My lighter jack fried my gps

[rstewart412]

Okay so I have another problem. I wasnt getting any power to the hot wire going to my lighter jack so I ran a wire from the lighter and connected it to the power wire for my sterio, not thinking that the head unit is pushing a lot more power than the cigarette lighter. Well I plugged my gps in and it got fried. But the funny part is that the fuse in the charger for the gps didn't pop. Could the radio be pushing so many watts that it was fast enough to shoot right through the charger without popping the fuse? I guess I should've wired it to the wipers or something. I was using the gps for a speedometer because I haven't started trying to fix my speedo yet. So a $150 GPS is fried because I didn't fix the original problem (being the speedo). But why would it not blow the fuse in the charger first? It was a brand new fuse that I had just put in there.

 

[rvaughn]

Ok, the cigarette lighter is rated for 15 amps, the radio is rated for 10 amps. Since your fuse on your GPS didn't pop I would suspect that you drew enough current through the radio circuit to blow the radio fuse. Does your radio work?

If your radio is dead and your gps isnt working, here is what you do, go to your drivers side fuse box, find the radio fuse, check if its blown. Now remove your wiring from the radio to the cigarette lighter, or you will just pop another fuse, and replace the radio fuse with another 10 amp fuse. Once all that is done you need to actually figure out why you are not getting power through the cigarette lighter circuit. If you find all of this is correct post back up with your findings and I will walk you through finding the problem with the cigarette lighter.

A quick tip about electricity, your radio draws or "takes" current, rated as amps, to power up. You stated that you ran a wire from the power wire on the radio to the cigarette lighter. This type of connection is only a supplying connection, you wouldn't have any power being pushed by the stereo flowing through your cigarette lighter circuit. What you have done is ran two circuits, one rated at 10 amps (radio) and one rated at 15 amps (cig. lighter) in parallel through one fuse rated at 10 amps. By doing so you have created a circuit that in theory could draw 25 amps of current, 2.5 times the maximum rating of your 10 amp fuse. This kind of draw would immediately blow your 10 amp fuse.

Hopefully that makes sense, I can try and explain it better if you need, at any rate, post back your findings and good luck!

 

[rstewart412]

Yeah that makes perfect sense, but the fuse isn't blown and the radio still works.

 

[rvaughn]

Interesting, have you tried using the GPS in another vehicle? The only other possibility that comes to mind as far as simple fixes is that the fuse is in fact blown, it just doesn't appear to be. You wouldn't happen to have a voltmeter? If you do you can do a simple continuity test on the fuse to be sure its ok. Let me know, I am very interested to see where this goes.

 

[rstewart412]

No I don't have one, but the fuse in the cahrger blew, then I put a new one in, and maybe the new one blew too. I'll have to take a much closer look at it.

 

[Misterbeechy]

call mistu.. they will reinburse ## gps...


kidding..

goodluck

 

[rvaughn]

Alright, well I would try that just to be safe, if everything checks out there, depending on how new the gps is and if you have messed with any of the wiring or internals of the gps, you may be able to claim a manufacturers defect and get a replacement. It sounds like you may have a defective unit. An internal fault in the circuitry would cause the fuses to keep poping. Another idea for you would be to take the fuse into your local car parts store, auto zone or napa or anything of the likes and ask them if they can do a continuity test on the fuse. They should be able to tell you if the fuse is blown that way.

 

[rstewart412]

Oh okay. I'll try that just to see if it's the fuse. I've had the gps for over a year so i don't think it's under warranty.