the inverter from working.
The easiest way to proceed from there is to replace the cigarette lighter or 12v accessory socket fuse and see what happens. If it blows immediately, youre dealing with a short somewhere in the circuit. If you plug in the cigarette lighter and the fuse blows, then that is probably the issue. If everything is fine initially, but the fuse blows when you plug in the inverter, then the inverter is probably the culprit.
In any case, the inherent limitations of cigarette lighter inverters mean that you may end up better off with a different inverter that is hooked either directly to the battery or to the fuse panel. For more information about that, you can check out our article on how to estimate inverter requirements.
Perform A Complete Drive Cycle
If starting and restarting the engine fails, the next step toward resetting your computer would be to put the car through a complete drive cycle. This can be accomplished through the following steps:
- Sit the car overnight make sure that it is parked in a place that is less than 90°F and that all fans are turned off, and connected devices are unplugged. Also, make sure that your keys are out of the ignition. This will ensure that no onboard computers are still booted up while the car is resting.
- Warm it up after sitting overnight, turn on the car the next morning and run at idle for about five minutes. During this time, check the cigarette lighter socket. If it is working, then problem solved. If not, drive the car slowly in the neighborhood for several minutes, stopping completely at stop signs and accelerating up to a safe speed.
- Go to the highway get the car up to 60 MPH and drive it for at least five miles. After you have reached five miles, bring it back for another slow drive through the neighborhood.
- Sit the car overnight test your electrical outlet one more time. If it is still not working, turn your car off and let it sit, just like in step one. Start your vehicle and try the cigarette lighter socket again.
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How To Test Car Cigarette Lighters Fuse Connections
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The fuse may be okay, but its also important to check the connections. Make sure theyre clean and tight. Also, check to see if there is any corrosion. If so, clean it off with a wire brush or similar tool.
Next, test the cigarette lighter itself. Put a multimeter on the positive terminal of the cigarette lighter and ground the negative lead on the voltmeter to the cars chassis. If you dont have a voltmeter, you can use a test light.
The light should come on when you touch the tip of the probe to the positive terminal and ground the other end of the probe to the cars chassis.
Using A Test Light Instead
Using a test light, this too can determine a switched source, along with the polarity. Instead of hooking up to both wires at the plug, the test light can have the negative wire connected to a known ground source. This can be on another connector, to the battery post, sometimes a body bolt under the dashboard, or a bare metal bracket. Its best to vary its connection with a reliable power source too such as the battery.
With a known ground source, the light will illuminate when it makes contact with a live power wire. As you can see its powers on the none switched 12v port wire, but wont on the other when the key is off. When the key is operated on and off, youll see the light turn on and off. The wire at the connector being tested is the power wire and the opposite not being tested will be the ground.
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Try Different Charging Cords
If your vehicle is on, but you are not receiving power to any of the electric outlets, then you are likely dealing with a bad charging cord.
Switch out your main car charging cord with a different one and see if this gives you any power. If it does, great–problem solved. If it does not, or the new cord works in all of the ports except the main socket where you initially experienced the issue, then you are likely looking at a blown fuse that needs to be replaced.
How Do You Replace A Cigarette Lighter In A Car
How to Replace a Cigarette Lighter in a Vehicle
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How To Repair A Blown Car Cigarette Lighter Socket Fuse
As mentioned in the introduction, roughly 90 percent of dead lighter sockets are due to a blown electrical fuse. While it is cheap and easy to replace a fuse yourself, you must be very meticulous in your approach to avoid damaging other fuses or doing more extensive electrical damage to your vehicle.
Learn Which Underlying Problems To Check For
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Fuses are designed to fail safely before any damage is done to the wiring or devices in your car. So if your cigarette lighter fuse keeps blowing over and over again, thats a very good indication that there is some type of underlying problem that needs to be dealt with. The problem could be in the cigarette lighter socket, in the device youre trying to plug in, or even in the cigarette lighter wiring.
The only way to fix it so that your cigarette lighter fuse stops blowing is to check each possible point of failure until you identify the issue. But whatever you do, dont even think about replacing the cigarette lighter fuse with a higher amp fuse. Depending on the nature of your problem, replacing the fuse with a higher amp version could damage the fuse box, melt wires, or even cause a fire.
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Can My Car Cigarette Lighter Cause Fire
While it is possible for your cars cigarette lighter to cause a fire, it is very unlikely. The cigarette lighter in your car is designed to handle a lot of heat and will usually shut off automatically if it gets too hot.
However, there are some things that you can do to reduce the risk of fire even further. Make sure that youre using the correct type of charger for your devices and never leave charging devices unattended.
If youre ever concerned about your cars cigarette lighter causing a fire, then you can always unplug it when youre not using it.
How To Repair A Car Cigarette Lighter Socket
Whether you are a smoker, have a host of car accessories that you need to charge on the go, or simply just do not like having little things go wrong with your vehicle, there can be nothing more annoying than having a car cigarette lighter socket go out. The problem is that when it does, most people just write it off as broken and live with the inconvenience.
How do you repair a car cigarette lighter socket? While there are several reasons that your cars cigarette lighter socket is not working, the most likely cause is due to a blown fuse that cannot carry electric current to the port. Blown fuses constitute roughly 90 percent of all dead cigarette lighter sockets.
In most modern cars, the terms cigarette lighter socket and electrical outlet are interchangeable, and there are often multiple such ports at various points around the vehicle. It is important to know where all of these ports are located in your vehicle, as they can help you in the identification of the problem with the dead cigarette lighter socket.
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