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| I took this picture while I was on a road trip to visit a good friend of mine who was away at college. |
I've always been intrigued by any automotive accessory that can be plugged into a 12-volt plug in any vehicle. Some of these 12-volt automotive accessories can be very useful, such as plug-in emergency equipment, spotlights, or power inverters. Others, not so useful but more for looks like the colored light bars that synchronize with music played through the vehicle's stereo, for example. Personally, my most commonly used accessories are a GPS navigation device and a power inverter plugged in. The power inverter also has an additional 12-volt plug built into it so even when it's plugged in you're not minus a plug. Although, pretty much all vehicles made these days have at least one plug, while many newer vehicles have several built-in by factory default.
Large Power Inverters
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| This power inverter is very similar to the model I have, except it doesn't have the extra DC plug, however it makes up for it by having an extra 120-outlet. |
Small Power Inverters
As I mentioned before, the smaller power inverters are not always a bad choice. In fact, they can be quite ideal for charging mp3 players, cell phones, or even a digital camera, perhaps. Although, I would advise against using them for anything larger than the particular items I listed earlier as they will most likely be underpowered for larger accessories. These small inverters are ideal for mp3 players or cell phones that perhaps don't hold a charge very long, needing to be recharged often or even as you use them. These can be lifesavers during a road trip while taking pictures with a digital camera or keeping your cell phone always topped off on battery. Why not just buy a 12-volt charger made exactly for the item you'd like to charge? It's simple. Many of those items can cost just as much, and in some cases even more than one of these small power inverters. All mp3 players, cell phones, and digital camera come with a charger these days. The problem is, most of the time it's the charger that plugs directly into a standard AC wall outlet. Therefore, with one of these handy little power inverters, you virtually have a car charger for all of your small electronic accessories in your vehicle. Plus, a handy little bonus that most of these small power inverters come with is a built-in USB plug for items that can be charged using a USB port.GPS Navigation Devices
Another very important 12-volt accessory that comes to mind is the portable GPS navigation device. I actually used to have two of the TomTom ONE 130 GPS devices; one stays in my car and one used to stay in my FedEx truck at work. This may seem pointless as some people used to always ask me, "Why don't you just get one and take it from vehicle to vehicle?" For me, there were at least two answers to this question: First, my route was a rural route, therefore I drove down a lot of gravel and dirt roads. The dirt and dust from the roads would gets sucked into my truck very easily as the trucks are not sealed well and this dust gets all over and even inside everything because it was like a fine powder. I'm a bit of a neat freak, so I didn't want to put a dust-covered GPS in my nice clean car. Second, I did't want to hassle with always swapping out my GPS from vehicle to vehicle all the time. These GPS devices have gone down drastically in price over the years, so having two GPS devices in my situation was much more practical than always swapping them out. Even though I had the same route everyday and know the territory very well, I still used my GPS several times daily. I don't use the 'Navigate To' feature so much, but mainly use the GPS as a mental refresher. I will glance at it several times a day to see what road is coming up next and even sometimes, as bazaar as it may sound, to double check what road I'm actually on. As I mentioned before, I had a rural route with a very large area. It's amazing how so many of the roads used to begin to look the same, especially in the flat cornfields of Indiana and Ohio. With all I had to be thinking about on the job, I would sometimes forget what road I was actually on and sometimes even forget where my next stop was as my mind would tend to wander thinking about such issues. The 'Browse Map' feature was probably the feature I used the most as far as the GPS device in my work truck. For those of you unfamiliar with using a GPS, this feature enables you to use the GPS device as a virtual interactive road map that you can zoom in and out with and scroll around the area. I use the one in my personal vehicle for random locations that I need to go to unexpectedly, and can be just as handy as the GPS device that was in my work truck. For those of you considering getting a GPS device for your own vehicle, I would definitely recommend it. They are very affordable these days and are not so much the expensive 'luxury item' as they were in the past. Once you start using one, you'll be amazed at how much, even in everyday driving, you will use it and wonder how you ever got along without it before. As I said before, I use TomTom brand of GPS device and I have never had any problems with either of them. These are also probably the most affordable of the GPS devices out there today and also the most user friendly so if you're not electronically savvy, no worries. Most, if not all of the current GPS devices on the market now use a touchscreen interface, which also adds to the ease of use greatly. If you do decide to get a GPS device, it will likely become your favorite 12-volt accessory you own.12-volt Splitters
