putting an xbox in my glove box. i already have the 12v wire coming from the battery to the glove box. what is a good type of 12v to 115v component to use, and the best way to hard wire it. is any ground good? also, what type of fuse? thanks. oh, i know the xbox pulls 100 watts. i want to hardwire the converter into the 12v system to avoid the whole cigarette lighter thing.

 

what you're looking for is an Inverter. home depot sells them. it should come with an adapter for the Cig lighter. I would just cut it off and solder it to your 12V wire (make sure to have an Inline fuse between the wire and inverter) and just ground the other wire to the car's body (scrape off any paint to get to bare metal)

 

what size fuze?? not sure of the amps on the xbox, guess ill have to look it up

 

I use tripplite, its a great peice, has an auto shutoff, but be aware that any good inverter will not come on and off with the power, meaning you have to reswitch the switch when the car comes back on. (basicly you need to put whatever switch you have in parralel with the actual switch of the invertor) or somehow turn that "feature" off

the tripplite has a auto off feature when power gets low, meaning you cant kill your battery with it.

also has a fuse built into it I believe.

 

You should use/get the fuze to fit the inverter. The xbox (or the power adapter, dont know cause I don't have an Xbox) will choose the correct amperage by itself. the inverter acts like your outlet at home, so from that to the xbox you don't really have to worry about. Just need to make sure the amp is right from car battery to the inverter.

 

what is this tripplite and where do i get it? are you saying that it will turn on and off with the car? i figured that the inverter would pretty much be always live, like the outlet in your house if i hardwired it. then i would just have to turn the xbox on and off just like in your house?? is this bad for the battery? so pretty much i gotta put a power switch inline too then?

 

you can find tripplite at hifibuys or various retailers online, I got a 300watt continuous power for 50$ online, not surewhat retail is.

if you wire it to a always on power source that would solve one problem but it has its own cooling fan... so that would run 24/7 I think, possible killing your battery eventually.

not to get too technical on you, but this is what Id do, open up the inverter, wire a relay in parralel with the stock switch on it, then put the switched input from the accesory power. this way the switch is flipped every time the car comes on, and is kept off when the car is off.

now if you want to use it while the car is off... then you do need to flip the switch on the invertor to turn it on manually. but for normal use with the relay acting as the switch it should work as you want.