12v plug in car heater

CALIBRE

New member
Hi,I want to invest in one of those heaters you plug in the cigarette lighter. Anyone know of a good one?What is the effect on the battery, what i know is that the cigarette outlets run from the 12 V battery .

Thanks for any reply!
 
I had one. it was expensive, it drew lots of power, put out almost no heat or air flow. But there was an upside, I put it by the wood pile. One day, I took it apart with a 10 # hammer. I felt better. Save your money.
 

ferratilis

New member
I had one that I tried to use to defrost the rear window on a VW Fox. Same story: It drew lots of power and could not perform good enough to help me out at all. It was worthless. It was one of those from a JC Whitney catalogue. I have not seen it in a few years, but I know it's around here hiding in some box, in a dark corner,.....'couse it knows what's waiting for it....:smirk:
Maybe they make them different now days. If it comes down to it, I think a propane one should do a much better job.
 

OrioN

2008 2500 170" EXT
Everyone's presumed that you want to run it when the vehicle motor is not. I'll presume you want to run it when you're driving. If so, then it will have no effect on your battery as it will run off the alternator. I can't imagine any 'lighter' heater being more than 10amp draw, so unless you're running tons of other electrical equipment (i.e. ambulance), then your alternator will supply ample current needed. BUT, any 10amp heater won't produce sufficient heat. 100amp may warm the van.
 
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BigBlueBus

Member
For my passenger van without rear heat from factory. I bought a rear heater unit from a wrecked 15 passenger van, ran a couple of new 3/4" hoses from the aux heater to the rear midship location (T-connectors were already factory installed on my Sprinter in the engine compartment right behind the radiator, but I chose the aux heater since it was already there), I mounted the unit under one of the seats, mounted the 3-speed fan control switch I took off the wrecked junk yard van on one of the side wall panels, wired it to a new relay and fuse and ran it to the second battery and I have very hot air for the children now. I mounted the switch in the rear area of the van so the kids can control the heat as they need to, I don't even have to bother with that as I did in my conversion van, where the kids would constantly tell me "it's too cold" or "it's too hot back here".

At first, I was worried the Sprinter engine would take a long time to heat up, like my Cummins, which takes 10 minutes of driving in winter, but the Sprinter heats up really fast. My van did have the aux. heater installed from factory so I spliced the hoses into that instead, but I guess anyone can hook up the rear heater right up to the engine heater hoses up front, which probably already has a Tee connector installed. Mine has a couple of caps on it, since it's still not being used.
 

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