Laptop Charging

[BargeeSpud]

Those of you living aboard on your laptop, how do you charge it up?

 

I only ask the question because when I visited the boat this weekend, my laptop ran out of power & as I've yet to install an inverter, I plugged in my laptop's car charger to continue what I was doing.

 

Clacking bell! Literally. Alarms going off, screen flashing & a warning message to find an alternative power source as the one I was trying to use was inadequate. I turned off the laptop immediately.

 

OK, I thought, batteries must be down. No, 13.5V indicated at the socket, so I checked the charger's specs to find an input of 12V +/- 3V. I then fired up the engine, plugged in the charger again & switched lappie back on. No alarms, flashing screens or error message. No problem, so what's chuffin going on?

 

My car charger is supposed to be specifically for my laptop, so I can't see why there's a problem. Once I get an inverter, I'll probably be using that for charging instead, but I'm just interested to know whather anyone else using 12V for laptop charging has experienced a similar problem.

 

Does anyone rely on a car charger for charging their laptop?

Edited February 18, 2013 by Spuds

[dor]

Could be a significant voltage drop once you plugged the charger in. Can you check the voltage at the socket while you are trying to charge?

 

ETA: Long run of thin wire or a poor connection could cause the voltage drop once you try drawing current. A voltage reading made at a point with no current drawn is fairly meaningless.

Edited February 18, 2013 by dor

[Trix]

Maplins do a great little charger for lap tops basically a small invertor 150watt that's what I use and it will even work a Dell

[BargeeSpud]

Could be a significant voltage drop once you plugged the charger in. Can you check the voltage at the socket while you are trying to charge?

 

ETA: Long run of thin wire or a poor connection could cause the voltage drop once you try drawing current. A voltage reading made at a point with no current drawn is fairly meaningless.

Great point, a simple check I should have thought of myself. Although, I did seem to be getting the 19V on the output side of the charger when plugged in to the 12V supply, but that doesn't mean anything if the laptop's initial draw exceeds that.

Edited February 18, 2013 by Spuds

[smileypete]

Great point, a simple check I should have thought of myself. Although, I did seem to be getting the 19V on the output side of the charger when plugged in to the 12V supply, but that doesn't mean anything if the laptop's initial draw exceeds that.

Is it a Dell by any chance? If it's plugged into a non Dell supply, it triggers a warning, basically to try to get you to buy their much more expensive supply.

 

cheers, Pete.

~smpt~

[arpeeuk]

Is it a Dell by any chance? If it's plugged into a non Dell supply, it triggers a warning, basically to try to get you to buy their much more expensive supply.

 

cheers, Pete.

~smpt~

 

I understand that this used to be the case with Dell machines but I've got a 12v brick that powers my Dell machine and it didn't come from Dell and it didn't cost a Dell price. It was specifically advertised to support my make and model of machine though.

 

Cheers

 

Rik

[ditchcrawler]

I understand that this used to be the case with Dell machines but I've got a 12v brick that powers my Dell machine and it didn't come from Dell and it didn't cost a Dell price. It was specifically advertised to support my make and model of machine though.

 

Cheers

 

Rik

See this thread

[Guest]

I use a Maplin 12V to 19V (adjustable) adaptor on three different laptops (Fujistsu, Toshiba, Stone) and it functions fine. I suspect, as others have said, that you are losing voltage somewhere when on load.

[BargeeSpud]

Is it a Dell by any chance? If it's plugged into a non Dell supply, it triggers a warning, basically to try to get you to buy their much more expensive supply.

 

cheers, Pete.

~smpt~

No, it's an Acer Timeline & I have what is supposed to be an Acer Timeline compatible car charger. I think, as others have already said, it's probably more of a power supply issue in that the cable run is too long or insufficent as to cause voltage drop.

 

It's not a serious problem at the moment, but by the time when I finally get round to moving on board, I'll have an inverter installed.

 

See this thread

Just checked that thread & my charger was supplied by the same company as Anji's charger. I wonder how he's got on with his?

[Alanji]

Just checked that thread & my charger was supplied by the same company as Anji's charger. I wonder how he's got on with his?

 

I presume you meant Alanji? As I have just posted on that thread - Charger has arrived and works fine in car. Couple of weeks before I can test on boat.

[BargeeSpud]

I presume you meant Alanji? As I have just posted on that thread - Charger has arrived and works fine in car. Couple of weeks before I can test on boat.

Sorry for the misspelling buddy, yes it was your charger I referred to. Be interested to know how you get on with it on your boat.

[smileypete]

No, it's an Acer Timeline & I have what is supposed to be an Acer Timeline compatible car charger. I think, as others have already said, it's probably more of a power supply issue in that the cable run is too long or insufficent as to cause voltage drop.

 

It's not a serious problem at the moment, but by the time when I finally get round to moving on board, I'll have an inverter installed.

Yeah sorry I missed the bit about it working OK when the engine was on, was rushing off to dinner!

 

cheers, Pete.

~smpt~

Edited February 19, 2013 by smileypete

[LoneWolf]

No, it's an Acer Timeline & I have what is supposed to be an Acer Timeline compatible car charger. I think, as others have already said, it's probably more of a power supply issue in that the cable run is too long or insufficent as to cause voltage drop.

 

It's not a serious problem at the moment, but by the time when I finally get round to moving on board, I'll have an inverter installed.

 

 

Just checked that thread & my charger was supplied by the same company as Anji's charger. I wonder how he's got on with his?

 

 

My acer timeline charges fine with a maplins 120w variable voltage in car charger - I only ever charge it when the engine is on or it's sunny enough for the solar to be inputting though because it does seem to suck the batteries (i only have 2) quite hard when it's charging - I would expect this though because it charges up from 10% to fullish in only 2 hours and then gives me 5-7 hours usage.

 

compare to my other laptop that charges at 16v and for the same 2 hrs charging only gives me only 2 or 3 hours runtime - i sometimes charge this with the engine off cos it doesnt seem to mug the batteries in the same way

 

 

Wouldn't using the inverter be more inefficient due to inverting 12v dc to 240v ac and the brick charger converting it back to 19v dc? Surely that would put more strain on the batteries than using the in car charger?

[SamKingfisher]

Word of warning re the maplin charger - mine has been on back order now for AGES. Still no sign of it.

[Homer 123]

I bought a 4 lead extension socket for my van cigarette lighter so I could charge laptop, iPad etc whilst driving. Just taken it back as it worked once and now doesn't. Seems I've melted the plug by overloading it! All I had on was sat nav, iPad and phone charging. One of the sockets wasn't even being used