I’ve had my C9000 for a few years now and it just occurred to me to get a car charger. So I am aware that there is an “official” car adapter for it, but I also saw this on ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/350792354795?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&\_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649
I just don’t know enough about this stuff to know if this would work, so I’m hoping someone can enlighten me. Thanks. 
I have used 12 car adapters in the past with other chargers, WF139, DuraCell fast charfger, Ross fast charger, etc.
I have a C9000 and although I have not yet used it in the car I do not see any reason why it should not be OK. Just make sure the plug size is correct, is 12V, has the correct polarity (almost all would) and the plug is able to pass at least 2A.
Would that be a good idea? The 12V outlet in a car was of course originally intended for a cigar lighter. Short burst of power. Now we use it for a great number of things and cars don’t come with a lighter plugged into it anymore.
But is a 4 bay charger capable of 2A per bay a good idea on a 12V power supply from a car? Couple of hours or more, depending on the settings chosen, might be more than the car wiring was designed for.
I’d be leery of using it in the car. Or at least, of using it to it’s full potential. A soft charge of a couple of cells perhaps. But a full on quick charge of 4 depleted high capacity cells might end up causing some issues.
I personally wouldn’t do that to my car, my charger, or my cells. Might just be me.
Edit: At the very least, I’d get the cords made to fit the device. This cheap Chinese stuff scares me when it comes to electronics, with the corners that are cut and lack of regulatory controls. If one vs the other were going to catch fire, I’d put money on it being the ebay knock off, not the one from Maha.
How much power does the charger need? Does it come with a power supply, if yes what is written on it? Is there a manual which rates the 12V plug of the charger?
I would say a car socket has at least a 10A fuse(in most plugs is a additional fuse in the tip), so 120-140W of power can be sucked out of it. It is made for this. So a charger is a really low load for a car.
I see no problems in terms of power.
besides that a car don’t has constant 12V, it depends on charging/operating state so the device should be able to handle at least 15V.
If you plan to use it while driving a car power supply has tons of spikes and such things which could potentially destroy or confuse electronics……in real life nobody cares and the most things function without problems.
I am not sure if there is electronic inside a cable, plug as it looks like that there is at least a LED in it.
The wall wart for the MAHA C9000 is rated at 12V 2A. The car outlet is more than enough.
I didn’t think to check the wall wart for output. I was assuming (yeah yeah yeah) that 4 bays at 2A each would be in excess of 8A with losses. So how does it do 2A to each cell if it’s only a 2A draw TOTAL?
Guess I’m confused. Electronics isn’t my forte, obviously.
Edit: The wall wart for my C808M is only drawing 1.20A of power, the output is rated at 2A. So there are some stories being told on the MAHA descriptions at Thomas Distributing.
EditII: They don’t explicitly state that each bay is capable of charging at a high rate, they only state 2000mA charge rate for D size batteries. It’s left for the end user to do the math that 2000mA is divided between 8 cells. The do state up to 5 hours to charge D cells at 2000mA charge rate, which is very deceptive. 8 9500mAh D sized cells taken down fairly low aren’t going to charge in any 5 hours! With a 250mA charge rate when charging 8 cells, well, it’s gonna take a while!
Sorry, didn’t understand and have had an eye opening experience today.
It is much easier to see, if you look at the power:
12V 2A is 24 watt
Each battery needs lees than 2V at 2A, i.e. less than 4 watt or a total of less than 12 watt.
That means there is a surplus of more than 12 watt, that can be used for the electronic and less than 100% efficiency.
The charger for my C808M states an 18V 2000mA output rate. It has 8 bays.
So the C9000 would easily work on a 12V cigarette lighter plug in a car. Would it matter if the car was running? Would it draw too much power from the car battery if the car isn’t running?
18V 2A is 36 watt or 4.5 watt for each bay.
Here is the official Maha C9000 12V adaptor:
There was a discussion on this at CPF last year.
Official information from Powerex
"Thank you for contacting Maha. The range is 11.4-12.6Vdc."
Anecdotal evidence suggests that unless the engine is running (in which case the nominal system voltage will be up around 14V due to alternator output) you should be fine. At around 14V you may experience problems.
my bc700 says not to use with invertors because they are not often pure sine wave and can damage the charger so I would check into it if I were you
No inverter used here…just the dc12V plug from a car
keep in mind the power would be converted to dc for the charger by the power supply, but it said damage to the charger (they could have meant power supply, but we have no way of knowing)
also Pilotptk has mentioned that automotive power is not very clean or stable with voltage spikes of many times 12V, so i would play it extra safe personally
i would only use a car charger that i can confirm came from the manufacturer of the charger because its worth some money, if it were a $5 special it would not matter much if it died
Thanks for the replies guys, you bring up some great points.
I know through doing some research on this topic previously that charging 4xAA in your car even when not running is no big deal. I wasn’t particularly worried about that, just wanted to know if this cheap adapter would work.
Of course I looked up the official charger first (as I mentioned in the OP) but then as I looked at it more, I just couldn’t shake the feeling that its a bit overpriced and wondered if I could use the cheap one in the link.
For me, this is not something I would use all the time, it would be something I’d use maybe once or twice a year. That is why I didn’t really want to buy the official one.
At $1.49 its totally worth buying to me, I just wanted some help from you electronics guys
So I really feel that this should work, and I guess that’s the consensus? Well at least I haven’t heard anyone say, “Don’t do that you idiot!” …yet
Fine on a non-running car, just watch you don’t flatten the battery of the car lol.
2A is easy for the lighter socket, it is supplied directly from a battery so perfect DC output (better than some cheap wall wart, Maha or not).
On a running car I doubt you’d have issues but the DC will be high and it will have spikes so avoid if poss or accept you may damage the charger.
Total nonsense post.
I mentioned the spikes in an early post, too.
i may have missed your mentioning of it, but that doesn’t mean my post is nonsense or that it has no other relevant information
Well I went ahead and ordered it. I’ll update you guys if my charger explodes or on the off chance that it works fine.
I really like the looks of that charger, worry that it might be too complicated as I forget things so easily.