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Here's a project box that would do nicely:

allelectronics.com/make-a-store/item/mb- ... s-project-box-76-x-50-x-27mm/1.html

Just need to cut the opening for the USB connectors and a hole on the opposite side for the wiring.

Here is a fuse holder that would work, just add a 4 or 5 amp fuse:

allelectronics.com/make-a-store/item/fhp ... onomy-agc-in-line-fuseholder/1.html

Which you can find here as well:

allelectronics.com/make-a-store/item/fs-5/5a-3ag-fuse/1.html

Only things missing are the double-sided tape and some 18ga hookup wire for the negative side, and perhaps a couple of terminal rings.

Besides the shipping costs for the parts, I think you could build a working one for under $10 and 1/2 hour in the garage.

While this doesn't give you the 12volts in a 6volt car, as was the original intent of JW's thread (sorry to hi-jack). It does provide 5v-3amp USB power which is more than sufficient to run/charge a majority of the GPS/Tablet/Phone gadgetry that we use in cars today and requires no additional batteries, chargers, or other equipment in the car. It pretty much gives you the built-in USB power ports that are standard in many of today's newer cars. So your cigar lighter can stay in place on the dashboard.

What would happen if you just ran a converter into your cigar lighter?

Most of those adapters are solid-state in some way so would have an issue with positive ground applications as they are polarity specific.

Also, most of the cheaper USB adapters are using a pretty simple step down IC circuit expecting 12-15 volts input. So it may either not work at all, or may produce less than 5 volts on 6-7.5 volts input. Some may work, but you would really have to test them to be sure.

For the price of what I posted above, it would be on par to a good over the counter USB cigarette port adapter which may or may not work because of the polarity and voltage differences.

Big Kev or anybody........For the voltage challenged Packard owner (me) what does VCC mean?

In IC terms, it means the IC power-supply pin (VCC), plus collector supply line voltage in a common NPN circuit.

In layman's term, it means where the positive wire connects to. :)

In addition to what Kev said it is a term from the first days of transistors when they tried to differentiate the voltages used with different types of transistor fabrications. There were several originally: Vcc, Vee, Vdd, Vss, etc and so on. Since most of the solid state devices available today are based on the original fabrication method Vcc was denoting, it is now the catch all term and the one that stuck around.

What if you don't have a tablet/phone/GPS gadgets??

Then continue driving as normal. :)

I want AC, Kev.......

A block of ice and a fan :D