The 12-volt splitter is a must-have for piece of equipment for anyone who uses multiple 12-volt plug accessories in their vehicle. Splitters come in many varieties splitting one plug into two, three, or even four plugs. I personally haven't seen any that split higher than four. Even on a fuse, that would potentially be quite a bit of power going through the primary 12-volt plug the splitter is in. As I mentioned before, I have a splitter in my car; one plug for the power inverter, the other plug for my GPS. These splitters, especially the cheaper ones, can be somewhat unreliable and break quite easily. This has nothing to do with the way that they're wired, just simply the extra 12-volt plugs the splitter is built with may not fit the particular 12-volt accessory that is plugged into it ideally. They can tend to slip around in the socket, causing the 12-volt accessory to become disconnected. More rarely, the 12-volt accessory plugged into the splitter can eventually come completely out of the socket. This is especially true for the particular splitter I used in my FedEx truck because the truck was a bumpy ride and bounced around a lot and the items plugged into the splitter could become quite easily disconnected over time. You can, however, take a 'Red Green' style fix to this by duct taping the accessory right into the splitter, which is what I did with the one in my work truck. It looks rather tacky, but like I've mentioned before, it's a dusty work truck, so it did't really matter too much. Besides, no one else sees it as I'm the only one who drives that particular truck. Also, these work trucks are not exactly built with glamor and looks in mind, anyway. Below, I've hand-picked some splitters that shouldn't give you the trouble that my cheap, dual splitter has given me. These are higher quality models, yet still very affordable. I would never recommend getting the cheapest splitter you can find as this would definitely lead to more frustration, trouble, and disconnections than it's worth. The one featured above is mid-range decent model; an improved version of the cheap model I had in my work truck.Spotlights
This 12-volt accessory is handy if you're driving around an unfamiliar area at night. Perhaps you're examining a relatively distant building or object, or for example a farmer checking around his farm during the night. I have an excellent Black & Decker halogen spotlight in my personal vehicle all the time because I never know when I may need it, and it's also an ideal piece of equipment for perhaps a Carp hunter on a lake at night. When I was young, my parents always took my brother and I up to the family lake cottage during the summer time. There were always a few Carp hunters on the lake at night using the spotlights to find their prey swimming near the surface. If you happen to be a utility worker who occasionally has to work during the night, this is most likely a necessity for you as well. Take a look at some of these spotlights I recommend below. The spotlight that I own is also featured. From personal experience, I've found this particular spotlight to be very reliable and easy to use.The Infamous Radar Detector
Another accessory I always used to have in my personal vehicle, however it was absent in my FedEx truck for obvious reasons, was a radar detector. Since I was a FedEx driver, I really don't speed anymore as they are ever-increasingly strict on penalties for getting a ticket whether in your personal vehicle or a FedEx truck. I did, however, speed quite often when I was younger before I worked for FedEx. I only kept the radar detector in my car because when I purchased it, it was one of the state-of-the-art models and I just can't bring myself to take it out and completely not use it at all because it was rather expensive. It did on occasion come in quite handy. Sometimes I would be speeding without noticing because this is very easy to do, especially when not among other vehicles to use as a reference. As I said, the speeding wasn't intentional, but the officer that could have pulled me over wouldn't care to hear this excuse, most likely resulting in me inadvertently getting a ticket. When I was a driver for FedEx, the company got rather strict on tickets and I didn't want to jeopardize my job just because I wasn't paying close attention to my speed. In my opinion, if used respectfully, radar detectors are not always a sinister item to have in your vehicle. My own is the Escort Passport 8500 X50 Radar Detector shown in the picture. I was extremely impressed and satisfied with it because it could pick up radar signals from such a far distance and worked reliably all the time. In my personal experience in using it, this radar detector can easily pick up radar within 2 miles, even with curves or hills on the roadway. If you are considering getting a radar detector, I would strongly recommend this particular model and can personally vouch for its impressive performance. It's definitely not the cheapest of the radar detectors, but also not the most expensive, either. However, when shopping for a radar detector you plan on using daily, cheapness shouldn't be a factor in making a decision on the right model. The way I look at it, in about two 'radar detector alert saves', this radar detector will pay for itself if you consider the price of the potential ticket.