12 Volt plug in old truck

[Rusty99]

Hi all,
I have an old Ford Explorer and tonight I purchased a little gizmo that you hard wire to your truck that gives you an extra two 12 volt plugs and two USB plugs. So it has a red and black wire. I hooked the Red directly to my truck battery and the black to a bolt on the frame. I liked the idea that this would supply continuous power even when the truck is not running.

Problem is that once I hooked it up a small blue light on the unit is constantly glowing and I'm afraid of the extra draw on my battery.

The truck is very old (1991) and already has trouble charging the brand new battery so I'm worried this will add to the old trucks problems.

I spent all afternoon searching at Princess Auto, JB Power center, certified radio, Greggs, Dash Distributors, Walmart and finally at Canadian Tire this is the only hard wire unit I could find.

Anyone else got suggestions or input?

Cheers
Rusty

 

[teeroy]

put a switch in the power wire?

 

[polarisdragon800]

Try running a switch from where you hard wired it or maybe you can plug it into an empty fuse block, that only gets power when ignition is on.

 

[FatGuy]

Chances are the little blue light is LED. And they draw very little power. I wouldn't be to worried. Or do as stated above.

 

[Bnorth]

LED's don't draw much power. Realistically you should have wired it to switched power and I hope you put a fuse in line with the battery.

 

[Pinner]

The truck is very old (1991) and already has trouble charging the brand new battery so I'm worried this will add to the old trucks problems.

I agree, it shouldn't draw much power, and it's easy to get some power from the fuse box.

Sounds like you may have a charging problem or a weak connection somewhere.

 

[CJR]

LED. Don't worry about it. Constant power without the key is ideal. Just fuse it.