I gave a friend a birthday present two years age and unfortunately part of it has gone missing.
It was a small portable fridge, which had two cords. One let it run on a car cigarette lighter function and the other from a regular household powerpoint.
The normal-power cord (as in, not for the car) has disappeared. I cannot recall where I bought the fridge and my friend has removed any stickers on the machine that may have helped us. She would like to continue using it inside her house, but we are - obviously - having trouble locating the right cord. None of the generally available ones seem to fit the strange little hole in the back of the fridge.
I do recall once seeing (on ebay, when looking for something else) an adaptor that allowed you to use things meant for the car cigarette lighter in a regular power source. It was just a small black adaptor with the regular prongs on the one side and a plug just like a car cigarette lighter on the other. However I’ve no idea what this was called and no combination of the obvious words (that I have tried) has been helpful in internet searching so far.
Does anyone know what this might be called? Where I could get one? We’re happy to order one from overseas if we cannot find any here (Australia) and then just buy a regular foreign-device adaptor.
In fact, if we did find them, I’d buy heaps! I have a lot of car-stuff and I can think of soooo many uses.
They go by various names–there’s no real standard. Here is one I found on Amazon.com, using the search “car lighter ac adaptor”. But, it will be unsuitable for this purpose, since the current rating is only 500 mA (half an amp). Your mini fridge will probably draw a few amps, so you’d need one capable of suppying at least that much. You can get an idea of how much that is by checking the fuse in the car lighter cord. If you get an adaptor which can supply at least that amount of current, it should be fine. There may also be a rating plate on the fridge somewhere with this information. Check the bottom and also near where the cord plugs in. If you can post a closeup photo of where the cord plugs in, I might also be able to identify the type of connector you need for a replacement AC cord/adaptor.
You need a 12V DC power supply (often spec’d at 13.8V DC when intended for powering devices with a car cigarette lighter jack). Here in the US, the easiest route would be Radio Shack: 13.8VDC 3-Amp power Supply. This model plugs into a 120V AC receptacle, and has a cigarette jack output. They also have a 15 Amp model for more power, but you have to add the cigarette jack yourself.
You should try searching for “power supply” and 13.8V to find examples. Here’s one on ebay.com.au: QUALITY 5 AMP 13.8V REGULATE POWER SUPPLY UNIT PSU NEW, which seems to be similiar to the Radio Shack model, but 240V input instead of 120V.
When you say the AC cord is missing, was it just a cord, i.e. a cable with standard 110 prongs on one end and a female connector on the other? Was the missing piece any more complicated than that? If it is just a power cord, you might be able to find one that fits in the junk pile of a local surplus electronics store.
No, it sounds like the problem is that the end that connects to the appliance has a non-standard connector, so a normal power cord won’t work. Some scummy manufacturers tend to do things like that, putting a proprietary connector on the cord so you have to buy a replacement from them at an inflated price.
Look how many notebook computers require special batteries that are only available from the manufacturer. Or some of the recent Apple music players that require you to send the unit back for factory servicing when the battery wears out. Just another way for a manufacturer to rip off the customer.
Even if that is the case, scrounging through a pile of various cables might uncover one from the original manufacturer or one with a connector that is close enough to do the job.
If not, my next step would be to advise partly disassembling the unit (if possible) and attaching a new permanent AC cable by soldering it directly to the backside of the proprietary jack.
That’s a much more direct and simpler fix than getting a 240V to 12V power supply. If you’re not comfortable soldering, or making a safe connection, a local electrical/electronic repair shop could easily attach an AC cable, and could possibly have a surplus cable in their junk pile that would fit the original plug.
Yes, the problem is that the connection on the back of fridge is, I think, purposely unique. I am a bit of a pack-rat, and rooting through the great ‘drawer-chest of random cords and adaptors’ yielded nothing, and so far 4 electronics stores have been unable to help.
I am definitely not confident soldering anything, so will look into getting someone to do that.
I would still like to find an adaptor like this, as I know I have seen them before, and can think of other uses for it besides this. But it sounds like the best solution to this problem is to find someone to tinker with the connection.