I ordered an XT60 cable/ cigarette plug from Amazon. 6 1/2 feet long, 14awg in July. I have a dedicated/fused cigarette female plug receptacle and after about two hours the plug part gets incredibly hot on the metal parts when charging my Elite 100 V2. After I ordered it, I got the Elite 10 with a XT60 cable, 16awg 3 foot plug. Should I ditch the 6 1/2 foot plug from Amazon and stick to the standard Bluetti Issued XT60 that came with that unit and use it with the all my XT60 Bluetti’s?
Thanks
@breamer999
Quality of Cig Plugs and the cables soldered to them cover a wide variety, many of which are dubious. Not only the plug itself, but the cable and the soldering.
The factor most people do not know, particularly with vehicle sockets is; I’ll use my Toyota 4x4 as an example. There is a front row centre console socket and a 2nd row rear centre console socket. They are on the same circuit rated 12VDC at 10A. This is a conbined load, not each.
Another point - I run a 40lt Engel fridge/freezer combi from an auxiliary rear bootspace battery. The Engel comes with a 12VDC lead fitted with a cig plug and I initially tested it from a cig socket. The plug was hot enough to be “too hot to the touch” and the load was 3.1 amps or around 38W. (Much less than the 100W a Bluetti draws) My first job, buy a spare Engel 12V lead, cut off the cig plug and replace with a 50A Anderson plug. It’s much safer and a more positve connection, especially on rough tracks. The only device I use in my 4x4 with a cig plug is a Hema Navigator GPS as it’s load is mA. (The original Engel cable was kept as is, for warranty purposes)
BTW - for extending 12V Bluetti charging cables, I’ve made up a 5M (15’) Anderson to Anderson with 6mm sq cable (10AWG), then a smaller cable Anderson to XT60, also 6mm cable. It handles the load no problem and very little voltage drop. (Both of these cables are commercially available) In fact, I also have a 10M (30’) Anderson extension as I also have a tyre compressor powered from the start battery and tow a caravan (RV Trailer).
So ditch the longer cable?
This depends on its wire gauge. I’ve found a 10AWG cable 10M (30’) to be ok for charging my power stations up to 600W to be ok, providing the plug is also able to carry the load. The Anderson plugs I use are rated to 50A @ 12V - 600W, they may get warm, but not hot.
A cig plug cable is generally much smaller in copper content i.e. diameter. (If it’s copper to start with - quality matters and unless you strip insulation, you have no idea, lol).
I stated 14awg in my original post
Oki, Your 6.5 ft cable using 12V at 10A will have at least a 3.5% voltage drop. Generally we accept 3% or lower.
Your extension cable is more suited to something like a small LED light extension drawing 2-3 amps max and again if it is in the better quality range.
When it comes to battery charging in the type of power stations, this also depends on load and distance. I checked my 10M Anderson, it uses 8AWG, the 5M cable uses 10AWG. They are both rated to 50A, but over 10M 10AWG has a higher voltage drop, hence going to the 8AWG size.
Over the 6.5’ or 2.3M you would need at least 12AWG and something more preferable than a cig plug. Work out your load and distance and then Google " DC voltage drop calculator", there are plenty of free ones online.
Thanks for the update. 12awg it is or use the short cable that came with the Elite 10.
The quality of the plug has everything to do with waste heat generated. There is slightly more internal resistance from the 6ft 14awg cable over the 3ft 16awg cable, say about 25% more, which would generate a little more heat, but the source of the hot plug is highly likely due to poor manufacturing (i.e. cheaper metals used, thinner wiring) which would manifest as heat. The downgrade to a thicker gauge wire may make a slight difference but it may also be negated by the poorer quality cigarette lighter head.