I have a 97 TJ, it is a great vehicle but would benefit from seat heat. I have a kit and the stock seats have covers over them which fit very well. My plan s to place the seat heaters between the seats and covers, then wire them in. Question is, where can I tap into a 12V source in the Jeep? Maybe the cigarette lighter?
Cigarette lighter likely won't be able to provide enough amps to run the seats without burning up fuses or wires. I would see what size wire the seats reccomend and then based of of that would either use an add a fuse kit or would tap directly to the battery with a relay going off the ignition.
Yep, add a 20amp relay that has switched power. I do remember talking to a gentleman who had tapped into the cig lighter without any issues, but why even risk it when a relay is so cheap and presents you better options for future upgrades. If it helps, here's a link to a previous thread about the heated seat upgrade.
not trying to hijack the thread but i saw on my 06 tj that there are cables going through the front seats and wondering if the cabling for the heated seats there and i just need to install the switch etc etc?
Easier than you would think. I'm not an automotive techie, and even I figured it out lol. When you buy a relay at any auto parts store, there will be included a diagram for wiring the necessary posts/blades on the relay itself. One post will be wired to a keyed (low amp) powered source. One will be directly to the battery (high amp) source, and one wire to your seat power cables, and one line to a strong ground (may be the neg term at battery). What essentially happens with a relay is the ability to use a low amp switch as a control to turn on the high amp power source without running a high amp wire through that switch.
I'm sure that others may chime in here and give a better description, but really it's a pretty simple thing to do. Perhaps this video will help a little. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAeKTlieYhw
Just took a look at the set I bought, I originally got it for my Corvette but the Jeep has a much higher need for seat heat!
The set has an inline fuse for each seat and also includes a relay. I just need to figure out where to tap into for the relay and I should be good to go from there.
OK it goes further.
I looked at the seat heat set, began to lay it all out as I am fond of doing before installing anything.
There is a relay in the wiring harness, there is the high low switch for the heat and two tails, red and black.
On the other seat, there is no apparent relay, there is the high low switch, the red and black leads and there is a small black box about .5" thick by 1" wide by about 1.25" long inline in the harness on that side. They two harnesses do not appear to connect to each other in any way, they both have the red and black leads ready to attach to power source, (which I have yet to locate).
My thought is to connect the two reds and the two blacks, then attach those to whatever power source and ground I come up with. My only concern is, why only the one relay? What is the black inline box?
One last thing, there are also two inline fuses included in the set. So I would run those inline with the red lines before attaching to the hot source. So I suppose I should run the hot off the battery? Then make a good strong ground in the body some place? Im good with this type thing with the basics, but dont get all of the details obviously.
I connect my heated seats together but they each had their own relay. I just ran a larger gauge from my accessory block and spliced my positives into that. The only down side to my setup is someone could leave them on and drain the battery (but that's just something I double check now).
Behind the glove compartment is a "foam" 2x5" portal. Push your coat hanger right through it. I recommend pushing the guide-snake coat hanger through from the engine dept side and snaking it around until you find clear passage.
My 05 has a cigarette lighter and another aux 12 volt power jack right next to it. One is switched and one is hot all the time. Each power outlet is fed by a dedicated 20 amp circuit, so I just stole the switched one's power wires to power both heated seats and jumped the cigarette lighter socket off of the other non switched power outlet so now both power ports are hot all the time and share a 20 amp fuse.
I have had zero issues with this as the seats do not draw very many amps and the 20 amp circuit is fine for running both of them at the same time. I also only use things like phone chargers or GPS units in the power ports which do not draw very many amps, so I'm not worried about sharing the 20 amp service to the power ports.
I only mention this because it made the install very easy by grabbing the power right there near the center console.
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