On Mar 26, 10:45*am, Tony wrote:
Jim Yanik wrote:
"Charlie" wrote in
:

"David Nebenzahl" wrote in message
rs.com...
On 3/25/2010 5:00 PM hr(bob) spake thus:

On Mar 25, 6:07 pm, blueman wrote:

I need to clean the terminals and change out my car battery.
I would rather not lose the setttings on my radio.
But I also would rather not invest in a charger just for this
application.

I have several variable voltage DC power supplies (supplying about
1A). Could I use such a supply set at say about 13-14V to supply
temporary power while the battery is removed?

Other than getting the voltage and polarity right, anything to be
worried about here or any chance of causing damage (to either car
electonics or to my power supply)?
Set the voltage at 14.0 +/- 0.25V and you should be fine. *Like you
indicated, just keep the polarities correct.
Sounds like way overkill on the precision (and voltage) to me.
Someone else here said to just use a 9-volt battery plugged into the
cigarette lighter socket (does this car even have one of those???). 9
volts might be a mite low, but I'd say just use a 12-volt supply and
be done with it. Remember, you're not charging the battery, only
powering the radio's NOVRAM stay-alive power.

That will probably work well if you make sure that opening a door
doesn't turn on interior lights and suck down the battery.

Charlie

what if your car turns off the cig lighter outlet when the car is off?
Will the 9v fixture still hold the memory?

Most don't turn off the cigar lighter. *Although I do question what
happens when the door is opened and the little 9v tries to power the
interior lights?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

"Most don't turn off the cigar lighter"

Some do...some don't. Can't say if it's "most" or not.

The wife's 2005 Taurus doesn't, my 2004 Odyssey does. There are pros
and cons for both.

My Dodge conversion van used to turn off the "Automotive Power Port"
in the dash, but not the one in the "way back".

When I added another one in the passenger area, I made sure it stay
powered on all the time.

What I'd like to see...and maybe they have them...is this:

A set-up where I can push a button once the car is started so that the
Power Port will stay "ON" after the car is shut off, but default to
shutting "OFF" with the car if I don't push the button. An extra bonus
would be to be able to turn the Power Port on without starting the
car, but would still default to shutting "OFF" with the car once it
was started and then shut off, assuming I didn't press the button
again.

That way I can decide if I want the Power Port energized with the car
off, but I wouldn't be in danger of killing the battery if I
accidentally left something on. When we had the Conversion van, the
kid's would sometimes leave something powered on and kill the battery.
It would be nice to prevent that, but still be able to *choose* to run
something with the car off.

(The Traction Control in my Honda can be turned "OFF" once the car is
running, but defaults to turning to "ON" every time the van is
started. I'd like similar logic for the Power Port where I can
override the default, but still have it default to "safe mode" if I
don't take any action.)