CHEWKNOW

Im an idiot. I wanted to hardwire my Sirius radio without using the cigarette lighter adapter. So I cut the adapter off and there is only 1 wire. I tried splicing this wire into the 12V power and it did not work. I also tried it behind the fuse panel etc. Still no luck. Anyone know what I need to do....When I cut the wire there is a black cover (outside), then right below that there is bare wire that surrounds the inner wire (white wire) and acts almost like a shield. Kind of looksl ike coax cable when you cut it. I'm assuming that has something to do with the ground and tying into the adapter. Im lost.....

fsttyms1

CHEWKNOW

haha...yeah i know its confusing...i f*cked up and am probly gonna have to buy another one.

fsttyms1

take a pic of what you cut

dwest1023

That bare wire that is wrapped around the white plastic is your ground. You will have to unravel it and connect a ground wire to it. Then it should work. I am an Electronic tech, so.......

fsttyms1

but the sig lighter sholdnt have a wire like that

fsttyms1

Ok i miss read it i thought you cut teh wire going to the cig lighter in the car and it looked like that. Yes do what teh above poster said

t0ast

Its exactly how coax's are wired. Inner is hot (eg: whatever +V), and outer is ground.

I'd suggest you stagger how much you strip them back. It's pretty common when people wanna run RCA cables to a sub off of an OEM stereo without RCA jacks. Strip the outer wire back 2-3 inches and expose the wire. Pull the strands out from around the inner wire insulation and retwist them into a single wire, separated from the insulated inner wire. It should now look like a two-pronged fork with the bare outer wire as one prong and the insulated inner wire as the other prong. Now strip the inner wire insulation back 1 inch so you have that extra 1-2 inches of inner insulation to separate the two. Then just solder and heat-shrink wrap accordingly.