Cigarette lighter always on - how to?

[BMR]

I checked for old threads on this and didn't find anything. I want my cigarette lighter outlet to *always* be on. A lot of other cars are like that, but not my Camry. I'd like to be able to leave my phone or iPod plugged in to charge while the car is sitting in the parking lot, because I sometimes forget to plug 'em in at home.

Is this relatively easy to do?... what's the best way?... just run a new wire (with inline fuse) to it?... cut a wire & bypass whatever relay is shutting it off? I'd check out the wiring diagram myself, but I'm feelin' lazy, plus I figure you all are pretty smart - might think of something I'm overlooking.

edit: ACK!!!... I meant to post this in the gen 3/4 Camry forum - mods please move.

[nopain00]

You're best off running a new wire with an inline fuse. I did something similar: I added a second cigarette lighter that is always on. I wanted to keep the one that goes on and off with the car so that my GPS would automatically shut off when I turned off the car.

The whole thing is pretty easy. The hardest thing is figuring out a route for the wire so that it's out of the way and not too visible.

[BMR]

Thx nopain. That's probably what I'll do, rather than hack into the existing wiring. After thinking about it some more, having a cord dangling out of the existing socket is a bit annoying. On my gen 3 Camry, the cord gets in the way of the cup holder. So I might do like you did and route the second plug into the throw tray at the bottom of the radio/HVAC console. I'd leave it loose with about a foot of cord, so I can tuck it away when not in use.

[nopain00]

Sounds good. Only thing to be careful is that I think you're saying that you're going to leave it loose and the wiring may get disconnected if you're constantly moving it back and forth. What I did was permanently mount a new cigarette lighter down near the floor on the passenger side of the console. Then I plugged a cigarette lighter extension into that one so that I can use it when I want, and disconnect it when it's not needed. This way everything is out of view.

[AlmightyCamry777]

use a fuse tap to a circuit that gets power all the time. At the fuse box, its pretty simple, jno chopping up your wiring required. Just be sure and wire in a fuse of the appropriate amps for the cig lighter (i guess you'd need to wire into another circuit that takes the same amps or more).