My cigarette lighter is down! of course this will cut into my smoking habit, but mainly it deprives me of all of my fun 12Volt powered goodies, like gps, lil bears dvd, the MP3 player, cb, So. here is what I know

1) Anything plugged into the cigarette lighter does not work/ shows no signs of life
2) The 15A dedicated fuse is not blown, and I replaced it with a new one anyways
3) My radar dector is hard wired into the gray/red line (with a scotch connector that jumps across the wire) and it HAS power
4) I pulled the the lighter socket and tried a different 12V lighter socket and still no signs of life from the stuff that gets plugged in.
5) Checked the fuses on all of the things that are plugged in.

Here is the trickier information

I pulled out a multimeter (old radio shack) and ran black to black red to red and got a consistent -12.15 volts when the key was hot, but I really have no clue about how to use a multimeter and could be screwing it up.

I also recently had the stereo out and was banging around in the area where the lighter was while replacing the a/c blower switch. I am suspicious of the ground and am thinking about rigging up a pig tail and creating a new ground and seeing if that solves the issue. your thoughts?

I would guess the ground is suspect as well. I would just run a constant 12V socket. I have one installed so I have the option of having something charging while the key is off.

I think I am going to try running a second ground, it would be novel to have one thats always hot, but I am always paranoid of things running when I am not around in the truck.

I have a power splitter that has individual switches to each port. I also have a 3 port that's controlled by a single switch. I got mine at Walmart... <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Well, it took a new ground AND a new socket to get it going, but now it is great. tomorrow I am going to make the hole bigger for the new socket. Picked a nice one up at west marine.

I'm curious why yer old one went bad. Post up some piccies of it... <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />