At 11:21 AM 8/22/2010, Katherine J. Maas wrote:
>Anyone else had problems with cigarette lighter blowing when you plug in a
>computer with an inverter/adapter? I got a Mac adapter from Mike Gyver and

Lighter socket may have an internal 8-amp fuse,
non-replaceable.  Suggest installing some power outlets on a fused
circuit closer to the battery.  If there's a way to avoid using the
cigarette-lighter-type sockets, do it; because lighter sockets are
very good for lighters and about as bad as you can get for anything
else.  They're an accident of history, like the Qwerty keyboard.

Lighter-plug connections will do much better if you a) make sure
everything involved is shiny-bright and b) tape the plug firmly into
the socket so that the springy pin on the end is always compressed.

Two-pin trailer connector pigtails are a cheap and electrically good
method.  However they're ugly and you have to convert your plug-in
wires.  If you make up a short pigtail with a trailer connector on
one end and the lighter plug on the other then you can use it both ways.

Yours,
David