ARECORD USB to 12V DC Adapter - USB A Male to Car Cigarette Lighter Socket Female Power Converter (Max Output 12V 0.8A)

I have an old car that I love (and it is paid for). I really should fix the cigarette lighter, but meh. Too expensive, and I have a portable battery bank, like most people in the 21st century. Pop this into your "power bank"/"external battery" (ir whatever you want to call it), and now you can use any corded item that needs a cigarette lighter plug. In my case it was my Escort Radar Detector (new toy—love love love it!). But the thing came with a cigarette plug. WTF was I supposed to do with that? Fortunately I found this, and now everything works just fine. This is an unusual item that most people will never need, or think of, but it is good to have. If you need one, I can tell you that this thing works, it is reliable, and well-made. And I didn't get paid to say this, I didn't get anything free. And I didn't get any perks for admitting that I use a radar detector ("kids: stay in school , don't do drugs, obey the speed limit").

Got a new car with only usb ports near the windshield, thought I'd give this product a try. First one never worked, notified seller, they sent a 2nd free of charge. It worked initially and now only works about 1/3 of the time. I'm outside of the return window so I guess I'm just stuck with a bad product. I'll try another vendor. UPDATE: Contacted the dealer and it turns out the front usb ports on a 2018 Maxima are under-powered. So it wasn't a defective devise, it was an assuming owner. Running power from center console usb converter and it works just as expected.

So I picked up this little gem of an adapter — the ARECORD USB to 12V DC Adapter (USB A) — because apparently, modern cars are too fancy to include a good ol’ 12V socket anymore. Nope. Just a buffet of USB-A and USB-C ports like it’s a tech conference, but zero place to plug in anything with a round plug and purpose. I needed to run a plug-in amber safety light for snow removal (because nothing says “winter prep” like glow sticks for your roof), and a dash cam, which, shocker, doesn’t run on raw optimism or Bluetooth alone. So this adapter saved the day. Twice. But let’s be real: not every USB-A port is going to give you enough juice. Some of them are basically just there to look helpful, like the coworker who offers to “circle back” but never does. So, if it doesn’t work through USB-A, try USB-C instead — that’s where the real power lives. USB-C is like the responsible sibling who actually graduated and has a job. Do I know why car manufacturers decided to ditch the classic 12V port? No. Probably the same reason they move the cup holder just slightly out of reach. But at least this adapter lets you pretend your car still has that one useful thing it forgot to include. Bottom line: it works. It’s cheap. It doesn’t judge your weird electrical needs. Just don’t expect it to perform miracles through USB-A if your port is lazy.

I connected the 5v>12v adapter to an Anker 14W solar charger through its 5v USB outputs, and then connected the Yaesu FT-60R via Yaesu brand car charger. The battery from the Yaesu was removed. For those who don’t know, the Yaesu FT-60R is one of the most popular two-way dual band ham radios. Note this was at 10AM in San Francisco on a day blanked by smoke from a forest fire, which is a scenario likely to play out after an earthquake. On the solar charger, the Yaesu noted 10.7-10.8v. I was able to receive on all channels, but I was not able to transmit on any. I got the typical blank screen that the Yaesu gives when a battery is going bad. Please note I only tried to transmit on HIGH using the solar charger. Even though the Yaesu normally indicates only 7.2v – 8.3v on batteries (lower than the 10.7v in this test), I don’t believe the 5v solar charger was able to provide enough CONTINUOUS amps. Also note below this exceeds the listed capability of the adapter (which is .8 amps). I then removed the solar panel and connected this to a standard 2.1 amp USB A/C power adapter. The Yaesu again noted 10.8 volts. I was able to receive on all channels, and to transmit on high on VHF for a short period (didn’t try long TX because this exceeds the amperage of the adapter, as noted below), but not able to transmit on high on UHF. I then successfully transmitted on low on UHF and hit a repeater that sometimes I’m unable to hit on low using batteries. (Updated) I then plugged the adapter into an Anker 21000mAh external USB charger and transmitted on UHF using "middle" power. Voltage on the Yaesu showed 10.2v. Hit the repeater again. Tried the same thing with an Aker PowerCore 3350mAH (the small one about the size of a lipstick container), and it won't transmit, same as the other errors. Showed 10.4v. I switch to low power, and it worked perfectly. Hit the repeater. I looked at the 21000mAH charger, and it shows an output of 4.8 amps at 5v, and the 3500mAH charger shows maximum of 1 amp at 5v. There's the issue. Yaesu’s manual states power consumption for the radio is .125 amps (125mA) for receive, 1.5 amps for transmit on high on VHF, and 1.6 amps for transmit on high on UHF, all at 7.2v. They don’t list the amp requirement for transmitting on low or “middle”. This leaves open the possibility I could transmit on "middle" on UHF too via USB power adapter, or transmit on low or "middle" on at least the VHF band using solar. Again, the adapter states the maximum amperage is 12VDC .8 amps, so something likely would go wrong (eg, fire) if I continually attempted to exceed those limitations by transmitting for long periods or attempted to power a refrigerator. However, this is now part of my power go-bag. Being able to power the Yaesu from a USB opens up a lot of possibilities in the event of emergency or loss of commercial power. I did not try to charge the battery. Maybe someone can try and post their findings in the comments.

I bought one of these in 2017 and it worked great to power my radar detector. I left this adapter in a rental car so bought another exactly the same this month and it didn't work. So I returned it and replaced it with the same and it still didn't work. Going to look for a different brand now. Disappointed.

I bought a new Mazda Miata MX-5 that has a GPS system, but Masad stopped providing the traffic reports about two weeks after I bought the car. I really want to have traffic reporting for my commute, so I wanted to use my Garmin which provides traffic reports. However, my Miata does not have a cigarette lighter and the Garmin traffic receiver is in the power cable which needs to be plugged into the cigarette lighter. Thus, I bought this cigarette lighter adapter for my GPS system. So far it has worked really well. Some of the other reviews said that it doesn’t last very long, so I don’t know if this review will change in the future. But for now I’m really pleased with it, and it is great to be able to have my traffic reports

Got it for hurricane Ian because I knew I'd lose power. Don't have 1,000$+ for generator so I stocked up on portable chargers. I also have a inverter for a car charger that that is 45w. It plugs into the car then when the green light is lit it's ready to plug stuff into it normally. I could plug anything into it that takes a regular outlet. But when i used the CONVERTER in the house nothing worked. With the USB end plugged into one of my portable chargers I plugged in the inverter to the female car port. Two things here, the red light on the converter would flash and then shut off. I'm assuming my portable chargers didn't have enough amps or watts or something cuz nothing I plugged in got the charge.

I use this device to run a six inch fan in my car. I have a 20W portable solar charger with two 5VDC USB oupputs that I use to charge cell phones and tablets.. I also have a 12V 10W 6 Inch (15cm) fan to circulate the air in my car. This device allows me to run my 12V fan off of my 5V USB solar charger to ventilate my car in hot weather. This reduces the temp in my car in hot weather significantly with the windows cracked.All I do is set the solar panel on the dashboard and plug in the fan to the solar chargerusing this adaptor. It works. I ordered two of these step up voltage adaptors. They work for any 12V device requiring less than 1 amp at 12V DC. I am happy with this purchase.