12mo ago

How does a car cigarette lighter work?

www.lumafield.com

This is an ad for something CT-scan-related, but it contains a good breakdown of how an old car cigarette lighter works. And it has a couple interactive CT Scan explorers past the video.

31 comments

Ah, the old school electric car cigarette lighter. Also known as "The curious child's first learning experience with the concept of 'hot' "
- How many noses have fallen to its lure?
  
  Fingertips for me, lol.
- Ash trays in all the passenger doors. AKA mini trash cans.
  
  Ohhhh shit so that's what they were? As a kid I used to see them as mini cup holders.
- Eh, I just took it out to plug in my Game Boy/Game Gear.
[off topic?]
You used to be able to get a special dispenser that would hand you a lit cigarette as you drove.
https://jalopnik.com/cars-once-came-with-built-in-cigarette-dispensers-1795733052
- “...a built-in cigarette case which “hands” you a cigarette at the [unintelligible] of a convenient lever.”
  Really disappointed that's all that link had... No pictures or illustrations, not even a proper description :/
  
  Found it in the Popular Mechanics issue.
  
  This one has images and a diagram. So you pull the lever on the bottom and on top a cigarette will be Pezzed out. Here's the car it was installed in. Didn't find anything about it being lit though.
  
  I wanted a video, but couldn't find one.
- No image or diagram? What's the point of going to the trouble of writing an article of solely words about something most people have never seen before?
  
  check the thread. Other people are smarter than us.
  
  Was the auto play auto focus video ad not enough of a motivator?
This company is does a cool thing. I saw them on Adam Savage’s YouTube last year. Any product they scan, is uploaded to their site. Any person can launch the web app and look at the scans of the things they’ve scanned. You can view the full images in all dimensions.
The 3d scans you can manipulate on that page are pretty cool.
Not all that surprised by the lighters mechanism though; a bit of nickle chrome wire for a heating element and some bi-metal strips to release it based on temperature. Pretty simple.
It's cool how elegant the design is that it automatically ejects when it's done heating up without needing a sensor and digital system to read and handle that action. It's also cool how a feature designed solely to light a cigarette has been adapted to power all sorts of other things. I wonder if these ports will be obsoleted in favor of only having USBs.
- My electric car only has USB ports and no cigarette lighter, so I bet you're right about it being replaced.
  
  My first GPS came with a cigarette lighter plug.
  My next one came with a USB cable along with a cigarette lighter to USB adapter.
  I think most these days now come with a USB cable but no adapter.
  I’m now starting to see some devices come with USB-C cables.
Me, being old, thinking about the kids who might see this and not understand it at all.
Wow thanks, that's so amazing!
I should've seen the bimetallic strip coming. I've watched enough technology connections

31 comments