I have an early Mk1 that for one reason or another never got installed in my car. Don't worry, it still gets used daily, just not in the car.

I am starting to think about finally installing it in the car, so today I tried to use it in the car. The problem is it didn't work.

I am powering it off an adapter plugged into the cigar lighter. If the empeg is plugged in and the car is not running I get nothing, no standby LED and no boot. If I then start the car I get the standby LED but no boot. If I then remove the power and apply it I get nothing again, no LED.

I have tested the adapter, it has a positive centre pin, the same as my mains adapters. The voltage when the car is not running is 11.84 volts, with the engine running it is 14.25 volts. The output from my mains adapter is 15.10 volts.

Those voltages sound to me like they are within the acceptable range, so why isn't it working ?

The adapter by the way is very straight-forward. It has an LED to indicate that current is being drawn, there appears to be two resistors and what looks like a diode to provide the LED functionality.

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