Help from electricians, please?

Background:
I have a 42 gallon Polyethelene Water tank that I am using to store fresh water in to transfer to my RV, which only holds 37 gallons of fresh water onboard, when I need it boon docking.

I have taken this tank and placed it in deckbox and I have a 12volt pump that I want to use to get the water from this to the RV via a hose.

Problem:
I cannot get my contraption to work the way I want it to and I know I am missing something.

I have taken a 12v rocker switch and placed it between the pump and what i want to be my 12v source. I am using a cigarette lighter outlet to bring my 12v power to the deckbox via the 12v plug in my truck. I want to use 2 cigarette lighter adapters, one each end, to supply power. Something is there I just don't understand and it must be an amperage thing.

Hooked it all up and it smoked the spring in the cigarette lighter adapter.

Suggestions? Relay maybe?

Specs for the 12v Pump...
Central Machinery 12v Utility pump
12v DC/ 100 watts/ 4500 rpm
Power leads 18AWG x19" long


Thanks,
Hub

 

Your description is not enough to tell where the problem is , I would start with a multi meter to check that the power wires are what you expect , normally the center of the cigarette lighter is ground & the outside is Pos.
Then run some other temp wiring to pump to see if it will run , if not that may be the problem , your power leads are light , it would seem , without doing the math , I would say 12ga .
If its a short , I am supprized the fuse did not blow .
Maybe the connections were lose inside of the adapter that the spring burned , lose connections get hot .

 

The center is hot and the side are ground according to the package for the female plugin.

Well I think it may be an amperage thing because I can hook the switch and pump to a battery and it works fine then when I tried to use the 12v Cig adapters it just blew the internal fuse on them. I wrapped the fuse with aluminum foil and it heated the spring up and melted it.

Hub

 

I do the exact same thing, pump into RV tank etc with 12v (actually 24v) pump. I just made 20' long 12g extension with alligator clips and hook them up to the truck battery. I'm confused with your cig lighter, relay switch thingy.

 

It's too many amps for the lighter sockets. Forget that. Get a cood cord and some good clips. You should be able to clip to the rv battery.

You can take this a step further and forget the pump. T into the fresh water drain on the tank. Sen one side to the drum at a low point drain and the other to a vlave so you can still drain the tank.

As long as the water in the drum is below the vent on the tank, which you might can raise, it will draw out of both.

 

Sorry , dyslectic brain .
Did the package for the cigarette lighter adapter have an amp rating ?
The math / ohms law say about 8.5 amps by what you gave in the 1st post .

 

this is the adapter I mounted on the deck box...

http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...entPage=family

this is one of the males I have and it did okay but the other one I had smoked the spring inside that pshed the tip for 12v power.

http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...entPage=family

Let me take some pics real quick and I will get them up on my website to show you guys...


Here is what it looks like...







Hub

 

They are not putting the spec [ amps ] under specs , I did find that the female end was rated for 10 amps , but could not find an amp rating for the male end .
But your running a motor , so at least 2-3 time the rating to start , your motor was 8.3 amp loaded , but starting is higher .
So if no other problem you exceeding the female end , the male end I do not see a amp rating , but would guess it would be close to the female [ 10 amps ] .

 

Holding the male end in my hand, man that came out wrong, it says rated 10 amp max.

Hub

 

I wanted to make it where I did not have to wind up and store the long acble in the deck box itself.

Hub

 

Then just make it from a diferent kind of connector. There are many type of heavier rated marine and automotive connectors out there to choose from.

 

Yeh! you could actually use a 7 pin trailer plug and just plug it into the back of the truck. Use only the ground and the trailer power wire.

 

All the 12 volt dc outlets in my frontier are 10 amp (120 watts). the dodge should be the same.

Lets see if I can do this to make senses

TRUCK LIGHTER PLUG------red wire------------SWITCH-------+--MOTOR--+-----black wire-------------TRUCK LIGHTER PLUG

TRAILER LIGHTER PLUG------red wire------------SWITCH-----+--MOTOR--+---------black wire------- TRAILER LIGHTER PLUG

these are two separate circuits. that are connected at the "+" sighs.
Any time BOTH plugs are connected, ONLY ONE SWITCH is turned on. You can create an alternate circuit between the truck and the trailer circuits.

 

It looks to me as though you have your ground from the power plug run to the other side of your power switch, if that is the case that is you problem, once you put the switch to the on position you are creating a dead short. Run your ground to a clean metal ground, tie your pump ground to the same ground, the switch should have a hot from the power plug to one side of it, then a hot from the other side of the switch to the positive side of the electric motor.

Just going by what I had seen on the picture,


Tim

 

If the pump draws 100 watts at 12 volts, isn't that like 8.3 amps?

If it's smoking the cig lighter plug, I think you have a short somewhere or maybe a bad pump.