Re: Wholesome choice?

In <BSvV5cgBJTZJFwGK@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> "Marcus L. Rowland" <forgottenfutures@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

In message <gk1an7$kck$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Ben Yalow <ybmcu@xxxxxxxxx>
writes
In <sER8l.16343$Sp5.12794@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Jette
<bosslady@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

Ben Yalow wrote:

And when there stopped being lots of smokers, cars stopped coming with
cigarette lighters. I can't think of any recent cars I've seen that have
them.


They call it a "power socket" these days. Plug your phone charger
into it.

The power part is still there, and it's great for charging cellphones,
powering standalone GPS boxes, etc. But the little piece with the coils
that heat up doesn't seem to be found any more.

--
Jette Goldie

Ben

I suspect that their days are numbered.

Lighter sockets are actually a fairly poor design for providing
continuous power; they were designed to disconnect and pull out easily
once they got hot, and as a result there's very little force holding the
plug in. The spring contact at the end can push the plug out
spontaneously if there's enough vibration. They're also needlessly bulky
for many of the applications people use them for, e.g. plugging in
satnav or recharging a laptop or a phone.

Agreed. Although there's a lot of devices that come with adapters for it
that seem to work adequately.

There's a German socket design (which I've only seen on BMW motorbikes
but is apparently also used for power sockets in trucks) which is
supposed to be better for long-term power applications. It's basically a
smaller version of the lighter socket, intended for things like
pannier-mounted radios and police equipment; there's one on my bike and
my experience has been that the plug can work loose if there's enough
vibration or a bit of strain on the cable, which makes me think that it
will not be the first choice for the next generation of cars, except
possibly German ones.

My guess is that the eventual winner will be something like USB sockets
for lower-power devices (and things that need to interface with the car
electronics), since there's already a well-defined standard for that and
a lot of small devices that can use it, and something a little more
robust for stuff that pulls real power.

One of the options we have in the US, although I suspect would be less
likely in the UK, is to have a standard 115V AC power socket, that you can
just plug ordinary devices into. But, given the different attitude
towards mains current that you have in the US vs UK (and, given your
voltage, I can understand why), I doubt that the solution there would be a
standard AC socket, with 230/240V, 50Hz.

--
Marcus L. Rowland http://www.forgottenfutures.com/

Ben
--
Ben Yalow ybmcu@xxxxxxxxx
Not speaking for anybody
.

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