On 11 Apr 2015 03:13:42 GMT, "DoN. Nichols"
wrote:

On 2015-04-10, Larry Jaques wrote:
On 10 Apr 2015 02:48:00 GMT, "DoN. Nichols"
wrote:

On 2015-04-09, robobass wrote:

When the family makes a road trip I bring along a 12v 4 amp cooler.
The ciggie plug melted long ago and I wired up one of those 3/16" cannon
shaped connectors used for low voltage home stuff like laptops, external
HDs etc. It also gets very hot and is starting to melt. What's a good
off-the-shelf solution which doesn't take up much room? The whole ciggie
plug thing is the dumbest convention ever, I must say. I can't believe
it's still extant.

Look into Anderson PowerPole connectors.

[ ... ]

My buddy Glenn showed me that you could remove the soldering tip from
a Weller 150W gun and induction-heat the terminal to solder the wire
in. It worked extremely well for the 4ga armored wire he gave me to
use with the towing-receiver-mounted winch. http://tinyurl.com/nejufw9

I used the Anderson Powerpoles on the winch wiring, and I'm not all
that impressed. They're less reliable than I had hoped, and I've had
to reseat the things several times in the past, though they seem to
plug right together.

Hmm ... no such experience with mine -- but perhaps that it
because I crimped the terminals instead of soldering.

A proper crimp shouldn't change the shape of the ring that much, so I
doubt this to be the problem.


It's usually not more than one extra 'fiddle'
per use, but that's once too many. I prefer plug-n-play hardware,
TYVM.

If the terminals went into the shell while still hot, they may
have melted and shifted the position of the mating surfaces. I don't
know for sure.

Newp, never made that dumb mistake. They were cold when assembled.
But it does seem to be either that they don't want to stay in the
shell or don't want to mate properly when the shells are combined.
I'm just not too dippy on the design.


Hmm ... 4 ga is a bit bigger than I was using, so perhaps my
experience may not signify here.

They may be shaped differently than the smaller guys. shrug

--
It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails,
admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt