adapterautomotivebatteriesconnectorpower supply
I've searched hobby sites like SparkFun, Digikey, BGMicro, and Jameco. I'm starting to wonder if I'm calling this item by the wrong name. What I'm looking for, exactly, is a 12V female car adapter with leads/wires or tabs I can solder.
I'm trying to make a bunch of 12V power supplies from 8xAA series connected battery holders putting out 12V and maybe 2000mAH w/Eneloops. I'd like to use these to power some car appliances I have, including some 12V, 0.25A max (3W) lights.
The left one is called Micro-MaTch™ connector, and it's a board to flat cable
or board-to-board connector. This is a two-part connector, but there are also versions where you solder the flat cable holding part directly, so that it can't be removed.
The other one is a board-to-board connector, like Jason says.
Usually you'll have a couple of them, so that the boards can't rotate relative to the other one. This is tricky, though, as the least mispositioning will cause strain on the solder connections.
Further information
Micro-MaTch Connectors Overview at TE
Every car that I have seen had center-positive cigarette lighter 'sockets'.
All (as far as I know) modern cars use negative ground systems, so the outer negative 'body' is vehicle ground and positive center is battery
You would expect this polarity to be maintained even with positive ground vehicles made by any sane manufacturer (and most insane ones as well).
AFAIR some old British Vehicles and Volkswagens had positive ground systems. No doubt there were others.
Best Answer
In 1921, the Morris U.S. Patent 1,376,154 was issued for a so-called "wireless" or "cordless" lighter. This lighter eliminated the cables and the mechanism for winding and unwinding them. The igniter was heated in the socket then removed for use.
Twelve volt automobile plugs are standardized in the United States by UL Standard 2089 regarding vehicle battery adapters. This standard covers plugs and cord sets that insert into cigarette lighter receptacles.
The sockets and mating plugs are defined in the ANSI/SAE J563 specification
Those three are listed in wikipedia. Turns out that these don't really have a fixed name past lighter receptacle/socket/assembly/etc. Anyone knows what you mean by just calling it a cigarette lighter assembly. Even the above standards don't give them a special name, but you have to purchase the standard to read the entire thing so they might have a name buried in them.
Digikey has them as "cigarette lighter assemblies" under the batteries category (doesn't make sense I know) http://www.digikey.com/catalog/en/search?filters=18648