[ltp] car and airplance adapter

[Eben King]

On Sun, 7 Nov 2004, James Knott wrote:

> Eben King wrote:
> > On Sun, 7 Nov 2004, James Knott wrote:
> > 
> >>Incidentally, my car (2002 Taurus) has both an accessory socket and a 
> >>lighter.  According to the manual, I'm not supposed to use the lighter 
> >>outlet for anything else.  I wonder what the difference is?  Perhaps 
> >>fuse or circuit breaker rating?
> > 
> > Legalese for "if we call this a lighter socket, we could get in hot water
> > due to having multiple lighter sockets in the car, so it's a 'utility
> > outlet'.
> 
> I was asking why the lighter outlet couldn't be used, not the other way 
> around.

No reason, AFAIK.  Why, do you have more devices than outlets?

> > Automotive cigarette lighter sockets deliver a pathetically low power
> > anyhow -- 120W (a reading lamp) IIRC.  Hope you don't want to power 
> > anything substantial from there.
> 
> I've got a 150W inverter, which I bought for use with my computer. 

If the socket _is_ fused at 10A, then if you try to draw more than 120W
from that outlet its fuse will blow, but the inverter won't be damaged.  
Maybe I'm wrong, and some sockets are in fact fused at 12A (=144W), but
even then, the inverter will have some inefficiency, and if you use it to
power e.g. a 50W load, it'll take more than 50W to do so.

> Since the computer's AC adapter is rated at 72W, I'm not likely to
> overload either the inverter or accessory socket.

Yes, that's right.

> There was a smaller one, intended for computers, but mine was cheaper,
> because it was on sale.

Power consumption isn't really important in cars anyhow.

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