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How-To: Cigarette Lighter Adapter Switch
Posted December 15, 2001 by Shokker (aka Asim)
Subject Vehicle: '98 Honda Civic EX sedan
Making your own cigarette lighter adapter switch
Problem: My black lights were plugged into the cigarette lighter adapter and would stay on during the day. That would cause them to eventually burn out prematurely. The lights are only useful and visible at night and in the dark.
Solution: Create a simple switch from which you can control power going to the lights.
Tools Needed:
Toggle Switch
Vinyl Electric Tape
Hook Up Wire (22 Gauge Solid or Other)
Instructions:
1. First thing to do is take the arm rest and gear shifting area plastic out of your car. This can be done by looking around for all the screws that are holding it down. The number and location of screws will be different for each model and year of car. Once you have all the screws out you may have to take off your shift knob in order to pull out both large plastic parts. Use force if necessary to pull the parts out.
2. At this point you should get the cigarette lighter adapter, the electric tape, and the hook up wire. This part might be a bit difficult to understand, but I didn’t get the opportunity to take a picture of this part of the process. You want to take about one arms length of the wire, splice it at both ends and loop one end around the metal tip protruding from the adapter. Then take the tape and loop around the wire and the tip so that the wire stays firmly in place. At this point none of the wire or tip should be exposed; it should all be covered by the electric tape. Now you should get another piece of the hook up wire about the same length and once again splice both ends. One end of this second wire should go on the outside part of the adapter, where the metal tip once was before it was covered in tape. Try and get that second piece of wire to stick to the outside.
3. Take the now two exposed ends that have not been used yet and attach them to the toggle switch. You should firmly attach the wires and also use electric tape to tape them in place so that they are shielded from each other and so that they don’t move around or lose contact.
4. Now take the tape covered portion of the cigarette adapter and use a bit of force to get it into the socket where it belongs. Make sure that the exposed end of the wire that is on the outside of the adapter makes contact with the back of the socket in the appropriate area (the appropriate area in the socket SHOULD be a slightly different colour). If all is going according to plan, you should now have a basic switch that controls the device that you plugged into the socket. If not, go back over what you did to see if you made any simple mistakes. Odds are that you just have a loose connection.
5. A fuse is not needed for this circuit. If you open up your fuse box and look at the legend that shows the fuse types and ratings, you will see that your cigarette lighter has its own fuse. While I was wiring my switch I short circuited the connection and the fuse blew. If this happens to you, it’s nothing to worry about, just go purchase another one and replace the blown one.
6. From here, you want to find a location for your switch. I chose to put it beside the hand brake because there are designated little areas for something like this (at least that’s what they look like). Hide all the wire under the arm rest and gear shift area, and screw the arm rest and gear shift area back on.
7. With everything firmly in place, you are now done installing a cigarette lighter adapter switch. Here is a circuit diagram that helps explain a bit of the wiring:
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