Cigarette Lighter

[macmillions]

This is a little niggle which I have only noticed recently.
For xmas my o/h got a solar panel which trickle charges the battery through the cigarette lighter. (What a great idea!)

As I don't smoke and don't have a phone charger, I never realised the lighter didn't work... So therefore the solar panel is rendered useless at the moment.

Now, I assume its something simple, like a fuse, but question is, what fuse is it?
Also, if its not the fuse, what could the problem be? And would it be a simple fix that old muggins here (with next to no experience working on cars) could achieve?

Cheers for any responses!

[macmillions]

Update:
I have checked the fuse (fuse 3 I believe) and the fuse is fine. Any ideas what the problem could be?

[AndySil]

Sorry for delay. Not sure if you've sorted this out yet.
I'd never heard of the solar panel battery charger before but have googled it to find a few different ones.
Regarding your ciggy lighter not working I seem to remember having the same problem. What I did was to stop smoking. Which is good but doesn't solve your problem.

I think I had the same symptoms with my lighter in that the fuse was fine. I had to get at the wiring of the lighter in the end as it was an intermittant fault. A bit fiddly, I think it involved removing the centre console in front of the gear stick.
You need a multimeter really to check that the 12volt supply is present.
The lighter is supposed to have a illuminated ring around it too, which should come on when side lights are operated. This was also faulty on mine.
Other than that I can't offer you much more advice.
Apparently, the solar chargers will operate directly to the battery as you would charge with a normal battery charger.

[macmillions]

Hi, thanks for that.
I actually managed to sort it the other day. I realised the ring around the lighter was illuminated, so was obviously receiving the 12V. After testing with my voltmeter it read 12V. Success! So it just involved bending the contacts about (battery disconnected) as they weren't making when plugging in the phone charger/solar panel.

So now it all works and the solar panel is of some use! Yeah I realise its basically a normal battery charger, but I like the fact t will never drain itself of charge.