Hey all, quick little tip that some of you may find useful.
Not to long ago I purchased a Dometic CFX 50. I love it and couldn't be happier. The next step was how to power it. A full blowndual battery set up is somewhere in my future but at this point the cost is to much. So I settled on a Goal Zero Yeti 400 to act as a quisi ual battery. I am aware this has its drawbacks especially in capacity but with the ability to chain a second battery to it, I should have little issues making it through a weekend trip. Now to the issue at hand. I obviously wanted to be able to charge the Yeti while driving to maximize its run time while parked. The issue was the 12v socket in the back of my JKU resulted in the male end plug jutting out in to the cargo area and I knew I would soon smash the plug with something. I also suspect I might be able to charge at a higher voltage (wattage??) with better wiring.
My immediate thought was the often recommended ARB wiring kit, however it uses the screw in style connector and the Yeti's charge cable uses a standard one. I looked around to source my own wire, fuse and plug and realized I wasn't going to save much over the ARB kit. So on a whim I said screw it and ordered it knowing full well the plug wouldn't fit. I figured maybe once I actually had it some way to alter it would present its self, and it did just that.
Once I had it I realized the socket piece of the kit (as apposed to the wire) was actually two pieces that could be separated. The outer protective housing and the actual female socket. The female socket was removable by unscrewing a plastic bolt. Once I had it apart I realized the female socket looked like a standard part and I wondered if I could just drop in a standard style one and be done with it. Low and behold 10 minutes on amazon landed my on Blue Seas 12v socket which listed its diameter at 30mm (a match for the ARB housing). I placed and order and today was happy to find it dropped right in without any modification. I was even able to use the metal connectors provided by the ARB kit.
Now maybe for some of the wiring experts this is common knowledge, but I was unable to find any information on this searching the forums and google. As I said I could have built my own kit from scratch but by my calculations I really wasn't going to save much over the ARB kit and I might end up with questionable quality. I can't yet report back on whether or not the heavier wire will improve charging because my Yeti is currently fully charged and would draw anything. I will report back on this further later.
One final note is that it appears even though this is hard wired to the battery the Yeti will not draw a charge with the vehicle off. This is something I read mentioned on a thread here and hoped would be the case. If that is truly the case which it appears it is because I get the Low Voltage error with the Jeep off I wont worry about leaving everything plugged in without the Jeep running. For a long stoppage I can obviously just unplug it to be sure but it gives me piece of mind if I were to forget.
Let me know if anyone has any questions, the ling to the replacement socket I used is below:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001U4ZZPK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Not to long ago I purchased a Dometic CFX 50. I love it and couldn't be happier. The next step was how to power it. A full blowndual battery set up is somewhere in my future but at this point the cost is to much. So I settled on a Goal Zero Yeti 400 to act as a quisi ual battery. I am aware this has its drawbacks especially in capacity but with the ability to chain a second battery to it, I should have little issues making it through a weekend trip. Now to the issue at hand. I obviously wanted to be able to charge the Yeti while driving to maximize its run time while parked. The issue was the 12v socket in the back of my JKU resulted in the male end plug jutting out in to the cargo area and I knew I would soon smash the plug with something. I also suspect I might be able to charge at a higher voltage (wattage??) with better wiring.
My immediate thought was the often recommended ARB wiring kit, however it uses the screw in style connector and the Yeti's charge cable uses a standard one. I looked around to source my own wire, fuse and plug and realized I wasn't going to save much over the ARB kit. So on a whim I said screw it and ordered it knowing full well the plug wouldn't fit. I figured maybe once I actually had it some way to alter it would present its self, and it did just that.
Once I had it I realized the socket piece of the kit (as apposed to the wire) was actually two pieces that could be separated. The outer protective housing and the actual female socket. The female socket was removable by unscrewing a plastic bolt. Once I had it apart I realized the female socket looked like a standard part and I wondered if I could just drop in a standard style one and be done with it. Low and behold 10 minutes on amazon landed my on Blue Seas 12v socket which listed its diameter at 30mm (a match for the ARB housing). I placed and order and today was happy to find it dropped right in without any modification. I was even able to use the metal connectors provided by the ARB kit.
Now maybe for some of the wiring experts this is common knowledge, but I was unable to find any information on this searching the forums and google. As I said I could have built my own kit from scratch but by my calculations I really wasn't going to save much over the ARB kit and I might end up with questionable quality. I can't yet report back on whether or not the heavier wire will improve charging because my Yeti is currently fully charged and would draw anything. I will report back on this further later.
One final note is that it appears even though this is hard wired to the battery the Yeti will not draw a charge with the vehicle off. This is something I read mentioned on a thread here and hoped would be the case. If that is truly the case which it appears it is because I get the Low Voltage error with the Jeep off I wont worry about leaving everything plugged in without the Jeep running. For a long stoppage I can obviously just unplug it to be sure but it gives me piece of mind if I were to forget.
Let me know if anyone has any questions, the ling to the replacement socket I used is below:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001U4ZZPK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
