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Quick CB wiring question

bigalpha

bigalpha

Moderator
Location
Tucson, AZ
I have a cheapie CB I picked up for free. I don't want to mount it permanently in the Jeep so is it acceptable to wire it to a cig. lighter plug instead of hard wiring it into the Jeep wiring?
 
Sure. A CB doesn't really draw enough current to need a direct battery connection. You might get some ignition noise if you are unlucky.
 
Hey Big...

I did this in my XJ on Monday. Removed the cigarette lighter, snipped the wires, used male and female adaptors and snapped the CB to the old cigarette lighter wires and it fired right up!

Hardest part was wedging everything behind the dash!!!
 
Cool - I am not an electrical expert so I wanted expert opinions.

Is the cig. lighter part something I can scavenge from a bargain bin and use or is it something special I need to pick up?
 
I picked mine up for like five bucks at radio shack. You can actually get neat adapters that turn one cig lighter socket into three, great if you have a huge tangle of random stuff running off 12v in your car at once.
 
Werd. Seems easy enough. Identify the pos. and neg. wire in the cig. lighter adapter plug and wire it straight to the CB pos/neg wires.
 
bigalpha said:
Werd. Seems easy enough. Identify the pos. and neg. wire in the cig. lighter adapter plug and wire it straight to the CB pos/neg wires.
Click to expand...

Use the force to determine which one is which! :D Yeah thats the way to go!
 
The CB I have, BigAlpha, has a black and a red wire coming from the box. When you remove the cigarette lighter there is an adaptor that snaps into the back of it....just like all the connections behind the dash. That adaptor has a black and a red wire also.

Snip, snip...the adaptor is off!

Now, like you, I'm an electrical dunce, but black to black and red to red was easy enough! I added male and female ends, snapped them together, wrapped a length of electrical tape around them and...DONE.

Now, I have power to the CB, I just haven't been out with the antenna on to make sure I have reception! :rolleyes: I'm not looking to pick up every big rig on the interstate though...just the Jeeps in front of and behind me on the trail!
 
That sounds like the CB that I have. I also have this crappy little antenna that goes with it. I figure that I could make it removable and throw it in the car on road trips, too.
 
if you don't buy a plug and just plug it in instead of screwing with your wiring, it'll come with positive and negative marked. For reference the center pin of the lighter socket is positive.
 
wow.

Apparently I should drink the mountain dew BEFORE posting about electrical wiring.
 
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