Power Car Amp from ciggarette socket?

[marcopolo]

I want to put a small sub in my car but dont want to run a cable for the amplifier to the battery.

Can I use a ciggarette socket to power the amp? How many amps is a typical socket rated to? I think my renault laguna has a socket in the boot so it would make things easy.

I'm not putting in a huge sub/amp that takes my paint off. Just want to improve my bass slightly. My heads unit has an RCA out for a woofer.

Any ideas appreciated.

Marco.

 

[MarNav1]

While I am not an expert on car audio I would say if you want reliable operation you should hardwire it in some fashion. Because of vibration etc I would not use a lighter socket for this. Also do NOT neglect to use a fuse in the power cable. A fire is no fun and can burn your car to the ground quickly. Usually there are unused spaces in the fusebox you can use. Most lighters I have seen are 10-20 amp circuits.

 

[tommylight]

I've got 2 reasons not to do that :
1. cigarette lighter socket is designed for short use of 10-15 amps, usually you can run 5-7 amps for long periods of time with no problems, but even the crappy power amplifiers use above 10 amps at high volume, bigger amplifiers draw A LOT more ( my SONY draws over 60 A at full blast ) and so on.....
2. It is a Renault !!!! From my very long experience with car alarm and audio installations, only FIAT had crappier and messier electrical installation. A combination of very thin wires and wayyyy to many connection points are a recipe for disaster and flames and .... you get the point.

If you plan on keeping the car for a year or so, do a proper install with fuse boxes and stuff, it is costly but you can enjoy your music with no worries.

 

[marcopolo]

OK, battery lead it is then! Thanks for the heads up. Apart from the current requirement I hadn't even thought about the vibration of the plug in the socket - ironically this is part of my job as an engineer; to test electronic equipment under thermal and vibrational load!!!

 

[bretti_kivi]

fuse it within 15cm of the battery, use appropriately sized cable (so probably 6mm2 or so) and run it away from speaker wires if you can. Oh, and make sure the earth on the amp is good.

Bret