Charging with 12v while the truck is off

The linked mod to convert existing outlets is too involved for my liking.

This was $7 at Radio Shack and took 10 minutes. Ran to the 5A "AM1" fuse which is constant power. 5A is more than enough for charging any handheld device.

 

Since you're not really getting the response you're looking for I'll pitch in my method. I powered and fused a 12g or 10g wire at the battery and brought it into the cabin. I then installed a small fuse box with 4-5 slots inside the cab somewhere behind the plastic under the steering where your knees would be. Now you've got power to do all the fun stuff you want. I chose this method because it wont mess with warranty in case something does go wrong electrically, and electrical diagnostics can get messy, again in the event something does go wrong. Plus I'm sure you've seen the way all the wires are bundled into one big harness. I wouldn't ever want to dig into that shit. Anyways, it's simple and you'll know exactly what's going on. I pretty much power all my stuff light switches, CBs, etc like this. Charge shit all day if you want, you're battery will be okay. You're input is 12v stepped down to 5v and with conservation of power you wont be drawing as much as you'd think even when you take into account power loss due to resistance and whatever inefficiency of the voltage down step. You're going to have about 50-60Ah capacity on most group 27F batteries. Also, unless you're on your phone doing something while the battery is fully charged you're phone will draw even less power than when it was charging.

If you do go through the trouble of all this, you can also install USB port inserts into one of the blanks unless you dont have a blank spot. If you cut the power wire coming to the cig lighter make sure you insulate it so it can't short if it ever some how bumps onto a ground.

 

See…this is the type of response needed! Not all that negative Nancy bullshit. Why does it matter WHAT OP was going to charge while powered off? Do you know how to make the adjustment or not?! That’s all he was asking for…help to do something. Listen all you guys worried about draining batteries and such. Many, MANY other vehicles out there have an “always on” outlet, so much so that it’s the norm to have an outlet like that and vehicles without at least one are the odd man out. Why do yall feel the need to chip in just negative energy responses and tell OP crap he already knew regarding running his battery down. To the OP, dude if I knew for certain how to do it I would tell you. Buddy of mine has a 2018 (my Taco is 2017) and he unscrewed the cabin fuse block, on the back of the fuse block he found the relay that associates with power and installed a jumper in that slot and removed the relay permanently. He said it converts ALL outlets to always on so just keep that in mind. Hope that helped. I’ve just learned this and haven’t had a chance to try it out. Hope it works because I’m coming over to the Taco world from a Durango that had always on ports, several USB ports in the cabin, 110V and the likes. Trying to convert my Taco into having all that.

 

There are other suggestions above that are smaller, but if size is not an issue I like a jump box with USB. You can charge your devices and jump your truck if needed. You can spend more for more ports and higher amps but this one is $60.