My wife drives a 2002 Mazda MPV. Recently, her car cell phone charger kind of fell apart while it was charging. Some metal pieces of the charger were loose down in the power port. I removed them, thinking that the only problem was that we would need a new cell phone charger. However, the next day, we plugged in a car DVD player in the outlet and the only thing that happened was a little humming sound from the DVD player. At first, I thought the DVD player was broken, but I tried the rear outlet and it worked fine. Could the metal pieces of the cell phone charger have shorted out something? Any ideas? Thanks in advance.
Shorts cause open circuits,you explain when you plug your DVD into the socket in question you do get some activity,this is odd as I would expect no activity if a short had occured,does your DVD contain some kind of internal power?
Test the socket for output with a test light (be careful the center is “hot” sides are ground),if no signal present do the open fuse search,this should not be so hard to get going again.A multimeter may be the better tool to use as you will be able to see what voltage is present.
I have a multi meter. I’m assuming I should hold one probe on the hot (center) and one on the ground (side).
Correct,don’t get nervous.