Even though your Ipod is not connected, you still have current being drawn through the wire.

 

Is that a bad thing in itself?

 

Might wear the charger out prematurely. Also might catch fire some day....

 

How often do ac/dc converters overheat and result in fire?

 

In my other car I had a portable plug in converter and it had a mini fan built in, which leads me to believe they run hot. But why take a chance. In my Ram I have to press a switch in order for it to kick on.

 

FWIW I had a kindle charger plugged into the 115 for 4 years and both were fine.

 

I keep one of these plugged in at all times -> http://www.amazon.com/Livestrong-Portable-Battery-Wall-Charger/dp/B005O02GEE

I use an iPhone and having a portable power source for it proves convenient. I also use it to charge my kids' iPods and I have no troubles. Those chargers consume about 10% of the power the inverter can deliver and in my professional opinion are plenty safe to be left plugged in.

 

Unless it shorts out and burns your Jeep to the ground. Hope it isnt parked in your garage under your house...

 

If the outlet is factory installed doesn't it shut off after the vehicles been off after like 3 mins?
I have an inverter (2outlets and a usb outlet) that's hardwired.
I have left multiple things plugged in without a problem.
Leaving something charging I would be more concerned about a slow drain on the battery.

 

When I'm working out of my Patriot I have the following:

An inverter, I haven't got around to making it custom, I just come from the battery, out the hood and in through a window...I know, I know, I'll fix that. That charges my satellite phone.

Out the factory outlet I have an octopus of things. cell phone charger, hand held charger (its sort of like those scan guns they use in grocery stores only electrical things in memory) and dash cam.

The inverter stays on as it is direct to the battery but everything else goes off as soon as I open the door. so sometimes I'll plug one of the other chargers into the inverter.

It all works fine and I'm assured by those who know stuff that the modern batteries and charging functions in this stuff will handle my set up so...its all good.

The inverter is the only thing that gets warm, it always gives me a jump when its fan kicks on...for some reason its a bit noisy. I set it up on a flat from an egg crate. So a big(ish) square that looks like egg carton bottom. It shuts itself off if its on the seat or floor carpet...needs that airflow.

Takes just minutes to revert to normal vehicle, everything into a box...and just minutes to put it all back in "work" mode.

 

Obviously, I'm not using an inverter, just the factory 115V that has a small iPod charger attached (pulls like a single amp) - It gets hot, but obviously shuts off when the car is off - It seems like it should be fine and it's the power supply that gets hot, which I guess would just burn that out as opposed to the outlet - There's no way it would pull too much power.

 

You are in fact using an inverter. That 115VAC outlet is powered by12VDC. The charger outputs 1 Amp, but since that's at 5V, it has about a 5 watt output, so it likely consumes about 10 watts, and at 115V, it draws less than 1/10 Amp.

 

You use more power to convert. In this case you are converting 12v to 115v so that you're charger can then convert it back to 5v. Why not just get a 12v iPod charger instead? I'm just saying...

 

I bought a 12V USB charger, removed the case, soldered leads on to the board and tapped the power from the 12V outlet for it. I wrapped the circuit board in heat shrink, plugged a short USB extension cable into it and stashed the end of the cable in the glove box. Now I have an extra USB outlet so my wife can charge her phone, camera, nook... You get the idea.


Sent from my Autoguide iPad app

 

The factory 115v outlet is only on when the jeep in on, so I don't think it will be a problem leaving it plugged in all the time.