Guys,

I have just purchased one of those "Jaycar" evaporative coolers as city summer time driving and Dato Utes do not go well together. It plugs in to the Cigarette lighter but when I looked under the dash it appears that the mob who installed my CD player a number of years ago disconnected it as they must have needed the wires for the CD (nice of them to tell me).

Can anybody tell me how to hook this back up?? I would think that I would need to splice into the ignition system and connect to the battery. A wiring diagram may be useful.

cheesr,

Daz

yeah just get your habds on an accessory or ignition wire and wire it to the back of the lighter, a test light should make them easy to find, im almost 100% sure the stock wire for the job is blue if you can find it

do you think this evaporative cooler will work well as a car air conditioner?, id be intrested to hear

i looked the product up on the wesite, seems ok, but you would have to cool the ice pack at work or whatever some how for the drive home?

evaporative cooler 12v

let me know how well it works and how long for without new ice pack

theres a bunch of new kits jaycar is coming out with for cars, should check out the site, search "kits" and "automotive", link below is the result

the one i remember is a smart turbo timer that uses your boost levels to calculate cool down time and stuff

theres was others that are very intresting too, like switchable/adjustable boost control and rev limiter, most are aimed at efi cars though

automotive kits available

I can help with wiring diag.

Link to 1200 wiring diag.

it's only one wire, I think you'll find it's shared with the radio circuit...and it is..

Guys,

Thanks for the info. I will let you know how it all goes. I gave it a run inside the house with the 12 volt adapter and it seems to go great guns. I would think it will be pretty effective in a small cab like the utes have. It has a cooling pack which you stick in the fridge or freezer and a bottle that you fill with cold water. The bottle is spring loaded and lets water out as it needs it.

The problem is reinstalling this bloody Cig lighter. I found a couple of blue wires, one of which went to the CD / radio and the other spare. I spliced the Cig lighter wire into the radio wire but when I turned the ignition the fuse blew. Tried it again and same result. I then hooked it up to the other spare wire and this time the radio stayed on when I turned the ignition, but as soon as I stuck the Cig lighter coil into the plug "bang", the fuse went again. It is not an earth problem as the Cig lighter earths itself on the dash.

One thing is for sure I am not an auto electricans asshole. Any ideas??

The Blue wire should go directly to the 15 amp fuse for the cig lighter.

Which fuse blows? The inline radio one? or the one in the fuse block labelled cigarette lighter?

The radio one is hell low current fuse, and the cig lighter one is 15amp.

Maybe the cig lighter thing is stuffed, and it's gone open circuit.

Put a multimeter from the point of the removable lighter to the outer chrome bit. Put the meter on "Ohms" setting. If it's a direct short with no resistance...this is the problem. If it is relatively high resistance..then it's fine.

Chris

Dattodude,

The fuse that blows is in the fuse block. This is the 15amp for Radio, Cigarette and Room.

Daz

See if you can borrow a mates cigarette lighter from another 70s model with a similar lighter size. Newer cars have more compact ones.

I used a 12V hot water jug in my 1200 cig lighter once, I used to run a higher ampage fuse, and I almost set fire to the dash

Certainly sounds fishy If the cig lighter fuse is blowing.. you are connecting to the right wires.

The wiring diagram I have said it is the blue wire that should be pluged into your cig lighter. Are you pluging this wire into the middle of the cig lighter??

Chris is probable right and your cig lighter could be stuffed.......

Ok, its getting bloody hot and I need to install this thing. If I was to run a good thick lead (say 3-4mm wire) with an inline 30amp fuse directly from the positive terminal on the battery to the Cig lighter and then install an earth wire from Cig Lighter to the negative ground point on the chassis would this do the trick?

Daz