uhf power

[ninjafortheflava]

hey guys, just wondering how you get power off the cigarette lighter for my tx3340 uhf radio? thanks.

[Bogor]

I don't know that radio, however I assume it has a power and earth wire with it.
On my MN, I undid the four screws under the dash on the passanger side.
The top of this side is clipped in. A firm yank in the right direction will get this out.
Then open the glove box and pull the bottom of the centre section out slightly, this is held in with clips in all four corners. pull firmly but carefully and it should come out. This will then show you the back of the cigarette lighter. I undid the plug and spliced in the wires on the corresponding earth and power. Solder and cover with pvc tape.
Put it all back togther again.
I hope this helps.
Is scary pulling out the dash on a new car.

[MN GLXR]

Otherwise get a ciggy lighter plug from the auto shop or Jaycar and solder it on to the end of your radio lead. Red wire goes to centre pin, black goes to outer shell.

[ninjafortheflava]

another way i have thought of maybe would be on a pre existing earth point or behind the stereo? would you be able to confirm that?

[NowForThe5th]

For your UHF you ideally want nice clean power, direct from the battery. Just run a line (4mm minimum) from the battery positive through the big grommet on the firewall. This exits behind the glovebox and then take it from there to your transceiver with an inline fuse. Much better than using the cigarette lighter. Advantage is that you don't need to keep the engine running or all the accessories going just to listen to the UHF. Other advantage is that you can light your smoke and use the UHF, without frying the fuse.

[Cowboy Dave]

When I installed my icom 400 the first time I ran out of time at the end to run the power properly so I did a quick and dirty splice with a cigarette lighter plug thing as described above. Tested and worked fine except the first time I actually went to transmit the power draw was too high for the fuse in the plug thing and blew the fuse straight away. I was driving in convoy with Geek at the time and wondered why he wasn't talking to me.

Now I have it connected to the inbound power for my amplifier - nice heavy gauge wire direct from a circuit breaker next to the battery - and no more problems.

The icom draws a bit of juice, but something to consider whichever UHF you're installing.

[tukadafoonday]

Furthermore to what 5th said if your worried about the battery going flat you then wire a relay to the cig lighter to turn the power off to the uhf once the ignition is off.

Really its not a good idea to wire anything direct to The cig lighter... Its just quick and dodgy

[Lee-thal]

Downfall off that 5th, When you forget to turn it off it flattens Your Battery!

[Cowboy Dave]

I may have left mine on overnight. Battery didn't blink when I went to start it again the next morning. Admittedly it was a brand new battery but I was still relieved...

If I was installing it again I would have bought the extra bit of wire and stuff to use the ignition as a trigger to turn it on.

[ninjafortheflava]

yeah i just had a third thought, maybe I could just run a seperate fuse box from the battery so I can run a clean wire to the fuse box with adequate power and then i would probably be able to run a few more devices such as fridge, roof lights, winch etc? would this work?

[tukadafoonday]

New batteries should be fine with what a UHF will pull over night it's once they start getting a little older and the weather cools down that you might not be so lucky.

It's very easy to wire in a relay - even I gave myself a crash course on auto elec on the weekend.

I have run a 8 gauge cable through the firewall to a small fuse box with in the back with a common power... At the battery I have a 40amp fuse in case anything happens with the wiring inside the car so I don't start a fire.

Now I can run my internal accessories from inside the car without having to constantly be running cable through those shitty annoying little grommets.

As for the relay you have small gauge wire running to the cig lighter, an earth, a constant power (from the battery) and then a wire to the accessory you want to work. This will now have clean power from the battery and will turn off with the ignition saving your battery if you forget to turn the UHF off.

Very easy and well worth the extra cable/relay/ couple of bucks.

[ninjafortheflava]

thanks for all that guys.

[Snooozy]

I run mine directly from my aux battery now. UHF stays on full time.

I did have a problem initially of the CB powering down when the engine was started, it drew all the current & the CB being an electrical push on switch & not a mechanical type would shut off. (if that makes sense) it was a pita when in a convoy as I would forget to turn it back on

[ag9111]

Always wire my UHF direct to the battery (through a fuse) so power is available if you loose the keys , emergency etc.

[tukadafoonday]

Guess if you leave other on and the battery gets to flat to.radio out ya might be in a bit of strife also... Ya can always rewire to a powerful battery but you.can't rewire a flat car to start again.

[mattz]

As snoozey said...... Some radios,if wired to the ignition or an assesory will shut down when you turn off your ignition and will require you to turn them back on at the unit every time you restart......it can be a pain in the ass but your battery won't go flat if you leave it on overnight.
They don't draw much unless they are transmitting.

[Josh_Triton]

I had mine originally in the lighter but found that when transmitting people could not hear me very well.

I was getting interference form other acc. I wired direct to battery with fuse and now i am all apples.

[Sky Miner]

I wouldnt be to woried about ya battery going flat the current drain on a typical UHF radio is about 0.2mA on standby
Transmitting will drain roughly 1.5/2.0 mA again depending on the type of radio you have, some have a lot of bells and whistle's witch will take a little more juice to run