Power Point socket

[Phred]

I would like to wire in a power point (cigarette lighter) socket into my 6v pos ground system to power a 12v neg ground GPS. If I recall from the old fordbarn site, one needed to switch the wire connections on the socket itself so the ground and power connections are proper.

Looking into the socket there is a contact at the bottom center of the socket and a contact on the side wall inside the socket.

(1) To make the GPS work on my 6v positive ground system, does the bottom center contact connect to the ground or the hot side of my 6v Pos gnd battery?

(2) has anyone had experience with the cell phone car charger working with this setup?

(3) In dire circumstances if I would need to jump start my 6v Pos gnd car from a 12v neg gnd vehicle, would hook up ground to ground, hot to hot or + to + and - to -?

Thanks in advance Fordbarn

 

[Mike V. Florida]

I think you are making this harder than what it is.

All batteries have a positive (pos +) and a negative (neg -) for now forget the word ground,

"Modern" cars have the Neg to the chassis and the pos to the starter and wiring harness.

A Model A, wired as original, is just the opposite, that is the Pos to the chassis and the neg to the starter and wiring harness.

Cigarette lighter; A modern car will have the outside metal part neg and the center positive, so if you want to wire a cigarette lighter in your A you wire it opposite than the modern car. The only thing to be careful of is that the outside metal part of the lighter cannot contact any metal part of the car.

As for jump starting, make sure you do not have any lights on including the brake lights.

So now where do you place the positive cable from the modern car on the Model A? YES!!! chassis is correct. Now the negative? YES!!! the negative on the battery.

 

[Tom Wesenberg]

When jump starting you ALWAYS must have + to + and - to -.

You must isolate the lighter case from ground, then run the center contact to ground and the case to the Model A power wire at the amp guage, or any convenient place to pick up power. I used a plastic hand grip to slip over the case on my power socket. It can then be secured to the steering column.

 

[John LaVoy]

Vol 6 Issue 4 of the Model A Times coming out first week of October has an article making the 6V positive ground to 12V negative ground installation. We used a device from Auto-Physics.

 

[Dick Deegan]

Phred;

I have exactrly the same situation, 6V + ground. I purchased an "external" power socket from a local supplier. That way the outside of the case is already isolated and I hooked up the connection that goes to the outside of the case to negative and the inside button to positive.

BTW, if you have a Garmin GPS with the intelligent charger (which, I believe that all Garmins have) I would advise removing the small ring on the charger where the fuse goes. If you don't you will end up shorting out the charger and blowing the fuse. The charger works fine without the little ring.

Dick