a/c system shorted out.
i have a new radar detector that i plugged in to lighter socket and tucked the wire in between crevases to hide it...........when i got to the center piece around the radio & a/c, i popped the piece out (just enough to tuck the wire behind it), and pushed it back in place. a couple of seconds went by and i noticed smoke. so i immediately yanked the plug out, but the wire melted and my a/c shut off. everything in the car works fine, but my a/c wont even power up. i tried to find a blown fuse or something and couldnt find anything. please help! it's really hot. lexus cant look at it till tues. or wed.

 

Hot??? california hasn't had sun for the last year. lol. ok besides today. we had a little sun.

 

the ac runs off of the same trigger wire the cig plug does. you might not be able to "See" the break in the fuse, but it is possible there still is one. i'd pull each fuse one at a time and carfefully inspect the sides where the fuse makes contact inside. It is entirely possible the fuse has a cold spot in it now.

I'd also find a new idea on the radar install

good luck.

 

try checking the uses under the hood

 

I don't think the lighter runs off the same circuit as the a/c, in most cars the radio and the lighter might be the same wire, but that's usually about it. At the moment I don't feel like getting up and looking to confirm this, but this is usually the case.

a/c is usually run off a key on wire, but not one that runs through the start cycle, which means it is a secondary on wire. Lighters and radios are normally acc wires.

In any case, you outta be a little more careful in the future =P

 

in a lexus climate circut the original wire from acc goes to the dimmer circut switch which fires on demand, or so to say with the ignition. phase two fires the ciggy. it's like a stepper process. functions like an "EXCLUSIVE-OR" gate. related through a gateing system.

edit: i wanted to further up on that. think of a Y-adapter railroad track switch in reverse. the same junction switches to the only on input, but is determined by which path is needed. It's the same wire, but one set of the circut only functions off of low voltage inputs, then when the ign comes on it kicks the IC into high state and opens the IC to high voltage. it's just logic chips. They make it appear there is two different circuts, but lexus made good use of one thing in particular..... logic gates. IN practicality there is two circuts because there are two logic states that determine the output, but in reality there is only one trigger wire.

if that doesn't make sense, i can referr a good website on TTL logic.

 

thanx for the imput. someone emailed me a diagram of the fuse box. it ended up being a blown fuse marked htr instead of a/c. being originally from FL i dont know much about heaters.
so the a/c&heater is not wired w/anything else.

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!..................now thats more like it.

 

Very cool, glad to hear you got it working. it's hot here just in TN, i can't imagine the heat where you are.



**so the a/c&heater is not wired w/anything else** -- correct, the main power is within it's own fuse. the SWITCH is tied in the other circut.


How are you going ot run the wire now? got any plans?

 

now i'm gonna spend the few extra minutes and disassemble the console (like i should have done in the first place) and do it correctly. i have to replace the wire on the radar since it got pinched while installing it.
when it got pinched, i believe it grounded out on the side of the a/c unit and thats where my problem started.