I wanted to charge my phone and tablet off the Puck's battery. I bought one of these.

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Note you can get similar with lower ampage but I wanted to make sure I had enough to charge the tablet. This one also has the advantage of incorporating a voltmeter

All the lights in my Puck are wired through trunking in the cupboards. This provides a convenient source of 12V. I fitted the charger in the rear cupboard. On my puck the wires are fitted with bullet connectors.

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I made these extensions with a breakout to connect to the charger in parallel. I borrowed a crimping tool to compress the bullet connectors. Red is the correct size for 1 cable, blue for 2 cables.

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I connected everything to test

**important** on my Puck the blue cable is live and the brown is neutral, European colour coding is an art form. I tested with a multi meter first. Do not assume yours are the same as mine - always test first.

I assumed the charger did not need extra fusing over and above the existing lights protection.

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To tidy up I ran my new extensions to the other rear cupboard where there was no trunking in the way of fixing it down

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I am not ready to drill holes in my baby yet so I am experimenting with mounting the charger in a piece of wood to to allow for fixing without drilling (ie glue or silicon). This is what I did.

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It is not suitable yet. It needs to be secured and more to the left to allow better access. It's still usable though and charged my tablet OK. The voltmeter display is "always on" and was displaying correctly according to my multimeter. As it's in a cupboard it can't disturb your sleep. When I'm happy with the quality I will consider drilling a hole in one of the units for a proper mounting. My current choice of cupboard location would be usefull to power a rear view dash cam.

Finally do not assume I know what I'm doing.

Steve

Steve, I'll be interested to know how this USB charger affects FM radio?

I made a similar installation about 2 years ago, all is fine for charging tablets and phones but it interferes with my potable FM radio. I have to site the radio at the other end of the van to stop interference when a device is being charged.

I took mine off the lighting circuit just like yours.

Quote: Ray Lawrence wrote in post #2

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Steve, I'll be interested to know how this USB charger affects FM radio?

I made a similar installation about 2 years ago, all is fine for charging tablets and phones but it interferes with my potable FM radio. I have to site the radio at the other end of the van to stop interference when a device is being charged.

I took mine off the lighting circuit just like yours.

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Wenn Sie hier auf Links zu eBay klicken und einen Kauf tätigen, kann dies dazu führen, dass diese Website eine Provision erhält.

I've just tried a battery driven FM radio and a 240v mains one - both ok. I tried them with the lights on and still ok. They are LED's if that may help ? My charger is definitely a chinese one off ebay.

Ray that would not surprise me but why would they use such a roundabout method of producing 5 volts. Are they using existing off the shelf circuits to save costs and why would there not be an existing circuit for 12 to 5 DC

Hi Ray here.
just to add that it wasn't me that suggested converting to AC and then back down to 5Vdc.

My little charger is about as small as a car plug in device to the old cigar lighter. I suspect mine is a simple 5Vdc zener diode but I'm not inclined to pull the device apart to check. It was certainly a cheap device from Ebay, probably from China. The radio interference is a minor inconvenience from such a cheap device.
Lucky you that your bit of kit doesn't interfere with fm radio.
I also have led lighting and don't suffer any interference when charging phone/tablet.

Good project nonetheless :)

sorry, I just read Ray in the quote :)

Quote: Steve and Debbie wrote in post #5

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Ray that would not surprise me but why would they use such a roundabout method of producing 5 volts. Are they using existing off the shelf circuits to save costs and why would there not be an existing circuit for 12 to 5 DC

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B14A557B-2D6F-41E5-9613-73E984797C39.jpeg - Bild entfernt (keine Rechte) Got one fitted it and it works.

Thanks rs540,

didn't know these cheap chargers could be so complicated, all those components and assembly for about £3.

P.s. your nickname wouldn't be anything to do with RS by any chance?

Quote: Ray Lawrence wrote in post #10

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Thanks rs540,

didn't know these cheap chargers could be so complicated, all those components and assembly for about £3.

P.s. your nickname wouldn't be anything to do with RS by any chance?

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I was going to charge my phones via the factory fitted 12v Hella socket. However, it was said - that the 12v dc supply from the BIP unit is "dirty" and can damage the usb chargers some of which as mentioned earlier are poor quality and can burn out. Im dubious on that but...being a bit cautious and not wanting my iphone smoldering on the fridge top I fitted a (fused) standard car lighter socket into the wardrobe bulkhead and connected it to the mover battery (seperate to van power) which has very nice clean 12v dc and its very own spanky new smart charger. Im happy with the result as I can insert a usb charger or a volt/temperture gauge or better still a soft glow map light. I note the mover charger ramps up quite a bit when on a heavy charge after a move so I make a point of not using the socket until the charger sits back.

That will do it but on my car I have to turn the ignition on/off every 10 minutes to keep the power on.