At 08:21 PM 8/31/2014, Rocket J Squirrel wrote:
>The designer of this plug did what he could to get a good
>metal-to-metal connection by bringing the center contact to a really
>sharp tip. Resulting in a tiny little contact point.

If you're talking about the real thing, the B+ terminal is a
semi-wiping contact on two sides that is forced open by the lighter
element rim and closes behind it.  The element is held back against
the rear curve of the terminal by spring pressure inside the lighter,
and if you rotate the lighter at this point it will wipe/scrape both
contacts.  When the lighter gets hot enough the B+ contact relaxes
(bimetal?) and the lighter forces itself out of contact.  It's a
positive action; the lighter is either firmly plugged in or ejected,
no gradually working its way out of contact.

Power plugs would work a lot better if they were made to emulate the
actual lighter and use the designed contact, but they'd be a lot more
expensive.  And I doubt that the new non-lighter outlets in recent
autos would support it anyway (along with most of the accessory
sockets/multipliers/extenders ever made afaik - though I did have a
one-into three extension wire once where one of the sockets was an
actua lighter socket.  The plug was no better than the usual, though).

For some reason (Old-Timer's disease?) this is making me nostalgic
for the hum of the vibrator when you turned on the six-volt car radio
and waited for the tubes to warm up.  One of my earliest car
memories.  Regular radios just sat there looking dumb for a minute or
two, but the car radios told you right away that something good was
about to happen.  And you could get to the vibrators and tubes since
they wore out (vibrator was externally just an aluminum can with four
pins, about like a turn signal blinker of the day.  Took in DC and
put out chopped AC for the radio's high-voltage circuits).  Ah! and
the smell of hot tubes in gear that had been used by chain-smoking
soldiers or sailors. <drowns in tube nostalgia>

Yrs,
d